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Panasonic Plasma TV Review

Model: Panasonic TH-42PX50U Plasma Television
Description: 42-inch HDTV Plasma Display, Widescreen 16:9 Format
Resolution: 1024 x 768 (HDTV)
Includes: Remote, Built in non-detachable bottom mounted speakers, NTSC and ATSC (HDTV) tuner, silver Table top plasma TV stand
Color: Silver bottom mounted speakers, black picture frame

Reviewer: Charles La Rosa with Robert Wiley
Date: Semptember 2005

Copyright © 2005,2006,2007 PlasmaTVBuyingGuide.com. All Rights Reserved.

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Introduction

The Pansonic TH-42PX50U is Panasonic's latest high-definition plasma television. The display features a sleek black alloy frame surrounding the screen's glass and a strip of silver speakers mounted along the bottom. The design is a strong upgrade from the all silver EDTV plasma Panasonic TH-42PD50U. The black frame helps the eye perceive stronger contrast than the silver frame, and the aesthetics are more appealing in a sleek, modern upgrade. The design is simple and elegant and goes well in any room.

The Panasonic TH-42PX50U displays a true-to-life picture that you'll enjoy for hours on end

Picture Quality: 97/100

Rosy cheeks abound when the TH-42PX50U is first turned on. At the default vivid picture setting contrast (which Panasonic labels picture) is overcooked, as is sharpness. Toning down the contrast to 10, the sharpness to -5, and the brightness to +5 and leaving tint and color at +0 results in a cinema-like, natural picture. Leaving color temperature at normal while applying the above setting changes maintains color accuracy very close to D6500K (the optimum color temp setting). This plasma television, like every plasma display on the market, can artificially "enhance" an image with unnaturally vivid color and crispness. These enhancements actually decrease viewing quality. So it’s important to tone down sharpness and contrast settings post purchase. Once these small adjustments are made, you will have a world-class picture with this plasma TV. Unlike most plasma televisions, The Panasonic TH-42PX50U can display a true-to-life picture that you'll be able to enjoy for hours on end without eyestrain or a headache. Black levels are astounding at CRT levels on this plasma display.

Watching The Fast and the Furious from our DVD player at 480p with component inputs we enjoyed a crisp, clear picture. Tooling with the picture settings in the Other Adjust submenu, which includes noise reducers for signal interference and MPEG compression, wasn't necessary to obtain an excellent picture. The fast driving of Dominitc Toretto (Vin Diesel) posed no challenge to the Panasonic TH-42PX50U plasma television. Fast action scenes in the dead of night and the desert sun played with equal clarity.

Plasma displays may render excellent dark scenes and sometimes display great bright scenes, but the true test of their precision is their ability to display bright objects against a dark background without causing a halo-like glowing effect around the bright object (called false contouring). This is very important when you want to watch a widescreen movie with lots of bright scenes and do not want to be reminded about the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Nothing ruins a letterbox like a cloud of white bleeding into what should be a strip of black. The Panasonic TH-42PX50U, in addition to reproducing excellent bright and dark scenes, has no problems when it comes to displaying bright images over a black background. Black levels for this new generation of Panasonic plasma TVs are still the best in the market without doubt. Other companies have improved contrast ratio by ever increasing the brightness. But it’s the great black levels that complement and enrich color and picture quality so on the Panasonic PX50U series that really proves omnipotent with picture quality. The smooth transition in dark shades of gray confirms the Panasonic 50PXU series touted 2,056 shades of gray.

The built-in ASTC tuner pulls in digital broadcasts and displays them in all their glory on the 1024x768 screen. While watching an HDTV documentary on ancient cities we were able to see incredible details in the texture of the dirt and stone in excavated ruins. Many of our local networks broadcast both analog and digital signals and we were able to appreciate the nuances and subtle detail in skin tones and complexion maintained in the digital signal, which was completely absent in the analog broadcast.

