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Panasonic TC-P50S1 Review
The new Panasonic TC-P50S1 Plasma TV
One main reason why people go for LCD HDTVs today is because they use less electricity compared to their plasma counterparts. But with the Panasonic TC-P50S1 from the Viera S1 Series, Panasonic aims to reduce the electricity consumed by plasma HDTVs to about the same as LCD HDTVs.
Design
The design of the Panasonic TC-P50S1 is similar to past models of Panasonic except that the corners and edges are more rounded. Its screen is surrounded by a black glossy frame that is only interrupted by the Vierra and Panasonic logos, an indicator light and the power button. But these hardly distract you from appreciating its simple and elegant design. The speakers are cleverly hidden, adding to the TC-P50S1’s appeal.
The remote control that comes with the TC-P50S1 is not illuminated like other brands, but its buttons have unique shapes that allow you to easily tell the difference between each button without having to glance at them. The system menu is pretty much the same as the previous models with some minor adjustments, but still retains its simplicity, making it very easy to find and toggle between various options.
Screen/Picture Clarity
The Panasonic TC-P50S1 produces some of the deepest blacks you’ll find among plasma HDTVs. One downside, though, is the not too accurate colors which, unfortunately, cannot be adjusted too well with the system menu. Despite this drawback, the picture quality of the TC-P50S1 is still very good compared to other models.
Another feature which boosts the picture quality of the TC-P50S1 is the Full-Time 1080 TV Lines Moving Picture Resolution. When dealing with fast moving pictures, some HDTVs reduce the number of lines it displays to help cope with the pace. The downside to this is that the picture becomes blurry during fast moving scenes, but with the Full-Time 1080 TV Lines Moving Picture Resolution, the Panasonic TC-P50S1 is able to display the full 1080 lines during fast moving scenes, giving you crisper pictures throughout the whole show.
Features
The main feature of the Panasonic TC-P50S1 is the reduced power consumption. Compared to other plasma TVs, the TC-P50S1 uses much less electricity, which means more savings on your electric bill. It also comes with three HDMI connections and several other popular connections like s-video, standard AV inputs and even an SD card slot which you can use to showcase your photos straight from you digital camera. It does not come with a VGA or PC input connection, though, so you may need a converter or a computer with HDMI output to connect your computer.
The Vierra Link is another feature of the TC-P50S1, which is Panasonic’s way of integrating all your HDMI capable devices so that you do not have to go through the trouble of turning on each device and setting up each one. With the Vierra Link, all you need to do is push one button and your HDTV, Blu-Ray player and high definition speakers all turn on and are ready for use. All you have to do is pop in your favorite movie and get some popcorn.
Despite the less than accurate colors and lack of PC input, the TC-P50S1 is still a very good choice for a plasma HDTV. Its low power consumption, great picture quality and full 1080 lines during fast moving scenes are enough to make this plasma HDTV worth considering. These features, combined with the option to control your high definition home theater with just a touch of a button, definitely make the Panasonic TC-P50S1 a worthy competitor in HDTVs.
<< Click HERE to Read The Latest Panasonic TC-P50S1 User Reviews >>
The value you get for the price of this tv is second to none. I just recently put this tv in my house replacing an old rear projection tv and i am amazed at its color accuracy. I did find my self making a few tweeks from the factory settings but once you get it to where you like the picture you’ll fall in love. Sports and movies shine on this set. I preferred the plasma over the lcd because the movement on the tv was much more natural than the 120hz lcd displays. I sell T.V.s at sears and after being around both for a while I find the plasma image much easier and natural to look at. I chose Panasonic because they seem to have mastered the plasma technology and even a Samsung rep told me that he preferred Panasonic’s plasma to Samsungs plasma. I will admit to liking some of the new Sony’s coming out and the new LED tv is really cool but you cant touch those televisions at this price point. I kind of wish I had waited for the G10 seeing as it came in at such a close price difference but I cant complain I love this tv and it is a few hundred dollars cheaper. I should also note that the anti-glare filter works really well I wouldn’t be worried about glare issues. If anyone got through this review my advice to you is to buy this or the step up G10.
