Panasonic VIERA TC-P50G25 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV
Excellent Buy By TheoJM
Get the 50 inch version or bigger, it's not too large. :P Put this in THX mode and it is great. The construction is excellent, picture quality is the best I've seen on any TV, menu is very navigable, and the remote control is perfectly adequate. Viera Cast is an awesome feature of this TV. Pandora is an awesome service for those interested in music. Amazon video on demand has a large selection and video quality is high(a bit expensive though). YouTube unfortunately defaults to 360p, even if the video has 480p, 720p, or 1080p available. There is no way to manually force it to a better video mode. Netflix streams just fine, but there is no integrated search feature.
The speakers are good, but at times it is downright difficult to understand what people are saying. I found that standard definition channels look worse on this TV than on a SD television(maybe this is to be expected, but I wasn't to this extent). A few SD channels are really really bad, to the point of being almost unwatchable(tennis channel). No 3.55mm headphone connection. In addition, there is no DVI connection either(only resolution limited VGA port). Don't buy an LCD or LED because you are concerned about this burning in. Burn-in(especially past the first 100 hours) has been made mostly irrelevant with recent plasma developments. However, I did do about 72 hours of break-in slides(from avsforum) to age the pixels evenly, not sure if it was really necessary but I did it anyways.
Do NOT buy the expensive Panasonic wireless adapter. If your wireless router is too far from the TV to run a cable, buy a cheap DD-WRT compatible router and install the aforementioned firmware on it. You can then put it into client bridge mode and it essentially becomes a wireless adapter.
I installed DD-WRT standard version 13525 on a $35 ASUS WL-520GU. This worked just fine with the TV. Nevertheless, make sure when the TV arrives you have an HDMI cable/flashlight ready to verify there are no defects before signing for it. If possible, watch to make sure that when the delivery person brings it out of the van, it has not been transported facing down(if so, reject it). The delivery guy is usually in a rush, so don't be pressured into signing before you are confident you have inspected it sufficiently.
Pros:
-Great overall performance and value, no sacrifices
-Black levels and colors excellent(THX), not overbright
-Viera Cast(with future updates it has great potential)
-SD card/Thumb-drive/keyboard capable
Cons:
-SD seems to look worse on this than on a SD television
-Sound quality could have been better
-No 3.5mm audio or DVI connection
-YouTube needs improvement
| List Price: | |
| Price: | $1,049.95 |
| You Save: | $350 (25%) |
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