Panasonic TH-42PHW6

I bought the Panasonic TH-42PHW6 Plasma Television on Ebay for £2,700. This included a wall bracket, freeview box, side speakers and a Pioneer DVD. It is certainly the best screen at that price. To equal it, you need to spend about £4K on the Poineer 43".

I was extremely lucky to have picked up this Panasonic TH-42PHW6 relatively cheap having already ordered a Panasonic 86cm Widescreen CRT High Def TV. I was in 2 minds and the dealer made me an offer on this Plasma Screen TV that I couldn't refuse.

Thank God he did...Man what a picture.

Let me first explain the bad points above. Yes the 1024x768 display is not true native High Def (1080x1920 I think) but the quality you do get is absolutely great and what display on the market is that resolution natively?

4 inputs...let's see.

Input 1 HD TV = High Quality inputs for this one so RGB, Component or Scart.

Input 2 DVD = High Quality required again Scart, RGB or Component.

Input 2 Cable/Satellite TV = High Quality if you can get high quality transmission so again Scart, RGB or Component. Composite or S-Video if you must.

Input 4 PC = PC or something that uses the 15 pin PC connector.

OK so a DVD recorder could be added but the quality of them compared to a dedicated DVD is questionable as a player. The X-Box would use S-Video since the HD pack doesn't work on PAL anyway (so Microsoft says). Ideally it would have one more S-Video (and composite) input to be switched via an external receiver for such devices. Personally with only low quality Sat and Cable TV available to me this won't matter.

I'd configure it as follows:

1 HDTV, Component/RGB

2 DVD, Component/RGB

3 S-Video, From receiver for Sat TV and X-Box

4 PC

All this gives me no room to move in the future without getting an amp that can switch component video or RGB (we don't really use scart in Oz) which is less than ideal hence a black mark is awarded.

Terrible manual....Yup, a AU$11000 retail price and a manual that could have come out of Panasonic's $250 15" CRT TV. More info, specs and explanation on how and why required please. Perhaps even some recommended settings for things such as the screen saver would be favourable.

Monitor only. In these days where Digital HD TV is becoming more prolific why is the only TV with a built in digital tuner a standard and not high definition unit?? This one doesn't have one at all (digital or analogue) which is less pretentious I guess. I would have preferred to have paid less and not had the provision of adding a stereo pair of speakers. The amplifier and sound inputs etc are already built in but a waste of money since this unit is wasted without a full high quality surround sound system.

Gets hot and uses power....As I said, this is an inherent drawback to plasma technology. The cooling fan is only barely noticable with all sound off so not at all intrusive to viewing. I run it in a relatively hot climate and it doesn't seem to get too hot. The screen emits a fair heat due to infra red emission, again, a product of the technology. Plasma screens use a lot of power, in my view they are the best quality so basically live with it, similar to the saying "you have to burn fuel to go fast" in relation to performance cars.

Forget LCD (for those that don't know) for flat screens, the contrast ratios and movement flow with a good source is absolutely stunning with any plasma, this one excels in my view. The Matrix Reloaded's scene with hundreds of Agents attacking one little Neo in the courtyard flows so smoothly and yet is so clear not once did anything get even remotely confusing or blurred (LCD owners, do not try this at home). Blacker blacks (it's emittive, not transmittive meaning black = off, not a very dark filter) brilliant colours and not one little bit of colour bleed anywhere to be seen. The colours are brighter than bright brilliant and your experience of watching a movie is immersive. It's almost like being part of the movie.

I gave this 8/10 for value (perhaps a little harsh) because I don't like paying for things I won't use such as the sound components which are lost on this unit and I think it should already come with all 3 slots filled having 2 component/RGB and 1 S-Video/composite (for OZ). I also believe it's still in the luxury electronics category and hence has a certain "self indulgant"(?!) value attached to the retail pricetag. I couldn't justify the full retail price hence I'd decided on the CRT (or at a stretch the TH-42PA20). This came along for a song so I extended my budget.

Overall rating is based on image quality since this is why I bought it!!

If you can afford it (or find it cheap) buy it! Beware, the TH-42PW6 (and the TH-42PA20) is lower res and hence exactly the native NTSC DVD output of 480P. While this is good for DVD watchers as it doesn't need to upscale from 480p to 768p (therefore spits out exactly what you give it) it will be much (AU$3000) cheaper and lower spec than the PHW6. I'm not sure if this would apply to PAL as PAL is 576i (or p if you have a progressive DVD player) but I have read reviews that for DVD the low def is slightly better than the high def panel.