Hi,
Could you manage to get the banding issue resolved on FX730D and would you recommend this model or ? Please let me know your views. Thanks
NO .. This banding is not gonna resolve... Panasonic is in refund mode. Its been 4+ months and i observed the bandings is a bit decreased or may be my eyesight is adjusted to it . Anyway those are visible whenever any uniform background scene pops up.
below is the feedback.
1. Design :Good. It has gunmetal thin bezzel .. Looks premium. couple of USB /HDMI are side mounted . its a Edge lit ; so width is on the thinner side.
2. Build Quality: Not so good. .. Edge leds are visible from Bezzel gaps.(This may vary unit to unit ). Back Cover quality you can see in the pic above. Overall Poor QC.
3.Picture :
Blacklevel: Average. Individual object Darkness/Black is good and proper. Overall Black depth throughout the screen is less. But this not something you cant live without.
Color : Awesome. It is pure Bliss. The kind of Natural color reproduction it does ; I will keep it on top of any other big brand LED TVs. I was looking for a replacement TV and went to multiple showrooms . I checked LG SM9000, SONY 8500 , 9500 ; but believed me .. back of my mind i was comparing the color-reproduction with Panasonic. After coming back to home when again i watched 730d ; it gave me a feeling that its the best . 4.**74 firmware i used to set the calibration as per FlatpanelsHD recommendation. New Firmware 4.***97 "True Cinema" is perfect and Natural OOTB.
Motion : Firmware 4.***74 had the fluidic motion. In that firmware i used to keep all the motion feature to off ( intelligent framerate, clear motion etc ) . Last month it got an update to 4.***97 ; that introduced stutter. It was so pathetic that after the update i got a headache for watching it more than 5 min. Now i made the Intelligent frame rate to "Min" ; still the Stutter are there. If i change the frame rate to "Mid/High" ; it gives a Soap Opera Effect. CLear Motion is Kept OFF. This new firmware just ruined the motion which was perfect .
HDR : It is excellent . I frequently playHD10 & HDR10+ content. HDR & SDR has different picture settings. It activates based on the content i play. Panasonic has given Autobrightness adjustment for HDR as well. That is very helpful while watching any HDR content in a dark/mildly darkroom.Otherwise HDR mode may blind your eyes with the lights emitted from the panel . In HDR mode the black level is also excellent ; ad i never feel the lack of black level in HDR.
Sharpness: This TV has top of the line IPS panel. What i observed that LG IPS panel, SAMSUNG VA, SONY VA panels creates more sharper picture. Panasonic Pictures are on the softerside ; eventually it makes the picture soothing and creates better depth of the Object. Dont know if Panasonic uses any kind extra layer behind the actual Panel to make the picture more natural . I like it .
Local Dimming : This is an EDGE lit Panel . It has Frame Dimming ; I keep it to low. if i keep the dimming to mid/high ..During Panning scenes which has bright /dark areas both ; The dark areas gets some micro flashing kind of effect.
4. Smartness: It has Linux based OS. Netflix/Prime/youtube are available. Hardly anyother apps are available. For me this 3 apps makes my day.Netflix recommened TV it is. HDR are awesome. recently i played our planet and was awstruck by the HDR depth . Best part is this TV takes 2 seconds to switch On and start playing. It can start playing from the point where you have left in the middle of a video even after a day on standby. Navigation is very Fast .It support Alexa/Google Assistant though i have not tried.
5. Sound: 20 watt speaker does its Job in my 20 * 12 " room. If you expect to have crunchy Bass; then External Speaker is mandatory. It has 2 way bluetooth; and connects immediately with the existing paired speakers & headphones.
6.Wifi : 2.4 Ghz band and Very Stable.
Verdict : If you can ignore the banding thing . This is the best TV you can get within 1 lakh budget.