 Why is plasma losing the HDTV war? |
| Review Date: September 24, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Roq A. Martin, Kirbyton, KY |
| I have been a home theater enthusiast for some time now and I am the type to upgrade every few years in a desire to experience the newest and greatest tech out there. I have had experience with old school tube TV's, CRT rear projection, LCD and DLP rear and front projection, and LCD flat panel TV's. As a gamer, I had never taken the chance on plasma due to "image retention." That said, I have to say that I am SO glad I finally took the risk! After just a few days of use, I can already say that the G15 is the best TV I have ever had. I have yet to see LED, but honestly, I am not sure how picture quality can get much better than this. I haven't even done any calibrating of my own. I just use the preset Game and THX modes. If you are in the market to buy a new TV, and you are a gamer and Blu-Ray watcher, then do yourself a favor and buy a plasma. I think I have finally found a TV I could possibly keep for a lifetime, assuming it stays alive. |
Outstanding
|
| Review Date: September 29, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Timothy J. Carroll, Seattle, WA USA |
| I have never owned a flatscreen before so I was trying to get the best for my money. I never considered a plasma tv, I always thought LCD was the way to go; I understood that plasma tvs burned out quicker, used way more energy, heated up to the point where they couldn't be watched for long periods and of course I heard horror stories about image burn in. What I was delighted to find is that many plasma manufacturers have addressed these issues in their new tvs. This TV is energy star certified, which means its energy consumption is very comparable to many other LCDs of the same size (ie, almost identical to LG LH50 42"). The heat created/circulated in the tv is not an issue at all, even after watching the tv for several hours, the back of the panel is barely warm. and burn in is impossible with new orbiting pixel technology. Even more impressive is a new screen wipe technology, so that in case your tv was left on for a week solid, even then any trace of a burn in image can be completely erased. One of the best selling points of this tv is the lifespan, over 100,000 hours. thats almost double even the best LCD lifespans (60,000). As for the picture itself, let me just say you can not find a better picture than a plasma, LED can not come close. and the top of the line for all plasma TVs is panasonic. pay no attention to contrast ratio, every company has different ways of measuring that stat. Plasma is back in a big way, in a few years, the prices on these tvs are certain to go up. |
An excellent TV
|
| Review Date: October 1, 2009 |
| Reviewer: M. Haukaas, |
I did a lot of researching before buying this TV, and I have so far been very happy with the results.
The picture is amazing, of course. There is virtually no glare on the screen, which can be a problem for some plasma tvs. The blacks are incredible, and the colors have been great, even without doing any hard calibration. Setup was very easy. The sound is very good. Not sound system good of course, but you can easily get by without one. We've had some televisions in the past, including HDTV's, with absolutely horrid sound, and this comes nowhere close.
Some people say that the THX picture mode is too dark. While it is somewhat dim, it is absolutely perfect for viewing in a darkened area for movie viewing. Adjusting all of the picture modes is very easily done, however for an out of the box calibration without breaking it in, THX is a very good option.
A very minor nitpicks, hardly worth mentioning really. The remote does not have a button on it to just flip through the picture display options (standard, custom, thx, etc), but rather have to go into a menu to access them. The menu is right on top, it's not buried, but it would be more convenient if you could just flip through without having to go through that.
I have yet to experiment with the VieraCast options, so unfortunately I cannot comment on those.
Overall, an amazing tv, especially for the price. |
fabulous! perfect! (other words)
|
| Review Date: December 21, 2009 |
| Reviewer: J. Lee, Irvine |
Although I had a very bad experience with Electronics Expo shipping to get this product, the resulting Panasonic G15 Plasma tv has been a truly excellent step up from my Advent HDTV tube.
It is strange that Panasonic doesn't perform phosphor break-in and color calibration in the factory (which involves running a specific color slide-show for 120 hours and then setting it to the recommended numbers from avsforum), but the resulting color depth and CRT-level viewing angle and response has been a welcome relief from LCD.
The blacks are very black and consistent versus Samsung's dynamic contrast (although not as black as the black plastic), and is very important for truly deep contrast pictures which LCD can never achieve except by individually dimming a back-lighting LED -- a very expensive proposition. It's not about how bright the picture can get because they can all get there, but the blackness describes the true floor for the contrast range, and only CRT, plasma, and OLED can get there.
Power usage does fluctuate between 10 watts and 300 watts (depending on how many pixels are lit and how bright), but it's no more than a gaming PC and I'm still spending less on electricity than my solar-panel based friend.
There is NO image retention issues with this 12th-generation plasma screen that would be any different than a standard CRT tube. I've left a paused image on-screen for hours with no burn-in nor image retention. As a comparison, my friend's Samsung A650 plasma gets image retention in just a few minutes of ESPN2 whereas this Panasonic doesn't EVER that I can even see.
The 4 fans in this TV are mostly non-audible banking on slow RPMs with large fins. The remote is well-sized with large very accessible buttons, but totally useless with my TiVoHD and cable-card setup.
I do recommend using a pre-processing device such as a TiVoHD to upscale all video to the G15 minimally as 480p because Panasonic has HORRIBLE native SDTV up-conversion that involves some pixelation and bad deinterlacing for 480i content. It's been fine for the Wii though which only has 480i output.
Unfortunately, all this Viera services from Panasonic hasn't kept up with WiFi, so you'll have to come up with either a wired internet connection by running a cable, WiFi-to-cable base station, or Powerline internet.
The speakers are average and drop a bit of bass, but are usable as any OEM tv speakers.
All-in-all, a great value and avoids the viewing angle hassle. |
Great TV
|
| Review Date: October 16, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Bob Green, |
| This is a wonderful TV at a reasonable price compared to others that are current. It is only available in major cities at this point. great blacks and remote is easy to use. Speakers are on bottome so TV is not as wide as its predecessor. |
|
No video reviews found for this product.
