Panasonic Viera TH-37PX80B review

Average user rating

8.5

excellent

Average user rating from 2 users

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Panasonic Viera TH-37PX80B user reviews

September 24, 2008

Posted by: Late8

"Hotter than a heatwave"

What I like:

Best SD Picture on a flat TV I have ever seen.

What I don't like:

Being a Plasms and having a glass screen viewing in bright daylight rooms suffers

Review:

This TV has got to be the best flat panel I have seen today- with only exception to the Pioneer Kuro Plasmas. LCD's of all shapes and sizes cannot match the Panasonic on overall picture performance- especially SD material.
I'm very picky about picture and sound etc when choosing a TV and for the past 5 years or so I have been disappointed with the latest offerings of the HD revolution. My first TV of the HD age was a Samsung LCD- Although top of the range and highly rated at the time, the picture was very disappointing.
I always (and still do) find that LCD TV produce a unnatural and pixelated picture- particularly on SD material from Freeview or Sky etc. In a dark room the black parts of a picture were not black but a dark blue, and for the majority of the time Blacks were crushed and shadow detail lost- this is still seen on LCDs today and is the nature of the technology along with motion blur.
The Panasonic plasma is very different. When first switching it on it was clear that the Standard Definition picture material processing was superior to and LCD and colours and contrast was very natural. Its worth noting that a lot of TV today is still Standard Definition, this TV copes extremely well with SD material blown up onto a large flat screen. Black levels were .. well Black! And the image was very cinematic and professional looking. Performance on HD was out of this world!- the pros of plasma technology- ie black levels, contrast and colour handling etc made HD even better to watch.
I have quite honestly never seen such a natural picture on a flat panel TV in this price range- the only TV I have seen that’s better and performs as well is the Pioneer Kuro Plasma TV’s at nearly 3 times the cost!
Sound performance was better than expected, clear speech and a good bass response (particularly for a flat TV) was noticeable- but with a TV like this you must go for a separate sound system to make the home cinema experience even better.
The inbuilt freeview picture quality is better than other TV’s I have tried, but I’m currently using a Humax PVR Freeview box attached via RGB scart and its image just beats the inbuilt one in terms of sharpness. I’m also impressed with the amount of connections too and the SD card slot at the front makes it great for quickly showing your Digital Camera photos on the big screen. The images from a camera take a few seconds to load but there sharpness and detail is fantastic.
Oh no.. The Bad:
There are one or two downfalls to the Plasma tech its worth baring in mind however. The first is the screen itself. Because it’s a plasma it has a glass screen- I found that during the daytime or a very brightly lit room the image brightness suffers slightly due to the reflective nature of the screen. An anti reflective coating is on the outer side of the glass but it seems to be from the gauze and pixel panel behind- it can cause the image to look duller and slightly grey if showing a dark scene. – I have seen it a few times but its very slight.
The second is something called Image retention. Basically if you leave a static image on the screen for a long period of time a ghost image can be seen when watching normal TV- this can be cause by on screen logos etc but soon goes after 1-2min of viewing and is barely noticeable.
Another thing to bare in mind that a lot of review seem to miss is that motion blur still does occur on a plasma. Its mainly phosphor lag and is very very slight. Motion response on fast scrolling text or quick panning shots goes slightly blurry and suffers some slight judder. BUT don’t be put off- you will never find a LCD that comes close to this TV or any other Plasma for motion response.
Overall I recommend this TV if you want a natural high quality image across the board for HD and SD material. At the price you simply cant beat it on picture performance.