Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Plasma TV
Comment: I decided to move my older plamsa to another room and upgrade to this 1080p set-up. Very pleased with the product, free shipping and ease of the installation. Another review suggested running the TV in "Just" mode for the first 100 hours to get the picture warmed up and decided to do so. The HDMI and SD card slots on the front of the set are great.
Picture is stunning - 5 Star Deal!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Comment: At 42 inches, this TV is right in that range for people who are deciding between Plasma and LCD and having owned both technologies, I would consider this TV better overall, but not for everybody. The pz80u has deeper blacks than any LCD in this price range and is able to get just as bright and white. Looking at the TV on the showroom floor, the picture may look somewhat dim but thats because the standard settings set the brightness and "picture" settings very low. Colors are beautiful, well saturated and pop more than most LCDs. Black levels are very good and unless you are viewing content in a completely dark room, there is not much more you could ask from this TV, and even then it performs very well and better than any LCD. SD content is scaled very well and looks very good although it is slightly fuzzy in some instances due to the fact that there is considerably less information to show from a 480i or 480p signal.
All of the lighting in my room is behind the TV (two windows and a lamp) so I have had no issues with glare or reflections. If you do however have a room with lots of external lights which can't be moved, you may be able to see reflections on the screen in dark scenes as the screen is relatively shiny.
I use my pz80u mostly for gaming and am yet to notice even the slightest bit of image retention or "burn-in" even after several long sessions of Call of Duty and Gears of War. I would still not recommend leaving a still image on the screen for any extended length of time, but even brand new, gaming is not a serious risk of image retention. Also for those interested, Guitar Hero played on this TV very well requiring only a 4ms lag calibration (which is basically nothing).
For anyone considering the pz80u and the pz85u, I would recommend the 80u. Although the 85 does have a higher contrast ratio, if you compare the two sets side by side, there is little or no noticeable difference and for a $200 price bump, you are really only getting a VGA input which does not even support a 1920x1080 resolution. If you plan on connecting a computer to this monitor (and be careful of leaving an image on the screen too long if you are) I recommend using a DVI to HDMI cable to get a full 1920x1080 resolution. I have done this and it looks beautiful and the image is crisp and clear.
This is definitely a great TV with a bright and beautiful picture and I would recommend it to anybody who has a room without lots of lights as that is the only advantage any LCD has over plasma. For the price, the pz80u is probably one of the best deals out there right now.
Customer Rating:
Summary: great tv so far
Comment: This is my fourth HDTV that I kept since they came out ( I have returned more than you would believe) so I've had a chance to evaluate a few sets and I know what is and is not acceptable. I have hdtv in most of my house now and have utilized technologies which are better for different applications and locations. The quest for a 40-42 inch den tv began last year in the summer. I bought a top brand 42" lcd from a local retailer. The tv did not perform as it was susposed to- it had terrible vertical and horizontal banding. I took it back and got another tv of another brand which was worse. After a few rounds of this nonsense and arguing with the store manager who was not nice at all I got my money back and decided to wait a while. I simply could not understand why I got multiple bum sets in a row and was very nervous about buying any tv again. We are talking serious mura defects (uneven brightness caused from unequal dispersion of the liquid crystal or uneven pressure when pressing glass layers together during manufacturing) and one even would only make green snow on the screen. These tv's were either abused in transit or should have gone to the trash heap and never left the factory. I only wanted a decent tv.
A friend recently told me plasma HDTV was much better now than in the past. I had previously stayed away from plasma because of the short lifespan and the horror stories about image burn in. I researched and he was very right. This tv is rated for 100,000 hrs they say 8 hrs a day for 30 years right on the box and burn in is not much of a problem anymore on this brand of plasma as long as you use common sense and allow a reasonable break in period at moderate settings- and don't be stupid and pause a game for hours and leave it on the tv screen. I honestly don't expect to use it 30 years before getting whatever is newer at the time but if it lasts me 10- 15 years I would be thrilled.
So I went to a different local store and bought one of these after looking at everything they had. Everything about this tv is better than lcd. The viewing angles are very good on this. The picture quality is not often matched- especially in this price range. The specs on this tv are almost too good to be true, especially at this price point.
I play ps3 on this and have no problems. If burn in was such a risk you could not game do you really think they would give the tv a game mode?
I found I had to tweak the factory settings quite a bit to get the ideal picture out of this, I know how so if you don't get a pro or a guide of some type.
I would highly reccomend this tv to anyone else who is very picky about their electronics. I took back many tv's to the store and sold a couple to friends before I found this wonderful tv. BB told me to go shop somewhere else since I brought back one too many I guess last year. I'm glad I did listen to them. This tv was the real deal on the first try. Consistent picture from corner to corner. And it just works like it is susposed to.
Lcd is ok if you play nothing but games or have a super bright room. However if you watch movies some nights, game others, watch broadcasts on others, or just want the best all around picture this plasma is it. The picture really is very good. All colors,even blacks just are so real. Never will I look at tv the same way I used to. Now that I have stepped up to this level I simply must stay here. I thought lcd had a good picture in the past now I find them inferior.
As long as it continues to work as good as it does now I will be very happy. At least I can just sit back and enjoy finally!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: volume control
Comment: volume control on external speakers is fixed.. chat help with tech rep was no help. volume only controls unit's volume not external receiver and speakers. audio w/fiber optic installed correct. have to use another remote to control volume which is a pain....
Customer Rating:
Summary: Stunning HDTV, great value, low power consumption
Comment: We bought this as an upgrade from a Sharp Aquos 32" LCD HDTV --- an excellent television, but a bit too small for our new, larger living space. I first looked at 46" and 50" sets, but they use a lot more power, and after looking at units in the store decided the 42" was quite large enough (70% more viewing area than our old TV). For environmental reasons we wanted low power consumption --- usually plasmas lose out there, but Panasonic comes through --- only 170 watts, as measured by an independent test, which is less even than some of the similar-sized LCD TVs tested by that same outfit!
The picture is stunning --- though our old Aquos looks great, this Panasonic blows it away in terms of contrast, black levels, and overall picture quality. Properly adjusted, the DirecTV HD channels look fantastic --- much better than they do on the Sharp or most other TVs I have seen. (DirecTV tends to compress its HD channels quite a bit --- yet on this Panasonic, after adjusting it, the image looks very clean and cinematic.)
Blu-Ray discs are unbelievable --- Planet Earth on this set is tremendous. Another thing I really like about the set is it passes through Dolby 5.1 sound from the HDMI connector to the optical digital out --- which I then pass into my Logitech Z-5500 THX speakers (an inexpensive way to get surprisingly good home theater sound) --- the Sharp didn't pass through the signal from our PS3 Blu-Ray player.
As others have noted burn-in and ghosting are mostly non-issues with the new plasma sets --- some basic precautions will prevent any problems, and this Panasonic set comes with some display "reset" patterns to cure any burn-in issues you might face.
The number of connections is extremely handy --- with 3 HDMI connectors I have enough for my DirecTV box, my PS3, and a front connector for the occasional times when I hook up my MacBook Pro via a DVI-HDMI cable.
There's not much to say about the built-in speakers --- serviceable but not great --- but who uses the built-in speakers on their HDTV? I certainly don't...
The picture out of the box definitely needs adjustment for optimal results --- I set the black levels to dark, turned up the Picture (contrast) and brightness, lowered the color and sharpness, in Standard mode. Fiddle with it a bit and you can get a stunning picture.
This set is cheaper than most LCD sets of the same size, and the picture quality is better. Definitely recommended.
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