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| | Customer Reviews: | | | Average Customer Review: ( 95 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
203 of 210 found the following review helpful:
 previous RexTV employee Apr 25, 2011
By J. Roach
Disclaimer: This is all personal opinion.
There was Beta vs VHS...
There is Mac vs Windows...
And there is Plasma vs LCD/LED...
Like Beta and Mac, Plasma is the higher quality technology. Like VHS and Windows, LCD/LED is the user-friendly norm. To each his/her own.
I prefer Plasma.
PROS:
Less pixelation, faster refresh rate, less action-blur, 30 yrs life at 8 hours a day viewing, "image burn-in" almost nonexistent in newer models (would require MAJOR user-negligence, and it's a temporary effect anyway), on the average the sound quality is better/resonance, a more durable screen surface (better for people with pets who throw toys around and children who might push at the screen---ask your local dealer to knock his knuckles against a plasma screen and an LCD one, he won't knock on the LCD screen!), and unlike Macs though..."plasmas" are also the better technology BUT at the cheaper price. Life usually isn't that kind! The better product for the better price:-) Take advantage of it!
NEUTRALS:
Some might see the "higher quality but cheaper price" is a precursor to a technology that is being phased out of service (like the Beta tapes, or even Toshiba's HD-DVDs that eventually lost to Sony's Blu-Ray). That's understandable! But keep in mind, to my knowledge there are no LCD tv's beyond 65" as the technology can't support it. Those "enormo-screens" like Jerry Jones' "Everything is Bigger in Texas" boob tubes are Plasmas! Plasmas aren't going away...
CONS:
Glare. Period. It IS an issue! The only issue. Personally, I think LCDs show their fair share of washed-out, hazy-glare at various angles anyway, but they still reign supreme in high light. Being a former glass-screen, tube-tv viewer...I don't find it any worse, but the "glare is there" so to speak. Can be "mirror-like" in the very worst cases. Blinds can solve the problem and setting the tv at a height of 4' or higher in room makes most sitting-angles, couches/tablechairs fine from window light. Still, it IS an issue.
"Plasma tvs run at a hot temperature and drain more energy." That's kind of out-dated. And the energy-draw is probably like $2 more a month. (Interesting sidenote...when choosing between the Panasonic and the Samsung, noticed the Samsung plasma screen felt rather warm whereas the Panasonic felt room temp.)
CLOSING STATEMENT: Panasonic is/has been Plasma-industry leader since day 1...they've always focused on plasmas unlike Samsung, LG etc (not saying they're bad). Despite selling HDTV's a few years ago at a major chain, I just got my first HDTV a few weeks ago! Couldn't afford one until now. Always kept my eye on the Panasonic plasmas though and the Panasonic TC-P42X3 was worth the wait. I sit (using the old walking-foot count) ~12' away from my tv in an apartment living room w/ 2 larger windows. I'll take the better picture with some "glare-issues" in the morning then the lower quality picture with "little glare" issues anyday!
ANY HDtv is better than the old CRTs (even though I loved them--"pixelation"?!? Who ever heard of "pixelation"?!!!), but I must confess this is a really good tv. I debated b/w a 1080p 32" LCD and a 42" 720p Pan plasma. Wanted great picture. Was afraid I was sitting too close to a 42" at 12'. Not so. An old worker-associate steered me back in the right direction that was my gut instinct to begin with...a 42" Panasonic Viera Plasma! Alvin at hhGregg, Dayton Ohio (sorry Amazon)! His commission was a pittance but his advice priceless.
Hope this review helped...
44 of 46 found the following review helpful:
X3: tv and wifi Mar 20, 2011
By J. Duvoisin
"politeia"
I just got a new X3 for a great price, and here's my experience.
As a TV the X3 is excellent. I have it connected to a roof antenna, and the reception is excellent. It has a very good picture on hd broadcasts, and good also on sd broadcasts. The sound is good for a TV. The remote is a good size and easy to use. I could wish for a dedicated sleep-timer button, I suppose, but it's still a well-designed remote. Given that the current price on the 42" X3 is comparable to a non-network TV, just for these virtues this set represents a great buy.
