My husband and I decided to buy a new HDTV for our new apartment. After looking at our Cousin's 32" TV we felt that it might be right size for our apartment too, besides we also felt we could push the big TV purchase for later. We found the Sharp Aquous 32" LC3234U at costco for $499 and bought it. We brought it home and watched TV programs and they all looked great and later that night we watche Surf's Up and both of us felt the TV was smaller.
We decided we'll get a 37" or a 40" TV and were searching for deals. We were eyeing the 40" Samsung A550 model and a Sharp Aquos 37" model. We went to Fry's that friday night and looked at all the models they had we still liked the Samsung, Sharp and 40" Sony Bravia sets. The Sony model wasn't sleek which was a big bummer. We felt Samsung 450 looked better
than the 550 so we were unsure about buying that. We decided to look the Plasma TVs and we liked the Panasonic 42" models 42PX80U and the 42PZ80U models. The latter being the 1080p version. We were unsure if 1080p would actually make a difference at a distance of 6ft or slightly more. After walking up and down the aisles and struggling to pick between LCD vs Plasma we finally got the TH-42PZ80U model home. The reasoning behind picking this TV was that it was a 480hz tv with no motion blur or pixelation issues. Besides the these days plasma TVs come with an anti reflective coating so reflections in bright rooms isn't that big of a deal. In addition all plasmas have better contrast ratio and superior black levels than their lcd counterparts.
The Panasonic Viera TH-42PZ80U has a recommended minium viewing distance of 5.5 ft and has a resolution of 1080p. We were thankful we got the 1080p because it was fairly easy to tell the difference between a 1080p image and a 720p image. Other than that the TV has a native contrast ratio of 20,000:1 and a dynamic contrast ratio of 1000000:1 which is quite higher than most LCD Tvs at the same price range or even significantly more. The Tv doesn't have PC input but supports svideo so it's really not a big deal.
We got the TV home set it up and watched Harry potter for a while, we didn't like the movie but the picture quality was brilliant, the cinema mode was fantastic. Later on we watched Transformers and Spiderman movies and they all looked brilliant, we also played the orange box and Assasin's creed games and we noticed that the blacks pretty much appear fully black. Overall the image quality looked amazing and we thorougly enjoyed the whole experience. I was worried that the TV might be big for watching regular TV shows but I must admit that all the HD shows like House, 24 and American Idol just look fantastic. Bones in Fox looks the best and CBS looks the best compared to FOX and NBC. Even the SD shows like Friends and Frasier look very good. Seinfeld is the only show that doesn't look great.
This TV tuner is one of the fastest tuners I've seen and the menu is so user friendly compared to the menu in Samsung TVs. The remote buttons are nice, big and respond well when you use them. The picture quality of this TV has been compared to the Pioneer Kuro in some regards and that really makes my husband and I happy about having picked this TV. It's a delightful bonus to have a TV that you enjoy watching and notice that several other rever this TV.
We also tested the TV with Planet Earth HD DVDs and they just looked awesome, I'm lost for words to describe how cool it was to be able to watch such stuff at home. I should also note
that we got a good deal for this TV when its selling for $999 else where (yaaaay!!!!).
Finally, I would just like to conclude by saying that my husband and I are so delighted and so extremely happy about the Panasonic Viera TH42PZ80U.
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