HP TouchSmart. Touch the future now.
- Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 48 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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34 out of 34 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"Great picture & sound"
Pros: Gorgeous picture quality, great sound, rich colors and deep blacks
Cons: Not 1080P, some greens appear excessively yellowish
Summary: Like many here I researched my first HDTV purchase a good long time. I was focusing on 1080P and LCD for the longest time and was ready to buy the Samsung LN-T4661F when two things stopped me. First of all, I am apparently one of the few people in America that thinks a nearly $2000 television should come with some decent speakers built in. Listening through the stereo is fine for some occasions, but I don't want to force myself and especially not my wife to engage the stereo every time the TV goes on. That to me would be a ridiculous and extremely frustrating limitation. Thanks to some user reviews here I learned that many flat screen TV's have very bad sound, and the LN-T4661F in particular. I thought maybe folks were exaggerating how bad it was so I got a nice guy at Datavision in NY to let me listen for myself. Despite being somewhat prepared I was stunned at how incredibly bad the sound was on that TV. Think 5 inch hand held lcd quality sound amplified. The Panasonic on the other hand has very good sound and is rich and full enough on its own for most viewing situations. Thank goodness I learned in time. CNET reviews were a big help in my decision but they completely drop the ball when it comes to sound, where the only mention of the speakers in a CNET review is how they look.
The second thing that stopped me from getting an LCD was the fact that even though I thought my mind was made up in favor of an LCD, every time I went into the store I kept being surprised at how great one TV or another looked, and that TV always turned out to be a Plasma. The deeper blacks make for a much richer viewing experience (kudos to CNET reviewers for continually pointing this out) and the plasmas look great from any position in the room. No need to have the TV pointing directly at you and no off axis loss of light intensity, shifting colors, rising black level and the like so prevalent with all but the most expensive LCD's, and always there to some degree even with those.
Finally, televised sports are critical to me and one of the main reasons to buy a big screen HDTV, and plasma's have a reputation for better performance with fast moving action. The cable in my area, or any area yet as far as I know, does not yet broadcast in 1080P, and despite being a profession HDTV cameraman myself for Japanese television, the earliest HDTV adaptors, I find it difficult to distinguish the difference in resolution between 1080i, 720p, and 1080P even with a true 1080P source. Since HD-DVD watching won't be a big part of my TV viewing experience and since it's hard to see much difference anyway, the current price premium required for 1080P isn't worth it to me. Lastly, the extremely good antiglare coating of this TV sold me, as this was my primary reason for focusing on LCD's in the first place.
All in all I'm very happy with this purchase.
Panasonic TH-50PX77U:
