Panasonic TH-50PZ77U

Summary: I was leaning heavily towards 1080p LCD tvs primarily because I felt their images were so much sharper and crisper than the comparably priced 720p plasmas. Then I stumbled across the 1080p th-50pz77u and it was even priced lower than many of the LCDs I was looking at. So I had a hard look at it and finally purchased one.

I'm only giving it a 9 rating after reading the rating guidelines but for my money, it's pretty darn close to perfect.

I've had it for a few weeks now and it's connected to a Dish network HD DVR and an upconversion DVD player and I am simply amazed at the HD quality. The SD picture quality is also very good.

Now that I've been watching it a few weeks, I finally appreciate what the CNET editors mean when they continue to reiterate the importance of the black level. I think because of the awesome black level of this set, the color depth and brilliance completely blow away those of any LCD I looked at.

There are a ton of menu options to choose from in terms of picture settings and there are several presets. After fiddling with the settings a while, I generally come back to the presets and I think they are right on target with those.

It's mounted on the wall in our basement TV room so there is not a lot of external light but I can say even with the lights on, there is no noticeable glare so I'd say the anti-glare coating is doing its job very well.

Under cons, I point out it only has 2 hdmi ports. I think for the price and quality of this tv, that is a very, very minor point - but it was really the only downside/inconvenience I've encountered. I believe the picture quality is pretty much the same when I connect with the component ports but the on board sound is a little better when going through the HDMI. That's not much of a drawback because I'm running the sound into an external receiver anyway - so bottom line is, I can still connect 4 hd devices, 2 hdmi and 2 component - and that's plenty for me.

Love this tv, extremely glad I went plasma over lcd and Panasonic has great dependability/repair ratings from consumer reports. I spent a little more than I planned on but I am now glad I did.

I highly recommend this model. Think it would be very hard to beat at any price level.