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Review: Panasonic Viera TC-P46S1 HDTV
Plasma once dominated in the 46-inch flat-screen category because LCD panels that size were far more expensive. That’s changed; the differences aren’t as large as they once were, but Panasonic continues to compete with plasma sets such as the 1080p Viera TC-P46S1. This HDTV is well-designed, but our test results suggest that plasma has also lost its traditional edge over LCD for image quality, especially for cinematic content.
In our lab tests, the TC-P46S1 received average scores for brightness (and judges remarked on how well it looked viewed from the side), but it was dragged down by subpar ratings for color, sharpness and detail, and overall image quality. Judges noted a greenish cast to skin tones and also complained about oversaturation in its display of a still image as well as shimmering in buildings and moire patterns on a suit. The set also struggled with our motion tests; we found this surprising, given that plasma technology shouldn’t suffer from problems with panning and fast motion as LCD panels do (LCDs need to step up to 120Hz or 240Hz refresh rates to minimize such issues).
Panasonic Viera TC-P46S1
The set’s design is fairly typical, with a shiny black bezel that’s on the wide side (a couple of inches). Panasonic is a bit skimpy on inputs, with only three HDMI ports (two in the back, one on the side) and no support for connecting a computer. All inputs are easily accessible and well labeled, however.
Review: Vizio SV421XVT HDTV
Vizio’s SV421XVT has a 42-inch screen, a 240Hz refresh rate, and multimedia playback from USB drives. But poorly rendered detail and color, plus problems with digital artifacts, mar the viewing experience.
Vizio SV421XVT
Judges in lab’s image quality tests found that the SV421XVT rendered an acceptable image, but also that it had a hard time displaying fine detail and color often looked inaccurate. Depending on the clip we were watching, we found the image occasionally flat, brownish, too dark, or too orange. I also noticed a lack of detail in black clothing in a nighttime fancy-dress party scene from Chapter 11 of the Blu-ray release of The Dark Knight (a scene that three other people felt was too dark). Another judge noted that the grass in a 1080i football clip looked flat and lacked definition.
But the biggest problems came from digital artifacts—those jumping and scrambled pixels that occur when an HDTV has trouble decoding a signal. Pixelated halos surrounded running players in the 720p baseball and 1080i football clips, and a strange line of garbled distortion ran along the bottom of the screen in the baseball clip (we didn’t notice this distortion in any other clips, even the other 720p one, oddly enough). A face looked pixelated in one scene from the Phantom of the Opera DVD, and another had the blotchy, unnatural texture of an oil painting in another scene from that same disc—quite likely problems with the DVD upscaling. In our Blu-ray tests, we noticed slight moiré patterns in a brick wall in Chapter 7 of Mission: Impossible 3, and in a coat’s weave in Chapter 9 of The Dark Knight.
Review: Sony Bravia KDL-40W5100 HTDV
Sony’s Bravia KDL-40W5100 produces a very good picture—one of the best we’ve seen. This 40-inch HDTV also provides the most complete collection of Internet-based entertainment features we’ve encountered in a television. Its selection of DLNA and USB options is among the best (and the most unusual) around. The audio output disappoints, however, and the Bravia KDL-40W5100 has overscan problems.
This TV performed exceptionally well in our lab’s image-quality tests. No matter what we threw at it (an upconverted DVD, a baseball game at 720p, The Dark Knight’s cityscapes in all of their Imax-to-Blu-ray glory) the Bravia KDL-40W5100 gave us great picture quality.
Sony Bravia KDL-40W5100
We had a few complaints, of course. I found a scene from the Phantom of the Opera DVD (in Chapter 12) a bit contrasty, with inadequate gradation between light and dark objects. We noticed some digital artifacts, making some images appear less crisp on screen. Colors occasionally seemed dull compared with the hues of some other sets we tested. One judge praised the set for its colors, which managed to be deep and fully saturated without being garish.
Review: Panasonic Viera TH-50PZ850U HDTV
Panasonic’s 50-inch Viera TH-50PZ850U HDTV is a pretty good value, especially in view of its generous array of extra features. Not only can it display your pictures and run your videos off its SD card slot, but you can plug it into an ethernet connection and enjoy Internet video. This set also does an adequate though not extraordinary job displaying movies and TV shows.
Panasonic TH-50PZ850U
This HDTV gets the Internet connectivity right. Once you’ve plugged it into your home network, you can access online content delivered via Panasonic’s Viera Cast service, including YouTube, weather reports, Picasa, and Bloomberg. YouTube videos display in a somewhat small window rather than at full screen, which is fine: A YouTube video blown up to 50 inches is not a pretty sight. The TH-50PZ850U also has an SD card slot. It can show you a slideshow of your JPEG photos, or play your videos if they’re in AVCHD or MPEG-2 format.
Panasonic TH-50PZ850U rear ports.
Review: Insignia NS-LCD52HD-09 HDTV
Insignia NS-LCD52HD-09 has an attractive price for a 52-inch HDTV. And though its image quality isn’t great, it’s not horrible, either. The NS-LCD52HD-09 has only middling sound quality, too, but again it’s about what you would expect for the comparatively low price.