This tv is great! I have been researching tvs for over a year to find the right one. I read all of the professional reviews (cnet) and this is the tv that I decided on. I was on a budget, I am a college student who does a lot of gaming and blu-ray watching. I am extremely picky about picture quality and this tv delivers an amazing picture! This blows nearly all LCD tv’s out of the water. I was not going to get a plasma to begin with because of the supposed “image retention” which I have yet to notice. I am extremely glad that I got a Panasonic Plasma. The blacks are so deep, it almost looks as though the tv is off when the screen is black. The deep blacks make the colors pop! I have watched a number of blu-rays and played a couple of hours of games and I am in love already. I highly recommend this tv to everyone. It is an extremely good deal. Any LCD for this size would be much more expensive and have a much lower picture quality. Also for those of you deciding between the G10 and this tv I would recommend this one. I went to the local Best Buy and compared the two next to each other and I could not notice any difference between the two. Save yourself some money. Good luck deciding on your next tv I hope this review helped.
This TV offers incredible value at a little above $1000. The picture is great in HD or from my DVD. The sound quality is good enough for me. The only features that the manufacture deliberately takes away to separate this from high priced model and I missed is PIP (Picture in Picture) and a DVI port for computers. The former is more or less a firmware issue and for the latter, you can pick up a DVI-HDMI adapters for less than $10. The picture of SD TV is however, no as good as the DLP (Optoma RD-50) it replaced. Otherwise I would give it a 5 star. Also be aware of that the TV does not come with any cables, but I bought it through butterflyphoto who, for their credit, throw in a nice set of cables (two HDMI, one component, and one optical audio) with the TV.
I have had the TV for a month now and I am very happy with my selection. The picture quality is excellent and the viewing angle allows good picture quality for at least 45 degrees on each side. The sound quality is not the best but adequate. I have added a seperate Sony speaker system which has improved this area. The unit was shipped quickly and was very easy to set up. Overall weight makes it easy to move the TV for adjustments or additions of other components. Three HDMI hookups seems to be adequate. Currently I have added a blueray DVD unit and it works very well with the TV. I would purchase this unit again over many others I have seen.
Great value and very nice TV. This is a wonderful 50″ Plasma with top picture quality and much improved over previous model in electricity use.
Got it from amazon with free on time delivery in September, 2009. Set it up in less than 20 minutes and plug it with HDMI cable to the HD Cable box. The picture was just amazing. Highly recommended! Thanks……. Amazon.com
This television is everything I’d hoped for and more. Picture is fantastic and it is not even broken in yet. I did much research before buying and the reviews on any Panasionic television I checked were positive. Great company, great TV, great shipping, great price, great web site.
UPDATE: I was able to convince Panasonic to come out a take a look at the dead pixel for themselves. In this case, once they came out, they agreed to accept to a return of my panel because of the prominence of the dead pixel in the prime viewing area. So, I’ve updated this review from 1 stars to 5 starts as this television really does offer the best bang for the buck in my opinion.
ORIGINAL REVIEW: I purchased this TV at Sears, and got a phenomenal deal (at least compared to my brother who bought a nice 2008 model 8 months prior for about $500 more). Unfortunately, after I purchased the television and brought it home, I didn’t have a chance to watch it much the first month I owned it (and Sears has a 30 day return policy). After several hours of viewing, however, I noticed a prominent green pixel in the “Sweet Spot” of the television. Now, it seems that this nefarious dead pixel is all I can focus on while watching this television. While watching football we even call the green pixel the 12th defender, or the 3rd tight end on occasion, as it seems to figure prominently on many plays on both sides of the ball.
Now, I am no expert on dead pixels, but I’ve started to research it a bit more, and I do think that manufacturers are doing customers a disservice by attempting to utilize ISO tolerances as an excuse not to fix something they market as a premium product. My complaint to Panasonic’s Plasma Concierge service had fallen on deaf ears, but tenacity paid off as noted in the update above.
