This high-performing HDTV is one of the cornerstone products from Panasonic that helped the brand capture a large segment of the plasma market. With impressive picture quality and more affordable price relative to competing high-end plasmas, the Viera TH-46PZ85U is certainly a great alternative for practical buyers.
Design
The TH-46PZ85U is an eye-catching piece: single-pane glass covering the front of the TV, including the thick bezel surrounding the panel. The bottom part of the frame is slightly rounded to reveal the downward-firing
Panasonic Viera TH-46PZ85U
speakers and the set comes with a non-swivelling stand that matches the glossy black finish of the chassis.
The Panasonic remote is a carry-over from last year’s models, and it’s a good thing. The clicker has distinct groups of buttons that are just the right size and with a logically arranged layout to facilitate touch navigation – an important thing because the remote has not backlighting except for the device selection buttons at the top. The yellow text on blue background menu system that Panasonic users are accustomed to is also used – another good decision since the no-nonsense menu groupings presents an interface that is intuitive and easy to learn.
Screen/picture clarity
Panasonic has always been known for plasmas that deliver outstanding black levels and the TH-46PZ85U was one such HDTV, as it was designed to afford video blacks that are twice as dark as previous generations of Panasonic plasmas. It certainly delivers on this aspect, giving blacks that are so dark the rest of the image comes to life with a punch. Unfortunately, the less than accurate colors mar the overall picture quality, with the decoding of red and greens quite over saturated and pictures tending to have a bluish tinge that make them look unnatural.
The TH-46PZ85U also gives solid but not awesome video processing. It properly deinterlaced 1080i materials in clear 1080p resolution, though there is some noticeable loss in detail for 1080i/24p encoded sources. Standard-def handling is, however, excellent, as the plasma scaled 480p and 480i sources seamlessly, producing consistently clear images, even those in motion. For fast actions scenes, some jaggedness and smearing were observed, showing that the noise reduction isn’t as effective as it should be. To Panasonic’s credit, the anti-glare screen is quite good in attenuating reflections and this plasma gives excellent image quality even in off-angle viewing.
Features
The TH-46PZ85U offers five picture modes can be adjusted independently, and the Custom mode is adjustable per input. Also offered are controls for color decoding, on-the-fly contrast adjustment, noise reduction, aspect ratios and black levels, though there is no gamma control. The plasma has an ‘image-retention’ mechanism to combat burn-in, but it lacks power-saving modes and picture-in-picture 
capability. The installed connectivity suite include three HDMI ports, a VGA PC port, and numerous composite input/output jacks for all HDTV requirements.
The Viera TH-46PZ85U certainly packs a lot of punch for its price, which is relatively cheaper compared to most high-end plasmas. For buyers who aren’t too concerned with the less-than accurate colors and poor noise reduction, this HDTV might be given serious consideration.
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