Soniq's latest 50in 'HD' plasma less than $1,000

by Staff Writers on Feb 9, 2010

6 Comments

Soniq's latest 50in plasma utilises Panasonic panels, while at under $1000, there's still change left over for a Blu-Ray and speaker system.

* This post has been updated to reflect the typo that is GHz. The correct abbreviation is Hz (Hertz).

We all know that it's ridiculously cheap to manufacture in China, but we didn't know it was that cheap to pop out TVs.

It certainly helps being sold exclusively at JB Hi-Fi, but from where we're sitting, this could just be Australia's cheapest large screen plasma at 50in. But what about the technical specifications?

Cheap isn't always nasty

Soniq's 50in 'almost HD' TV features a decent 1366 x 768 display resolution. Soniq say it will do 1080i at 50/60Hz* - but that's not entirely accurate. At that resolution, it's much closer to being a 720p TV and sure enough, it's being advertised as HD, on the proviso that most people can't tell the difference between HD and Full HD, the latter which the QSP550T is clearly not.

Panasonic panels

As we discovered when we sat down with Soniq recently, what's most interesting is the inclusion of a Panasonic panel (last generation's mainstream panel). Panasonic are known to have the best plasma panels in the business, but unlike the Panasonic models at this size, which can cost in the neighbourhood of $2000+ (even with last generation panels), you'll pay just $998 for a Soniq version.

Of course, being made by Soniq and not Panasonic, the obvious question is about the quality of the tuner and the colour correction settings.

No Full HD = deal breaker?

On a TV this size, the lack of full HD might annoy some people watching Blu-Ray, but most TV viewers (depending on their sitting distance from the TV) usually can't tell a whole lot of difference either way. This graph sheds some clarity on the issue.

The further you sit back from the screen, the more apparent the image quality

According to Soniq's spec list, the chip set in the TV is the MTK 5380 (standard among the Chinese made brands) and features other buzz words including GAMMA correction, 3D comb filtering, progressive scanning and 3x HDMI ports.

Teletex might be dead and buried after Channel 7 shut down the signals last year, but don't tell Soniq - it's still listed as a compatible feature.

6 comments in this discussion

"I agree it doesn't 'flow' well."

By .:Cyb3rGlitch:.