I got this as a replacement TV for my unrepairable 50″ Samsung DLP from Best Buy back in July. The picture quality is awesome. The sound is okay, their is no volume leveling to tone down commercials which is very annoying, and my Samsung had that. There are only 3 color choices( warm, cool, and neutral), but that is a minor thing. The TV cost me nothing other than a warranty( which I had on my Samsung)although I wish now though I would have spent $ 100 and got the 54″ as we moved furniture around and are sitting 20 feet away.I have a Panasonic Blu-Ray and Toshiba HD-DVD (yes I was one of those, but I use this as my regular DVD player now) hooked up and the picture is incredible. Hopefully one day I will go to the 54″ or 58″ and move this TV to another room or sell it. I highly recommend this TV over LCD as Plasma is a great viewing experience.
I received my Panasonic TC-P50S1 Plasma television about 2 weeks ago and absolutely love it. I own a 42 Panasonic Plasma that is wall mounted above my fireplace in the family room and wanted a larger set for my basement. I prefer the richer more realistic picture that plasma televisions offer over the LCD picture. I am truly amazed by the picture and even the sound quality of the set. However I have connected it to my Harman Kardon/Infinity Home Theather system and it is truly a pleasure to watch and listen to sports and movies. I would recommend this set for it’s picture quality and great value.
This TV is an unbelievable value in a flat panel TV. We use it in our bedroom and it is wall-mounted about 19 feet from the headboard of our bed. The picture is amazing using cable-box high definition signals via HDMI. We use this TV mostly for watching the news and catching school cancellations, in addition to channel surfing in the evening, so it is overkill for that purpose. I have an older upscaling DVD-player connected to it through component cables and the picture is amazing. Sound quality is more than adequate for a bedroom TV. BTW: this TV replaced a 6-year old Samsung DLP that died (the repair cost actually exceeded the purchase price of this TV!). So, it was an unexpected purchase for us. I could not justify the jump in price to go to LCD, and I really could not tell much of a difference. This plasma TV is a HUGE improvement over the old Samsung DLP - no fan noise (no noise whatsoever, actually), it can be viewed almost from the side (great for casual viewing while doing other things), and the picture has zero motion artifacts (due to the 600 Hz subfield drive). I also have a new Samsung 67″ DLP/LED TV and the picture in my opinion is identical to this plasma - perfect. Most of the much more expensive LCDs I looked at side-by-side had motion artifacts - but none on this plasma TV (nor my DLP/LED either). There is minimal glare on the screen, but our bedroom windows face north so not much direct sunlight (the screen, however, is like a satin finish, so not bad at all, and nothing a slight tilt on the wall bracket won’t take care of). I am so delighted with this plasma TV and for just under a grand is was a real steal. Perfect for my purposes and I can’t imagine it not serving most purposes for main home theater, gaming, whatever - I highly recommend this TV as the best deal out there for under a grand (local box store). Buy it, mount it on the wall with a Sanus tilt mount if you can, and you will be just thrilled.
I have had this beautiful 50 inch TV for two weeks now. Not a problem LOVE the picture quality. From my Direct TV to my PS3 this baby is beautiful. It has transformed my TV watching. Love Football and Basketball games in HD and loved Starteck movie on the Bluray. Not bad remote, good adjustments, sound ok. A plus to have the SD card reader. Maybe could have a couple of more HDMI ports but three is ok.
All in all a great TV for the price. Great job panasonic.
I use this TV mostly for video games and movies and the picture is incredible. The sound is pretty decent for a flat panel as well. I have never seen any image retention, there is no buzzing, and it doesn’t get very hot. All in all, I love this TV. At this price range and higher, especially with high LCD prices, there is nothing that compares other than the less reliable Samsung Plasma (buzzing, image retention, bad customer service, etc.)You will not be disappointed with this purchase!
