Panasonic TH-42PX80A

Staff writers | Sep 1, 2008 2:14 PM

Panasonic | http://www.panasonic.com.au

RRP: $1899 (time of review)

Pros Quality image with TV and DVD. Looks great with HD, too

Cons Not Full HD, but that isn’t everything, particularly at this price

Overall Rating:

User Rating: No user ratings.

Terrific value and a high-quality set – it’s not Full HD, but at this price, you won’t miss it

Note: This review is based on the TH-42PX70, which Panasonic tells us is a close overseas equivalent of the TH-42PX80A in Australia. Both TVs have the same resolution of 1024 x 768, and analogue and digital TV tuners.

Before we introduce the TH-42PX70, we’d like to clear a few things up. Plasma is not inferior to LCD. Plasma TVs don’t need to be re-gassed after a few years. And Full HD sets aren’t automatically better than HD-Ready models.

This is because there are several factors that affect picture quality – resolution, yes, but black levels, contrast, colour accuracy, motion smoothness and digital noise can all have as much impact on your enjoyment of a TV, particularly when you’re watching standard-def.

With all that in mind, consider Panasonic’s brilliant TH-42PX70. It’s not the best plasma TV ever made (that’s a Pioneer) or the sharpest (that’s any Panasonic or Pioneer with Full HD), but it’s good value.

The Panasonic gives you an excellent digital TV tuner, able to decipher even the noisiest, blockiest TV channel and present a viewable, natural picture.

It also shines with DVD, producing a film-like image with considerable contrast and insight into low-light scenes: it’s so much more watchable, especially with the lights down, than many same-priced LCD rivals.

Impressive 1080p scaling
Of course, where those LCD rivals score is in their higher pixel count, but their advantages aren’t as clear-cut as you might think. Most sets in the Panasonic’s class are 1366x768 designs, with only a few mustering the top-spec 1920x1080 Full HD resolution.

And besides, the TH-42PX70 readily accepts 1080p images (in fact, Panasonic makes much of the quality of the set’s scaling), and will also handle 24fps video without fuss.

Feed it a Blu-ray signal, and you’ll be thrilled at the results: motion is smooth, black levels excellent, and the picture wonderfully three-dimensional. Granted, as you can read elsewhere, Panasonic’s sibling set, the Full HD TH-42PX70, is better still, being sharper and more defined, but then it costs more. Whether you think that premium worth paying is up to you, and your credit card limit.