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Comments: 6

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robaxtr Feb 10, 2010 7:20 AM	"Sonqi's 50in 'almost HD' TV features a decent 1366 x 768 display resolution. Soniq say it will do 1080i at 50/60Ghz - but that's not entirely accurate." For heavens sake get some technical people or electrical engineers on staff. The computing industry is forever chucking figures around without having a clue about what they mean. This can't have been a typo as even the most rudimentary proof reading would have picked it up. To say that the field rate of a television runs at 50/60Ghz is absurd. What's worse is that 50/60Ghz is being discussed and it is central to the argument. 1. FIRST MISTAKE: The correct international nomenclature for frequency is the Hertz, abbreviated 'Hz'. It is NOT lowercase 'hz', uppercase must always be used for the 'H'. Hz and Hertz are so named after Heinrich Hertz a famous German physicist. 1.1 RULE: if a SI unit is named after a person then the abbreviation begins with an uppercase letter in the same way it does when you write a person's name. Thus it's V for volt after Alessandro Volta; A for ampere after André-Marie Ampère; N for newton after Isaac Newton; K for kelvin after Lord Kelvin; W for watt after James Watt and so on. 1.2 Units that are not named after famous people take a lowercase letter, for example mass is kg (kilogram), time is s (second) and length is m (metre). 1.3 When compounded by a number multiplier the standard number symbol is used; kilo is k, so kilometre is then km--not Km; kilohertz is kHz and not KHz, however gigahertz is GHz as giga (10^9) is defined as uppercase G. 1.4 Download this SI table of units: http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP330/sp330.pdf, make multiple copies and hang them around the room. I would also suggest to visit the US National Institute of Standards and Technology: http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/index.html. 2. When you are talking about a quantity or rate of something then say so. Here, we a talking about the field frequency (or the repetition rate of the image or just simply the field rate), remember frequency is specified in Hertz or abbreviated as Hz. Here, Hz simply specifies the number of times the image is repeated on the screen every second. 2.1 Avoid the confusion about frequency! Hertz hasn't always been the way frequency is specified, once upon a time it had another nomenclature which was cp/s or cycles per second, thus AC power was 50cp/s. Saying cycles per second seemingly makes more sense, as it is mentally visual. However, cp/s was changed to Hertz to avoid any confusion. For example, if a wheel revolves at say 50 times per second we can say it rotates with a frequency of 50cp/s, but in a television the picture appears or is refreshed at frequency rate of 50 times per second--however it is not physically cycling (i.e. rotating as does the wheel). Using Hertz as the nomenclature overcomes this problem. 2.2 BTW, nomenclature as applied to quantities and numbers is and has always been taught in the first week of high school science. Without knowing it backwards, you cannot do science as a subject (as no one would understand you without you knowing it)! 3. SECOND MISTAKE: To talk of a field rate of 50/60GHz [not 50/60Ghz as published], is simply absurd. Unlike disk drives where 'G' and 'T' are common prefixes on drive sizes, 50/60GHz is an enormously high frequency and only state of the art/research electronics work up at those exalted frequencies. Only this week, IBM scientists demonstrated the world's fastest graphene transistor, it operates in this region between 30 and 100GHz: http://www.physorg.com/news184604483.html . The fact is nothing inside a television works at these frequencies. 3.1 As I said earlier, from the very way the term is used, '50/60Ghz' is not a typo. This indicates that the writer has no knowledge of electronics whatsoever, yet that person is writing a review on an electronic device. To be frank, this is disgraceful; it simply beggars belief. However, PC Authority is not alone. This sloppy nonsense goes on continuously in PC/computer publications but 'PC Authority' is one of the worst. The dumbing-down of technical issues in PC publications is just about out of hand; frankly it is a damn disgrace. Everything from the technical description of the way stuff works to its specifications is either omitted or abbreviated to the point of uselessness, or alternatively it is omitted from publication altogether. For example, just about every time I look for the resolution of a laptop or monitor screen I find that the screen's matrix size is omitted. Trying to find out the resolution of a PC screen is now becoming a major undertaking--you magazines don't publish it and the manufactures regularly obfuscate it. The question is why have you publishers descended to publishing crap. If a PC doesn’t come with the necessary specifications or information then either measure it or ask the manufacturer for them. If they are not provided then say so in the magazine. Tell me please, if PC Authority is in the game of publishing PC reviews and discussing technical information about computing, why then does it omit technical details and parameters of the most fundamental kind (details which are essential to know if you want to purchase the product)? It is no wonder that computing science and manufacturing are declining in Western countries and everything associated with them is moving to Asia. Ziff Davis, used to produce 'PC Tech Journal' which was an excellent magazine but dropped it--even ZD is now defunct. In one fell swoop, the whole PC industry was left without a mid-level technical journal of any kind. Between rag magazines and the professional journals of the IEEE and Computer Society there was nothing left to encourage young computer engineers. Even earlier, magazines such as Electronics Australia and Wireless World--later Electronics World were cornerstones for all those involved in the electronics industries; now all we are left with are 'rags' which have degenerated into little more than a collection of ads bound together by innocuous, inconsequential nonsense. Publications such as 'PC Authority have a duty to inform and educate a broad cross section of readers about the PC and computing industry but over the past 20 years or so they have almost completely abrogated that responsibility. No wonder our society has lost the plot when it comes to technology, except for a few 'strange' nerds, no one understands the basics anymore let alone the internal workings of an electronic device. Like a modern-day cargo cult, we enthusiastically lap up every bit of technology that comes in from 'outside', and we uncritically worship and trust the Gods that bring these magic PC goodies to us--what God Bill and God Google say is the divine word and cannot be criticised. The computer magazines have been especially reverent to the Gods; they should have been the most objective and steadfast of all of us, nonetheless they were the first to lose their objectivity several generations ago. Those early publishers of technical magazines must be turning in their graves. Comment made about the PC Authority article: Soniq's latest 50in 'HD' plasma less than $1,000? Soniq's latest 50in plasma utilises Panasonic panels, while at under $1000, there's still change left over for a Blu-Ray and speaker system. What do you think? Join the discussion.
Slatts Feb 10, 2010 8:54 PM	Damn that was good robaxtr. You've got to admire a pedant who is willing to nail his colours to the mast. Staff Writer wrote: This post has been updated to reflect the typo that is GHz. The correct abbreviation is Hz (Hertz). And it's good to see that Staff Writer is not too proud to acknowledge a bit of constructive criticism. Poor old Staff has had a few less than stella moments as I've audited his / her output over the last couple of years. My personal bugbear is Kb and KB and their apparent interchangeability in the media. I've often thought that retired English teachers could make a tidy, stress free living proof reading articles in magazines and on web sites. Looks like there could also be openings for septuagenarian electronics ginger beers as well.
Slatts Feb 10, 2010 9:31 PM	Having now read the article in full, I have a lot more sympathy for robaxtr and his view point. An English teacher or at the very least, an editor is definitely required here. Staff, did you read what you wrote before publishing it? staff writer wrote: On a TV this size, the lack of full HD might annoy some people watching Blu-Ray, but most TV viewers (depending on their sitting distance from the TV) usually can't tell a whole lot of difference either way. This graph sheds some clarity on the issue. I had to control C / control V that. I couldn't bring myself to type it. The first sentence was physically painful. I hope this sheds some light on the issue. I know it's only a language, but that's no reason to torture it.
.:Cyb3rGlitch:. Feb 11, 2010 1:12 AM	That sentence looks fine to me. It may have been better split into two separate statements, but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with how it is.
Slatts Feb 11, 2010 9:11 PM	Each to his own cyb3r. It doesn't strike me as the issue of a professional word-smith. Maybe I'm a picky bastard.:-k
.:Cyb3rGlitch:. Feb 12, 2010 12:36 AM	I agree it doesn't 'flow' well.