I was skeptical overall about buying a plasma TV versus a LCD TV because all I ever heard from people was 120hz this and 240hz that and yes while those tv’s look great the Panasonic TC-P50S1 performs just as good if not better.The first thing you notice is the Anti-glare screen is amazing!Coming from a 1080 projection TV,I am used to closing all of the blinds in the living room during the daytime in order to watch TV because of the glare.Those days are gone!The vampires have moved out and let there be light.The TV performs like a champ in highly lit rooms with virtually no glare.As for the 1080p performance of this TV,its stunning!I have my PS3 connected via HDMI and the blu ray movies look almost 3-D..For the money I am extremely pleased and this will be my main TV for many many years to come…
I bought the TC-P50S1 and will definitely be returning it. I thought I would love this TV. I have always recommended Panasonic plasmas to my friends and family, because of all the good reviews Panny’s get online, but this purchase was a real wake up call. My biggest beef with this panel is, ironically, the poor picture quality. I thought Panny’s were known for their great picture quality, but not the case here. Specifically, the picture on this TV is GRAINY, FUZZY, DULL, and lacking proper COLOR.
Is the picture Completely grainy? No, but it’s noticeably grainy. More than it should be.
Is the picture Completely fuzzy? No, but it’s noticeably fuzzy. More than it should be.
Is the picture Completely dull? Ya, it’s pretty dull. Color’s don’t pop.
Is the picture Completely lacking proper color? Well, it does show colors, but they are mostly all lacking. It’s especially hard to get a good true blue. The color spectrum is hazed over in a pale green and reds are not true to life. It struggles noticeably with the full Red, Green, Blue spectrum.
I watched a couple blu-ray movies on it. Transformers, Star Trek, GI Joe. The movies looked good, but this had more to do with the movies themselves, not the TV. Yes the resolution was high and the special effects/cinematography looked awesome, but the TV hurt the overall experience more than it helped. I’m sure there are other plasmas out there that have even greater shortcomings than this Panasonic, but being relatively not so bad doesn’t make this TV great.
Like J.C. “researcher” I am disappointed with this Panny because I have had better. If you have never owned a good plasma before, then you might be thrilled with this TV because you don’t know any better. Remember 8 years ago when 60-inch rear-projection TV’s were the cool thing because of how big and “awesome” they were? Yet hype aside, their picture was actually pretty bad–stretched out and pixally. But we embraced these TV’s because they were the best big screens we knew of, at the time; but that still didn’t make their picture good. If you buy this Panny and think it’s awesome because it’s the best thing you’ve seen to date, realize that there is much better out there.
I own a 42″ HP Pavilion EDTV(480p) plasma, bought 4 years ago, and it is So much nicer than this Panny. It cost me $2000 at the time, but today i’m sure it would price much lower if sold. I believe the display panel in this HP was made by Panasonic, which is one reason why I have always thought highly of Panasonic’s panels, because I LOVE my TV. The picture is crisp and the colors really pop. All material, standard TV, HD TV, DVD’s, Blu-Ray look great on it. Often, material looks better on this TV than it should. The TV gets rid of static and graininess, smooths pixalation and makes a really clean picture. Even on older source material that normally looks rough, when I play it on my EDTV it somehow looks almost magically better than on regular TVs.
I noticed graininess on Panasonic’s 1080p panels even in last year’s model. I remember looking at a 1080p Panasonic plasma in 2008 at Best Buy hooked up to a Blu-ray movie as one of their featured setups. I remember mentally gearing myself to say “wow, isn’t the 1080p awesome!”…but then objectively noticing that the picture was noticeably grainy. I just kind of said to myself “hmm, weird…not quite the picture I expected.”
When I went to Sears, Costco, and Best Buy to check out this S1 model in their showrooms, I noticed especially that with Standard material the picture was pretty rough and dull. I marked it up to “oh, must be a bad feed”. I said to my girlfriend, with me at the store, that based on what I saw I didn’t think the TV looked that good, but expected that once I got it home and hooked it up to a good feed it would look much better. Sorry, nope. It’s just not a high quality panel. I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt when I turned it on and the picture was immediately off-putting that I could fix it with the color settings, but alas, no set of adjustments can overcome it’s inherent weaknesses. I thought well maybe I need to get the G10 model with the THX setting, but apparently other discerning plasma lovers have observed the same 4 problems of grainy, fuzzy, dull, and lacking accurate color in it as well.
CNET actually said this in their summary about this TV: “THE BAD: Less accurate primary colors and color temperature; skimpy picture controls.” I just didn’t think it would be such an issue, but for me it is. The $897 I paid for it at Best Buy doesn’t warrant it as a good TV, justified by value/price. At any price I don’t want this TV because it just isn’t good enough.
Here is a similar review to mine for the G10:
We don’t understand the hype… very disappointed!, November 7, 2009
by dcf977 “Dan”
I have had the TC-P50G10 in the house for a few days now. My wife and I are thoroughly disappointed.
I have been buying Panasonic TVs for many years, all the way back to the pana-black square CRT days. They have always been my favorite. I have a Panasonic plasma in another room of the house which is a few years old and have been very pleased with it. I was very confident when I purchased the TC-P50G10 from amazon based on the rave reviews from all the blogs (cnet, HDGURU, etc..). Everyone seems to love it. However, this 1080p plasma tends to be blurry, fuzzy or hazy. There is a dullness to the picture as opposed to the crystal clear dynamism that I expect from a top notch 1080p plasma. I notice it most when watching sports. When there are graphics on the screen, such as on Fox during the World Series when they display the box with a batters statistics, its blurry and muted. The text is fuzzy. Actually, any text displayed on the set is fuzzy. My wife noticed it first and I didn’t want to accept it, but she is right. We have difficulty focusing on the thing. And don’t tell me its the picture settings. I have tried every combination of THX, Custom, Standard… while moving the other settings all over the place. Same thing, dull and muted. We thought that perhaps ours was defective, but we went to BB today and as we walked up to the same model TC-P50G10 on display, we saw it right away. When sitting next to the other flat panels, the Panasonic plasmas from the 2009 line-up all have a grayish, muted effect to them. Oh, and the color is a bit off too. The green isn’t right. I could deal with the color issue on its own, but this sucker is headed back to amazon. Don’t believe the hype. I see the potential for greatness, but the 2009 lineup of Panasonic plasmas are a resounding dud.
This is my first HDTV (and my first plasma TV). We bought this in October. After much research and online reviews (believe me, I did countless hours of research to make sure this TV was it), I think overall this TV is great. I give it 4 stars (instead of 5)for the following:
1. Remote control is not entirely intuitive and takes getting used to.
2. Out of the box, flesh tones are greener than normal.
Overall, I am very happy with the TV because:
1. Resolution is fantastic, even with standard definition (SD) DVDs. You would have to peer closer to the TV to check for blurred images. Since my viewing distance is about 10 ft away, the images look pretty sharp with SD.
2. Although I mentioned color issues, they can be remedied. I went to the AVS forums ([...]and based upon user settings, changed setting to:
Picture Mode: Cinema
Contrast: +73
Brightness: +61
Color: +39
Tint: +2
Sharpness: +24
Color Temp: Warm
Advanced Picture
MPEG NR: Off
Black Level: Light
HD Size: Size 2 for blu-ray Size 1 for everything else.
Colors looked more natural!!
3. Has a service menu you can access for more professional tweaking (although I wouldn’t do it myself).
4. Has a nice SD card slot to load hi res photos or as some AVS forum users have done, toggle images to perform an initial plasma burn-in.
You can’t get a better deal with plasma TVs than this. Overall, great bang for the buck TV.
I’ve had this TV for about 3 weeks now, and I’m very impressed w/ it. I did A LOT of research before purchasing and can tell you [...] ranks this TV 4 stars and is 5th best OVERALL Plasma TV on the market based on their research. Also, consumer reports ranks it a best buy.
First off, the delivery by CEVA was seamless, fantastic service. They called me and I scheduled a Saturday delivery, the guy showed up on time, was courteous, and it only took about 10min from box to being up and running.
