Hi Everyone,
I'd recently purchased this plasma television and thought I could write a review and ownership experience.
I had built my home theater over three years, from the year 2008. I'd purchased a 22" LCD TV in the year 2009 as I was on a shoe-string budged but badly needed a display, as I was planning on having a dedicated room for the home theater.
Right now, I started feeling a craving need for a larger display which eventually ended up in the purchase of this plasma television.
There were several choices from Samsung, Sony, LG, Sharp and Panasonic.
LG was out of the question owing to several reports and personal experience of poor after sales support. Because I had finalized on a Plasma display, Panasonic was the next obvious choice.
Thought most of my colleagues/friends pushed me for the LED display, I refrained from it primarily because of the higher costs and because its still a new technology. Plasma is highly recommended in many reviews but with a drawback of shorter life as compared to LCD/LED. However, this would not be applicable for me as this would be just dedicated to the home theater.
The next question was on how many inched and I wanted to buy the largest possible and therefore settled for 50 Inches.
Finally, there was a choice of whether to go for the HD or Full-HD. Though purchasing Full HD would give you some future proofing, I decided to stick to HD as not many content are available in 1080p. Furthermore, I could also save some costs in opting for HD. One point to note when going for HD Plasma/LCD/LED is that the circuitry should be able to handle to 1080p while the panel may handle 1024x768 or 1366x768. This way, you may still connect a 1080p source and let the display to the scaling/conversion.
Please note there are some models with the internal circuit that takes in a signal upto only 1024x768 or 1280x720 - stay away from these!
Furthermore, the savings obtained by opting for a Plasma HD display was used to buy a Blu-ray player and a rack! So have a satisfaction the funds were used well.
So... Finally, the choice was the Panasonic Viera TH-P50X20D!
Usage experience:
The 50 inch display is definetely an eye candy, especially when playing HD and full hd content or atleast anything that is around 720p and above. However, if you try to view something that is below 720p, you may be in for some disappointment as scaling to such a large size wont give you a real sharp picture (when compared to HD or full-HD content ).
The picture reproduction is excellent and there is no jagging/jitter during fast motion, unless the original content is of a poor quality.
I also realized that you do require a large room for low resolution content and a viewing distance of atleast 10 feet.
Nevertheless, I'm having a wonderful experience! The colors are vibrant, black levels are as good as a CRT, and brightness is also adequate. This Plasma display does come with a SD card slot for viewing images. This is irrelevant to me as I'd purchased a Sony Blu-ray player BDP-370 (review to be given later).
I also liked the build quality.
The integrated audio did not appeal to me much apart from the fact that its a stereo audio system.
Finally, Panasonic does give 3 Year warranty!
More details on this plasma display is available at: VIERA TH-P50X20D | X Series | Digital AV | Panasonic India
The final verdict: The Panasonic Viera TH-P50X20D is an excellent display for both HD/Full-HD/non-HD content with a host of new features. However, my personal suggestion for anybody is to go for not more than 32 inches if the viewing distance is below 10 feet! This is a golden piece of advice I've got to share.
I'd recently purchased this plasma television and thought I could write a review and ownership experience.
I had built my home theater over three years, from the year 2008. I'd purchased a 22" LCD TV in the year 2009 as I was on a shoe-string budged but badly needed a display, as I was planning on having a dedicated room for the home theater.
Right now, I started feeling a craving need for a larger display which eventually ended up in the purchase of this plasma television.
There were several choices from Samsung, Sony, LG, Sharp and Panasonic.
LG was out of the question owing to several reports and personal experience of poor after sales support. Because I had finalized on a Plasma display, Panasonic was the next obvious choice.
Thought most of my colleagues/friends pushed me for the LED display, I refrained from it primarily because of the higher costs and because its still a new technology. Plasma is highly recommended in many reviews but with a drawback of shorter life as compared to LCD/LED. However, this would not be applicable for me as this would be just dedicated to the home theater.
The next question was on how many inched and I wanted to buy the largest possible and therefore settled for 50 Inches.
Finally, there was a choice of whether to go for the HD or Full-HD. Though purchasing Full HD would give you some future proofing, I decided to stick to HD as not many content are available in 1080p. Furthermore, I could also save some costs in opting for HD. One point to note when going for HD Plasma/LCD/LED is that the circuitry should be able to handle to 1080p while the panel may handle 1024x768 or 1366x768. This way, you may still connect a 1080p source and let the display to the scaling/conversion.
Please note there are some models with the internal circuit that takes in a signal upto only 1024x768 or 1280x720 - stay away from these!
Furthermore, the savings obtained by opting for a Plasma HD display was used to buy a Blu-ray player and a rack! So have a satisfaction the funds were used well.
So... Finally, the choice was the Panasonic Viera TH-P50X20D!
Usage experience:
The 50 inch display is definetely an eye candy, especially when playing HD and full hd content or atleast anything that is around 720p and above. However, if you try to view something that is below 720p, you may be in for some disappointment as scaling to such a large size wont give you a real sharp picture (when compared to HD or full-HD content
).The picture reproduction is excellent and there is no jagging/jitter during fast motion, unless the original content is of a poor quality.
I also realized that you do require a large room for low resolution content and a viewing distance of atleast 10 feet.
Nevertheless, I'm having a wonderful experience! The colors are vibrant, black levels are as good as a CRT, and brightness is also adequate. This Plasma display does come with a SD card slot for viewing images. This is irrelevant to me as I'd purchased a Sony Blu-ray player BDP-370 (review to be given later).
I also liked the build quality.
The integrated audio did not appeal to me much apart from the fact that its a stereo audio system.
Finally, Panasonic does give 3 Year warranty!
More details on this plasma display is available at: VIERA TH-P50X20D | X Series | Digital AV | Panasonic India
The final verdict: The Panasonic Viera TH-P50X20D is an excellent display for both HD/Full-HD/non-HD content with a host of new features. However, my personal suggestion for anybody is to go for not more than 32 inches if the viewing distance is below 10 feet! This is a golden piece of advice I've got to share.
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