Panasonic TH-42PWD8UK Television

Great TV

By King Gorman  May 1, 2006 | 16 out of 16 found this Panasonic TH-42PWD8UK review helpful

Pros: Excellent picture Quality, Beautiful looking simplistic black frame that makes the picture look bigger by not distracting you from it by adding speakers on the side or any other addons, does not float blacks nearly as much as other plasmas, incredible value at under $1400.

Cons: Not a true HD set, does not come with stand.

When I decided to buy an HD TV I researched it long and hard. I mean, months of research on every single source of data on every single brand out there, including some Chinese ones that many of you might not ever had heard of. My biggest dilemma w...as first, whether to get an LCD or a plasma...once I decided on plasma, I had to pick a size. 42 inches came to be the perfect size, from what I read...unless you have a 51 inch or bigger set, you cannot get a true HD picture because the pixels just aren't there...since I was not willing to go bigger than 42, why pay big money for a screen that says it is HD when it just isn't? The logical choice was an EDTV.. When I decided to get an EDTV, I had an easy decision...Panasonic is by far the highest reviewed EDTV on the market...by every single source on the net, both pro and actual consumer. The only problem I had now was to choose between the expensive consumer model, or the cheap industrial model. The comsumer model comes with a stand and a tuner and speakers...but it has a cheap looking silvery frame that detracts from the beautiful picture produced by the screen, not to mention that the speakers don't have very good sound quality...anyone with a tv of this size is also going to shell out the bucks for a surround system too right? So who needs to pay extra for speakers and a cheap looking frame? As far as the tuner is concerned...I'd need an HD ready cable box to receive the channels, so don't need that either. The logical choice was to go with the industrial model tv. Since I had a stand in mind I wanted to buy, I did not need the ugly table top stand that the consumer model came with either... To this day, even my friends with true HDTVs think I have the sweetest tv. The best channels on it are CBSHD, YESHD, HBOHD (all 1080i), and then ESPNHD (720i). One word of advice, don't try to upconvert channels in 480i, they tend to look quite awful if you do. Just set it to flow through, so that all channels are viewed in their native resolution...what a beautiful screen...maron! Read more Less