I had to make some adjustments to the picture to get it to look it’s best, I wouldn’t recommend the factory settings. I used the optimal settings from [...].
The speakers really aren’t the best, it sounds better if you put them on the surround sound option. If you crank the volume very high it can get a little crackly. Best option is to hook up to a stereo. Be aware though, the only audio out connection is a digital optical.
Haven’t had any problems w/ burn in, this TV comes w/ the pixel oscillation feature, which helps to prevent burn in. Also, this TV is rated to last 60,000hrs, which translates to 8hrs a day for 20years. Don’t let burn in or the picture burning out scare you!
I would recommend this TV to anyone looking for the best bang for their buck. Buy it, you’ll like it.
Purchased for OTA use using a rotor to point the antenna to various channels.
This TV can only do auto programming of digital channels.
Moving the antenna from channel to channel wont work since the auto programming resets all previously found channels and manual programming of a single channel is not possible
I have had this tv for about 2 months now and could not be happier. After minor adjustments to picture (easy), its outstanding. Picture is sharp, colors are brite and sound is fantastic. I don’t even have a home theater (yet). I just don’t understand the negative reviews, It’s been perfect from day one. Amazon was fantastic, had the best price, free delivery. I could not ask for more. If you are looking for a great HDTV and don’t want to pay a kings ramson, this is your tv. I know there are more expensive sets with more bells and whistles out there, but I got exactly what I was looking for. Great television!
I got this set a while ago at best buy for around 1000$. It was cheaper than any where else I looked at that time. I was upgrading form a 1080i lcd. In my time with it I have watched no tv. I played many hours of video games and watched a ton of hi def films. I have seen many great strengths but a few weakness as well. I have not seen any burn in/ image retention. First the flaws
1. colors are not super accurate. And there are not enough pic controles in the user menu to fix this. greens can be kind of neon, reds can creep into skin tones. I only found this distracting when I looked for it. I used cnets setting as a starting point and turned the color up slightly. If your a videophile this is not your set.
2. This set does not have a 24p mode, it takes a 1080p/24 and does pull down to make it 60hz which is more then okay for me.
3 It does not preform so great with bright light in the room. It loses black level and shadow detail, especially in dark scenes.
4. It does not have a pc input or do Viera cast. I personally don’t care for ether of these. The ability to stream movies from amazon.com would be cool as they let you do it free if you buy a film from them.
Now for the positives.
1. Has deep black levels not as good as the pioneer kuro$ or some of the leds.
2. Wonderful shadow detail I can actually see whats going on in avpr blu-ray.
3. Great picture quality overall I saw plenty of pop with hd-dvds and blu-rays finally in 1080p. Detail is well rendered A underwater scene from planet earth hd dvd looked like I was looking through a fish tank. This is much better then my lcd.
4. Handles fast motion with ease with 600hz subfield drive.
5. Perfect screen uniformity a small problem with lcds and rear projection sets
6. Great off angle viewing. helps when family and friends want to watch a film. lcds do very bad in this aria.
7. Very nice price for a 50inch hdtv that preforms great.
8. Uses less power then previous plasmas, still sucks though.
My final thoughts
I found the pros of this set to greatly out way the cons and am very happy with it. If you are a vidio purist or want EXCEPTIONAL picture quality you will be much happier with a high end set, provided you have the money. If you just want to see a great pic for a great price,buy the Panasonic and do your viewing in a dimly lit room. This plasma come highly recommend from me.
For the price, this is the greatest TV I’ve ever been close to. The Panasonic TC-P50S1 has a wonderful picture with unbelievable color accuracy and 1080p sharpness. Watch Silverado.
I had a 52″ Samsung LCD purchased in 2007 that worked great with my PC set to 1920×1080. I wanted to upgrade to a plasma and bought this set about 2 years later. I connected my PC to it, and quickly found out that this can not display anything higher than 1280 x whatever at 60hz. I dropped the refresh down to 30, still nothing. I further dropped the refresh down to 24hz, finally got a picture. The picture was very jumpy and distorted, with extreme overscanning. I could not get this set to display a quality picture from my computer for the life of me, and I would consider myself quite an advanced user (MCSE, CCNA, etc…).