The TV supports three aspect ratio adjustments for 4:3 sources: zoom, full, and just. Just enlarges a 4:3 source to fill the television screen and applies aspect correction to the center of the image. Distortion isn't bothersome at this setting. Depending on the programming the distortion from the just zoom is less distracting than the white bars used to frame 4:3 images on the 16:9 screen. Also the just setting won't cause screen burn like the frame will, so it's the preferred setting for watching regular 4:3 TV. Zoom, enlarges letter-boxed images to full screen without distortion and full provides a horizontal stretch. 1080i or 720p sources cannot be zoomed or stretched. Since some digital broadcast stations put black bars around 4:3 sources and broadcast them at 1080i and 720p you'll have no option but to watch DTV content on the internal tuner with black bars on the vertical edges.

Other Considerations: 90/100

Just like a casually dressed billionaire who's got nothing to prove, the Panasonic TH-42PX50U knows it has class and doesn't try to dress up with every feature in the television universe. The result is a simple, uncluttered interface and elegant remote control. The features most important to enjoying television and movies, a quality tuner and good speakers, are all top-notch. The features irrelevant to watching TV, such as digital-camera card readers and computer inputs, are absent. Panasonic even left off the often touted, but seldom used picture-in-picture option on this plasma television.

The Panasonic plasma features a simple, uncluttered interface and elegant remote control

The 16 watts of power driving the bottom-mounted speakers was adequate for a plasma display this size. I was impressed by the quality of the output - the separation of channels and range from highs to bass were much better than I anticipated.  Since a 42-inch display can fill a large space a little more oomph might have been in order, but for most installations the built-in speakers will easily meet your needs. Sound quality did not distort when we maximized volume. Cranking up the bass will make for fuller sound and turning up the treble slightly will make for crisper sound. There are normalizers that can limit volume difference when changing channels or inputs. The electronics and florescent bulb are inaudible at any reasonable viewing distance.

The built-in tuner's auto-programming feature burns through its analog channel search then progresses through a digital channel search at a more leisurely pace. After the channel search is complete the menu lets you setup your favorite and primary station lists and change station-ID information. This is a useful step for removing analog channels from your primary channel list when duplicate digital channels for the same station are broadcast.

The built-in tuner excels at graceful degradation of image quality when a broadcast signal drops out. Graceful degradation is a design approach that means a weakened transfer signal won't result in total loss of picture -- digital video engineers have been trying to perfect it for at least a decade since digital video was first transmitted over the Internet. A tuner that gracefully degrades, like that found in the Panasonic TH-42PX50U will allow a viewer to continue to see a picture when a small amount of interference in over-the-air transmission arises. A tuner that doesn't gracefully degrade will suffer total dropout if the signal weakens.

The Panasonic TH-42PX50U Plasma TVs adept handling of weak broadcast signals won't be a major concern to people with satellite or cable. For the latter viewers, the built-in CableCARD slot will be a welcome feature of this plasma TV.

The TH-42PX50U includes two sets of component inputs, two sets of composite inputs, an HDMI jack, and coaxial jack. There are no side, top, or bottom mount inputs to easily connect a camcorder or video game system. There are analog and digital sound output ports. This input selection is more than adequate for today’s needs.

While you can connect six sources to this TV, you can only watch one at a time; there is no picture-in-picture support.

Panasonic's menu system is clear and concise. Its two-color icons are easily readable and look much cleaner than the multi-colored icons used by earlier Panasonic Viera plasma TVs.

The plasma television, which sits 31 inches tall on its included stand is heavy at 76 lbs. and does not come pre-attached to the stand. The stand requires a little assembly and two people are necessary to place the TV onto the stand. The TH-42PX50U is approximately 42 inches wide, and the body of the TV is 4 inches deep. The base of the stand measures 13 inches deep. Power consumption is listed at 399 watts maximum, but will be substantially less if the contrast (picture) adjustment is decreased to the recommended -5 to +5 range — this will also prolong the display's phosphor life.

Value: 97/100

You can't go wrong with an HDTV plasma TV from Panasonic in the value category and the TH 42PX50U is no exception. With excellent contrast, black levels, color fidelity, and enormous aesthetic appeal, consumers who want one of the best 42-inch HDTV plasma displays out there should give the TH-42PX50U a serious look. Average price on these units has fallen to around $2700. It is the most competitively priced 1^st tier brand HD 42” plasma TV in the market. HDTV buyers are usually looking for picture quality — not gimmicks. Panasonic knows this and its elegant TH-42PX50U delivers all around.

Overall Score (picture double weighted): 95.25/100

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