If you want a wifi connection, you'll need a usb network adapter and there are apparently only two choices--the panasonic model DY-WL10 (~$90) or the cheaper Netgear WNDA3100 v2. There is some confusion about the Netgear, since it has to be the v2 and the serial number has to start with 2D4 or 20A (actually, it's really hard to tell the difference between these two sequences when the print is that small--maybe they're actually the same). These are sometimes identified on the package as being compatible with panasonic TVs. There is no particular reason to think the panasonic adapter is better than the netgear. I got both accidentally: the panasonic adapter can be easier to find, but I also found a used netgear on amazon without much difficulty for ~$20.
But my experience trying to get a wifi connection has been frustrating, mainly because of a problem with my dsl modem/router. The setup procedure is simple and straightforward. But I had difficulties and worked through the procedure with a cs rep on the phone with no success. I am glad to report that the cs rep was patient and helpful, even though he couldn't solve my problem.
Subsequently it became clear that my old modem/router was causing the trouble. It used the older "G" wifi protocol, but it was also prone to dropping the internet connection. So I needed to replace it in any event. Anyway, I got the latest "N" protocol modem/router compatible with my ISP. As soon as I set it up, the tv recognised the router's wifi signal with either the netgear or the panasonic wireless usb adapter. The reception of streaming videos is flawless--excellent picture and sound quality.
Another option not quite as elegant as the tiny usb adapter is to configure a second wifi router to serve as a bridge. That would give you an ethernet connection you can place next to the TV, and as a bonus extend the range of your wifi throughout your house. There are lots of guides for how to do this online.
Anyway, the result of all of this is that I've changed my rating to 5 stars for a truly excellent tv. Second, I'm returning the panasonic wireless adapter. The netgear works perfectly for less than a quarter of the price.
I couldn't be happier with this tv now. But I would recommend making sure your router uses the "N" protocol. I'm not certain that this matters, but I haven't had any problems since I switched my router.
Updated 3/26/2011
47 of 50 found the following review helpful:
Beautiful Apr 08, 2011
By Jake B.
I ordered this from Amazon for $694 and I got $10 off with a coupon I had plus the shipping was free and they brought it right up into my apartment so all I had to do was install it. The install is very simple just screw it into the stand, plug in all the wires and then there is an automated setup process so you just pick your options along the way.
The stand feels very secure, it's a big black platform about 2'x1.5' with steal rods that go up inside the TV and screw in, there are 3 screws in each rod that connect it to the platform and 2 in each that connect it to the TV. I was able to do all that by myself but just barely and I'm a pretty big guy so considering the size and weight of the TV it should be at least a 2 man job.
If you get the version with the built in Ethernet adapter you can connect to your Netflix, Pandora, Napster and a number of other sites to watch or listen to whatever you want.
Then of course the inputs, 2 HDMI, an SD Card reader, 1xRCA and 1xRCAHD, of course read the specs carefully because there are different versions of this same TV (i.e. one version with an Ethernet adapter and 1 without and there might be one that is also 3D ready but it might be more expensive then the one I'm reviewing)
The color and picture are beautiful, I play a lot of video games so picture quality was important to me, if you're a gamer this TV is for you. I play halo on Xbox 360 and one of my biggest issues was ghosting (when you look around too quickly and everything blurs) with this TV that issue is almost completely taken care of, there is still some blur but it's extremely mild.
As for the picture quality being 720p...well there a lot of people who will say a lot of stuff when it comes to the differences between 720p, 1080p, 720i and 1080i and I can only speak from experience but I do have a 23" computer monitor that is 1080p and I tried to play the same things on there that I did on the TV (and I have a very good computer with a high end graphics card) and yes I know it isn't a perfect test but it's the best I could do and from what I could tell there was very little difference. So in my opinion for the size, quality and price it's a very good deal.
The only real problem with it that I've noticed so far is that if you get too close things look...grainy almost like you can see black spots everywhere on it however if you are even 1ft away you can't see them at all and considering it's 50" I hope you're sitting at least 1ft away lol.
19 of 19 found the following review helpful:
WOW!! What a difference!! Apr 05, 2011
By Jason Bliss
"Mazuko"
I was able to get my hands on this TV for $499.99 at best buy last week and let me tell you I am more than impressed.