So, I contacted customer support. They told me I should have bought another model, as this model isn’t supposed to work with computers. It’ll do 1080p with a blu-ray player, but not with a PC. That makes no sense, a computer with a decent graphics card can put out the exact same signal that a bluray player can if configured identically. They refused to answer me when I asked exactly what the signal needs to look like to make it work, and kept repeating that I can’t do it. Absolutely horrible customer service, they wouldn’t stray from the script and wouldn’t refer me to anyone smarter. Why the heck would they make a 50″ high def set that can’t connect to a computer and then hide the fact until you got it home and dug into the manual? Makes no sense. to me whatsoever. I’m never buying anything from Panasonic ever again.
If I adapted the settings from the G10 instead of the S1 then it would turn out that the set can’t process a pure 1080p signal like you’d get from a computer, it technically needs an 1125 signal to account for overscanning (required in the days of old tube tvs, shouldn’t be needed anymore), and you’d have to tweak the horizontal and vertical freqs to 67.5 and 60.0 if you’re running the typical 60hz refresh. Wasn’t worth the time and hassle though, and Panasonic reps got me so steaming mad, that I took it back. Decided to spend a little more and get something even better that I knew would work right, so I went and got the big Samsung 860 series 50″ plasma instead.
Very brief review, the tv is excellent—a best buy if you will. That’s why I give it 5 stars.
This review is for Amazon’s shipping. I love Amazon and I purchase everything from them (literally), however I do not recommend them for high dollar, large items such as 50″ plasma tv’s. Why? Shipping took over 2 months and customer service was very lacking, friendly but absolutely unhelpful–their polices offer very little to mititage their problems. Bascially they will sell items they don’t currently have enough of to meet demand (oversell) and so some people will get their tv as promised while others will have to wait awhile. I was going to host a BCS championship party. Had to send out apologies and cancel because Amazon fumbled big.
Could have paid an extra hunded bucks and had tv immediately from a black friday sale–I would recommend other, non-Amazon sellers on certain items because they don’t do anything for the customer when they make mistakes.
I have had this set for about 8 months so far and I am quite happy with it.
The only complaint I have is alot of green on the screen when you get to the lower resolution signals but that is to be expected.
this television has the best color i have ever seen.very easy to program.the picture is very crisp an clear.as you can see im very pleased
I have had this TV for a little over two months now. I won’t do a full review since so many others have done it justice. I will say that overall, I love it. It has rich colors and deep blacks. I was deciding between this 50 inch S1 and the 42 inch G10. I’m happy with my choice because you’ll always want a bigger size screen. I went from a Sony 32″ CRT to this and I was a little overwhelmed by the size once we put it on the stand. Of course, after a month, you become used to the size … so get the biggest size you can afford that will fit your room. I’m telling you, it will appear to “shrink” in size after a month or so.
There have been a lot of complaining recently with Panasonic Plasmas losing their black levels after a certain period of time. I haven’t noticed it yet and hope it doesn’t happen or if it does, then I hope it will be so small of a raise that I wouldn’t even notice. Panasonic says it’s by design. Who knows who is telling the truth? They may or may not be searching for a solution, but so far … it’s staying as is. They have lost many future customers though, so they really should try to do something.
I still prefer Plasmas over LCDs. The blacks are so much better and the viewing angle doesn’t change the picture quality. No matter how many different LCDs I see, I can’t stand the black levels. Don’t judge a TV by store lighting. LCDs will always appear brighter in stores and thus … more appealing. Plasmas will appear darker in stores, which is why the average people stay away from them. These are the same people who spend $50 on an HDMI cable when a $10 cable will do the same thing. Trust me. The plasma screens (when calibrated properly) will blow you away. The reflection is not a problem at all. You get more reflection from the surrounding bezel than you do the screen. My LCD monitor has more reflection. My previous CRT TV had more reflection, so that problem seems resolved to me. Friends come over and they want to upgrade their LCDs to a plasma after seeing this TV. Of course, different people have different tastes, so you’ll have to do your own research.
