Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #85529 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Panasonic
• Model: TH-42PX70BA
• Released on: 2007-05-08

What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision Review
Proof that plasma still has a lot to offer, the ’42PX70 delivers an excellent picture at an brilliant price.

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

Fabulous - you'd be mad to buy anything else.
Had this TV for just over a week, all i can say is that it is awesome.

I considered many TV's at this size (40"-42"), you have some compelling offerings from LCD with Sony and Samsung leading the way, and plasma with Panasonic, Samsung and Pioneer if you want to spend a little more money.

The big debates were as follows :

- Standard Definition TV.
Whilst new TV's are in most cases HD ready, we all still watch standard definition unless we subscribe to Sky HD or the similar offering from Virgin. I had real concerns over whether a large screen could handle presenting this kind of picture well. All i can say is that this plasma produces great standard definitation pictures from my Sky+ box. Sky transmit better quality pictures for their main channels and lower quality for the fringe channels. BBC, ITV, Sky Sports etc delivers as good if not better pictures than my old 100Htz CRT picture. The other less know channels are not as good. My neighbour has a 40" 1080p LCD which whilst good still has some blurring on standard definition and can look grained, which i understand is inherant with most LCD screens this size. Overall the plasma standard defination picture is excellent, it is worth noting that the terrestrial channels picture is better via the sky box than the embedded digital receiver in the plasma.

- To buy 1080p or HD Ready
O.K so 1080p TV's are now readily available and mostly available at this size range via LCD offerings. I must have read every review going and could not help feel unsure whether or not i need a 1080p TV. I decided the following :

-1080p is only only going to give you value if you have or intend to own a BlueRay or HD-DVD player.
-1080p will be great for gaming via PS3.
-1080p TV's are likely to give you poorer standard definition pictures because the need to artificially fill(create) so many more pixels worth of picture.


Given i will mostly watch Standard definition pictures via Sky for quite a few years and even then i understand Sky will not transmit pictures in 1080p, the decision to get the best picture for what i watch most was my deciding factor. I believe Plasma will offer the best standard definition viewing at this size rather than LCD, i have not been disapointed.


If you buy one of these plasma's, you will not regret the rich blacks and colours, the sound to be fair could be slightly better. It is also capable of accepting native 1080p signal but downscale to fit it's resolution, so in many respects you are still future proofing for connecting 1080p devices whilst not quite getting full 1080p visuals out of the TV.

I don't think there is anything out there better for the money, at under £1k it is a steal......

Brilliant in both standard and high definition, great for gaming!
After having this TV for a good amount of time, and using it for various tasks I feel I can now truly give a fair review.

Standard TV:

With HD on the horizon it's nice to know that the big, shiny new HD TV you buy will manage SD pictures well, without breaking up or appearing too fuzzy. I can clearly say that the picture on this TV is crisp and constant. Unlike a lot of LCD TV's I've had experiences with, the picture on this Plasma hasn't broken up once. Colours are vibrant, especially through the in built freeview, and contrast is good.

High Deff TV:

I can only repeat what I said for the SD picture quality, except maybe that HD takes away rough edges, has very noticeable improved clarity and depth. The colours are even more brilliant than in SD, and I only hope HD rolls out quicker than it already is.

Built in freeview:

With smaller cheaper TV's I've got, I often found the built in freeview to be very poor, however the built in freeview on this TV is even better than the separate set top boxes I've used. The best non HD picture is to be had through this built in freeview, it's even better than the picture I get through sky.

Sound:

Sound is always going to be limited with built in speakers on TV's however the sound was better than expected and packed a punch. Home cinema sound systems would compliment this TV well.

Gaming:

Most of the HD content I've seen on this TV is mainly that from the games consoles plugged into it either via component video or HDMI. My friends Xbox360 is visually stunning through this tv, and this definitely helps to put yourself into games better.

Connections:

As you can see from the spec's, the TV has a vast amount of connections, I didn't find myself requiring any more.



Hope this review helped you make your decision, this imo is one of the best TV's on the market.

Awesome
This is a fantastic TV.

I was lucky enough to see it along side other offerings from Samsung / Sony / Toshiba (both LCD and Plasma) and it won hands down.

I spent some time messing about with the picture settings (the shipping defaults are not the best) and this was very easy to do. I'd avoid the 'Dynamic' picture mode, it's just way too garish for my liking.

Buy one now!!

And at this price you can't go wrong.