I will first mention that I upgraded from a 32" RCA CRT TV to this so my differences are much larger than most who upgrade from an older LCD/Plasma TV.
The picture quality is amazing, very clear, crisp, and bright. It has several "display" options that change the brightness and contrast with the push of a button that helps to keep you from having to adjust them yourself regularly and depending on what equipment you hook up to the TV.
I will not go into detail about all of the features this TV has but I will mention that I REFUSE to pay $100 for a wireless adapter for a TV so I purchased the netgear WNDA3100v2 and it worked perfectly out of the box. The TV detected it right away (make sure you plug this into USB1 NOT USB2), and once I put in my network key I was able to connect to everything listed.
As for DLNA, I noticed a reviewer gave this TV 1 star because they could not connect to DLNA. On this note the easiest way to set this up it to add your entire library to windows media player as that is how the TV streams your files to itself. Once I set up my library this way I was able to steam ALL of my Music, Movies, and Photo's to my TV with no issues at all. In fact it works so well, and supports so many different formats that I will now be selling off my WD TV Live Plus as this TV does everything that it does.
The screen definitely reflects everything that has light shining but that is a downfall of all Plasma TV's. However the picture quality is great and the sound is actually better than that of my old TV. Sure surround sound would be better but our TV is less than 6' away from the couch so the speakers on this TV are more than adequate and they actually sound pretty good once you configure them to your liking via the easy to use menu system.
For those of you that are upset with the limit of composite and rca inputs I would recommend purchasing a switch and there is no issues (these can be had for around $10 on ebay). Thusly I have the following connected to this TV:
Microsoft Xbox 360 via component
standard dvd player, Nintendo Wii, wd tv live, VHS player, and a Zune 120GB all via RCA + switch
Verizon FiOS Set Top Box via coax
Blue-Ray DVD player via HDMI
Sony Playstation 3 via HDMI
(For FiOS you still need to use Verizon's remote as there is no point getting rid of the remote that comes with this TV, there is just so many buttons NOT supported on the FiOS remote that you need to keep the one that comes with the TV, so I use Verizon's remote for my channel surfing and the Panasonic remote for everything else.)
Everything looks great and it is very easy to switch between inputs by pressing, you guessed it, the input button. This TV supports 5 inputs with said button, if you use the switch just switch it to RCA and you can than use the selector switch on your unit to select the others.
All in all a very good TV, with good sound, and good picture quality. At $500 you can't go wrong and this TV is a perfect fit for me.
The only major draw back once you get the wireless set up and configure your DLNA correctly, is the screen glare, and that can be easily fixed by closing the blinds. The minor glare you get is common to any glass surface and is ultimately negligible.
I highly recommend this TV!!
14 of 14 found the following review helpful:
Great TV, value, performance, image ! love it. Apr 17, 2011
By Roberto
I got this TV on April 16 2011, I was quite surprised the TV was built on February 2011 and went for sale on March 2011, first time I have a NEW NEW NEW TV, I was not expecting that, but well I guess I got lucky.
I Got this TV because we required another TV for the bedroom and I wanted to move the 32 inch samsung to the living room to use the Kinect a bit more, and also the 32 inch TV was a bit washed out cause it was SO OLD.
So far, I have tried a lot of things with this TV but not every feature, so here it goes a small review, I guess I'll update it later.
This is my first Plasma and Panasonic TV.
Image Quality.
This was my biggest concern, I was tired of watching faded blacks on my old LCD tv, this has crisp colors and AWESOME blacks, no movement artifacts and the picture is AMAZING, I have a samsung SAMOLED retina display on my Android SGS phone so I'm used to see sharp images and really this one is VERY Sharp, I'm amazed at the image quality for a 600$ tv.
I have this plugged to my PC, and I use my windows 7 PC as a HTPC so I connected it over HDMI, after playing a bit with it I got the image to work good with an old NVIDIA 8500gt card I have. so really it's good, the display of pictures is AWESOME as well.
I saw some HD TV and it looks great overall GREAT image.