Insignia NS-LCD52HD-09
Setup for this HDTV is more difficult than it should be. The first time you turn this TV on, you won’t see a first-time setup menu. Instead you have to figure out the setup yourself—and since it never asks you where you’ll be using the TV, you’re likely to leave it configured at its default, which is designed to look good in a store, not in your living room. The main menu is tiny, hard to read, and annoyingly situated right in the middle of the screen. It offers no on-screen explanations for its various options.
The NS-LCD52HD-09's rear ports.
Review: Toshiba 47ZV650U HDTV
Toshiba’s 47ZV650U is a pleasant-looking 47-inch HDTV that delivers a more than acceptable viewing experience, but its rough edges need smoothing, and it’s short on extras.
In our lab tests, the 47ZV650U put up slightly above average scores in picture quality. Color saturation is a weak point for the 47ZV650U. One judge complained that a scene in the Phantom of the Opera DVD looked murky. Another noted that a scene from The Dark Knight Blu-ray Disc looked hazy, and complained about the “washed out” skin tones. Like some of our other judges, I found the images dull, flat, and uninteresting—the result of a slight lack of color saturation. But I liked how it handled 720p content, giving it high marks in the clips at that resolution.
Toshiba 47ZV650U
The 47ZV650U did moderately well in four out of five benchmark tests. Instead of actual movie and television content, the benchmarks use specially designed moving and still images intended to catch certain problems common in HDTVs. But this Toshiba HDTV performed miserably in the diagonal panning test, vibrating the image violently where it should have been moving smoothly. While you’re not likely to see such extreme shaking when viewing normal content (the test was designed to push a TV’s limits), it does suggest that occasional moving camera shots could be problematic.
Review: Vizio VO420E HDTV
Vizio's VO42E is one of the least expensive 42-inch LCD HDTV sets that Vizio offers. It's also one of the lowest priced on the market, which might explain why it performed below average in our juried image quality tests. While delivering many impressive user customization options, this HDTV clearly targets users on a tight budget who aren't too fussy about image and audio quality.
Vizio VO42E
Judges in our lab's juried tests gave the VO42E poor marks for everything from brightness and contrast ("detail loss in shadows") and color (described by many as oversaturated) to sharpness ("details smudged") and artifacts. These results probably reflect, at least in part, the absence of advanced technologies, starting with the VO42E's low 60Hz refresh rate ). Also missing are the smooth motion and the 3D comb filter (a technology that reduces artifacts in TV images) found in the other HDTVs.
the VO42E's rear ports.
Review: Samsung LN46B750 HDTV
Samsung’s 46-inch LN46B750 packages very good picture quality, excellent sound, YouTube viewing, Yahoo Widgets, and the ability to play media files from USB storage, all in one HDTV. And it does all that while being remarkably easy-to-use.
This HDTV earned an overall score of Very Good in our labs’ image-quality tests. The LN46B750 is a 240Hz LCD, and that fast refresh helped it excel in the Labs’ motion tests. This LN46B750 also earned high marks in several tests intended to determine how well a TV can handle vertical, horizontal, and diagonal motion. It’s an excellent choice for action movies or sports.
Samsung LN46B750
The LN46B750 also scored particularly well in our brightness and contrast tests, but there were some problems. Our judges complained about certain scenes looking dull, others appearing too bright, and still others seeming “a bit too yellow.”
Review: JVC LT-46J300 HDTV
JVC LT-46J300
The LT-46J300 performed poorly in our labs’ suite of HDTV tests. It failed the two HD HQV tests entirely: It let straight lines become jagged under certain conditions, and it had difficultly distinguishing moving and stationary objects. This may account for some of the lack of detail we noticed. It did only slightly better on tests that show how an HDTV handles horizontal and diagonal pans.
On the other hand, the LT-46J300’s sound is about as good as a television can get. The sound at 80 percent volume (full blast was too loud for my physical comfort) was loud and free of distortion. The dynamic range was wide enough to give a sudden transition from dialog to a loud organ blast the emotional punch it needed. And the simulated surround was so good that it almost fooled me a couple of times. Of course, no TV can to do justice to today’s 5.1 movie sound tracks; those require a good receiver, a large subwoofer, and at least five satellite speakers properly placed.
The LT-46J300's rear ports.
Review: Insignia NS-L42X-10A HDTV
Insignia NS-L42X-10A
In our lab’s jury tests to evaluate image quality, judges complained about everything from poor contrast (evidenced by the loss of detail in dark areas) and poor colors (described as muddy, dull, and/or blotchy) to artifacts and shimmering in content ranging from grass in an HD football clip to buildings and brick walls in movie scenes on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. The NS-L42X-10A completely failed tests for video resolution and the ability to smoothly render moving bars (both from the HQV test suite). Also, in spite of the panel’s 120Hz refresh rate, the set performed miserably in our motion tests.
Design-wise, the NS-L42X-10A is unremarkable, with a shiny, standard-issue black bezel and a lit-up logo you can dim or turn off completely through a menu setting. Inputs are easily accessible and plentiful, with three HDMI inputs in the back and two on the side. A standard headphone jack (also on the side, along with a second set of AV inputs) is a nice extra many more-expensive sets lack.
The NS-L42X-10A's rear ports.