This TV isn’t perfect. I don’t see it as a five star television, but it is definitely a nice one. Problems I have with it is the Image Retention. There is no Burn-in as far as I can tell (which is different than IR). Image Retention can last a whole day sometimes, but it’s barely noticeable. For example: I played “Batman: Arkham Asylum” all day one time. It was just a fun game that I couldn’t put down. Anyway, there is a health bar/semi circle that stays on screen and only goes away if you are at full health. Well, after I finished for the night … I could see that outline on the screen. It was very faint and only when the screen was otherwise completely dark, so it didn’t bother me … but it stayed there the next day. Again, I can’t stress enough that you actually have to look for it to be able to see it. Plus, it does go away. Older plasma will have the burn-in problem. I just wish the image retention would go away quicker because it is a scary thing to see after a few hours … and it makes me wary of playing games that have constant HUDs.
Another problem is that the sound is mediocre. It’s not terrible, but since they put the speakers behind the TV, the sound is kinda muffled. They did this for design looks, thinking that most people would use a receiver anyway. Well, I couldn’t use my receiver really until I got an optical cable. My receiver is eight years old, so it didn’t have HDMI cables. I would’ve preferred the speakers being in front for better sound.
The three HDMI inputs are okay, though I wish there were at least four. I plan on upgrading my receiver at some point so this might not be an issue. One thing I didn’t know before purchasing this TV was that you can NOT get 1080p signals using component cables. This makes no sense to me. I have one of the older Xbox 360s that does not have HDMI, so I’m stuck with component. It’s not horrible because most games are made for 720p, but Netflix is supposed to be 1080p. Since Panasonic doesn’t seem to want to upgrade their Viera-Cast Blu-Ray players with Netflix (saving that for 2010 models), I was thinking about using the 360, but I can’t get 1080p. I’m fine since I can use my computer via HDMI, but it would be nicer without having to put my computer on. You can get 720p and 1080i with component in case you are wondering.
The SD card slot is basically a joke. If you put in a card that has pictures that have a higher than 2 megapixel resolution, be prepared to wait to view a slideshow. Most cameras nowadays have at least 8 megapixels which makes viewing them painfully slow. If I have friends come over that want to show their pictures on the big TV, I won’t put it in the SD slot because it’s way too slow. I’ll put it in my Wii SD slot. That has a much better slideshow performance, plus … you can actually make a puzzle out of the pictures.
Overall, I do love the TV regardless of the minor quibbles. The black levels are great, but they aren’t as great as I’d like them. The greens do look a tad neon in some instances, but who knows if that is really the TVs fault or if it’s the issue with the source material because I don’t see it on every channel or Blu-Ray. I didn’t like the look of the Standard Definition channels compared to my CRT, but I think that’s the problem with the service. Standard Def DVDs look more than fine on this TV. The TV’s not perfect, but there’s isn’t much out there that is. I know this TV is getting harder to find. I paid under nine bills for it, so it was a good deal for me. If you’re thinking about waiting for the 2010 models, you may have to wait until November to get a great deal. If you are waiting for 3D, then I’d suggest you wait another two years at least while they get all the kinks out. The biggest concern is that rise in black levels after a certain amount of hours that people are complaining about on forums. Are they being too picky about it? I don’t know because I haven’t noticed it. But … it does make someone think twice about choosing Panasonic.
I loved this set untill about 1000 Hours. Simply do a google search on panasonic black levels or check Cnet. My S1 is worse then an LCD. Pansonic claims this is a feature but after a coulpe more thosand hours I think my set will be fully washed out. I now leaving it on 24/7 wasting 500watts so I can show them the full extent and of thier problem and fight to get my warranty. This is pathetic. I will NEVER buy Panasonic again.