BTW you select like HDMI1 or HDMI2 then you go to advanced audio settings and you select the audio of HDMI 1 is from video in, and voila you get the audio and video signal all together, I liked that.
Sound.
I'm not really that much into sound lately, it sounds good, it's not extraordinary by any means but if you want great sound you can always get a home theater audio system, but the tv works good as a TV sound system, it has 2 speakers but it can emulate surround so it works good.
Remote.
The remote is a bit clumsy, I mean everything is there, but it does not feel natural and it is a bit too squared for my taste, the numbers are big and that's a plus, however one thing I DO NOT LIKE is the fact that it does not have a remote control light, I know it's weird but sometimes I like to see the remote control light, if it starts getting, dim, then I can say, hey battery change time, but this one has no light so when it fails in the long run I won't be able to know if I'm actually pressing a button or not and that feedback is needed, besides that and the fact that I have missed the up button with the viera link button several times, the remote is good.
OSD.
The On Screen Display for the menus, for adjusting and whatnot could be more intuitive if you are on, lets say, settings you should just be able to press the right button and go to the sub menu, now you have to press ok ( like enter ) then navigate into the submenu, and when you want to go back you have to press a "return" button, instead of just pressing the left button to go to the menu when you are on the submenu, I know this is not a big issue for most people or even for me but it can be annoying, however it's ok you do not spend most of your time on the menus (thankfully)
TV base
The Base of the TV feels heavy and the pillars are made like with aluminum, 1/2 inch aluminum pillars where you mount the TV, it feels very very sturdy and well built, I was afraid that it would come with a Bad base, as most of the tv's this day an age, but it was good to see some metal base taking care of my tv, even if it's aluminium it's not a cheap plastic, Kudos on that. :D
Internet
ok I like wires, so I have not tested the wireless internet, nor I have the wireless dongle ( but it seems that Panasonic is giving some for free right now so I have to check it out ), ok anyhow over the internet it recognized my DHCP server instantly got an IP and voila it was online, in a few seconds, I really liked that :D.
Internet Applications.
I have not tested all internet apps but I have used Netflix and Facebook, I really LOVE the fact that you can have several Facebook accounts on the TV, so my wife and I can check Facebook real quick I like it. Netflix, kinda takes long to load your Instant Queue, but well I have like 100 movies in my queue so it might be just me ^_^ , HD TV on Netflix looked quite good, we saw a movie and it was great, one point I did not like at all, is that it has no option to set the Netflix subtitles, really, that's a big fail, and I hope it gets fixed soon, Netflix will have subtitles for 80% of it's content, very soon and really a TV as new as this should have subtitles enabled.. or a way to enable them ( maybe I have not find, it ), And about the other internet apps, I have not tested them.
One thing I will test soooon is to see if it can turn off the screen playing audio so you can only use it like a big stereo system I hope it does that.
Power Management.
It is Epa compatible but I have not found anywhere how much energy it uses so I would like to know that, I find the power management controls a bit stiff, it only has: Turn, off after 10 minutes of no signal and turn off after 3 hours of no activity, I want to costumize that.. I want to super save :S , but still maybe I have not found where to change that, but so far I only have those 2 options :S
DNLA
I just plugged it, selected DNLA, placed my phone on Allshare and voila, I could see all my pictures, music and video from my phone on my TV, GREAT, it also saw my main DNLA server of my main PC and the one of the HTPC, I failed playing some MP4 content, but it saw the Mp3s, avis, and JPG fine, so really it worked good. sine I already had a working DNLA setup, it just came and recognized it all.
USB playback
I have NOT tested this. ( I have to )
TV reception:
No idea I have my cable connected to my HTPC, but I'm gonna get a signal splitter to see how it detects the QAM channels :D
Pet peeve
This is not a problem of the TV but it's something that all plasma TVs have, the surface is so glossy it's like a mirror and it is a bit distracting from time to time, just reduce the light and it goes away but, I don't particularly like it.
Overall I really like this TV for the price is an excellent choice, 600$ or less and get netflix ( a roku is like 100$ ) DNLA support, facebook, crisp images, no artifacts, good sound, I had no idea it could be this good for so little money ! AWESOME
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