There’s no doubt that the Kuro line of Pioneer rules the plasma HDTV niche in terms of performance, and consequently, price. The year-old PDP-6010FD is a fine example of the Kuro’s excellence: competing brands still can’t adequately outperform this awesome HDTV and it remains one of the most popular plasmas around more than a year since its release.
Design
This generation of Kuros was drastically changed from the previous models in terms of the new panel boasting of filtered and improved layer of plasma cell structures for deeper blacks and richer detail. The new
Pioneer PDP-6010FD
panel is framed in a glossy black bezel, unadorned except for the Pioneer logo. The PDP-6010FD comes with two-channel speaker which can be attached to the bottom of the frame, beside the solid-looking non-swivelling stand. Since this plasma is huge and heavy and requires assembly out of the box, you may want to make sure that delivery and setup is part of the deal when you purchase one.
The TV’s clicker is largely unchanged from previous models – a universal-type remote with adequately-spaced buttons, logically arranged and generally user-friendly. However, even its glow-in-the-dark feature isn’t enough to compensate for the lack of backlighting. The menu system is unchanged too, and it might as well be a good thing as Pioneer’s menu is intuitive and helpful, especially considering that the expected users of its plasmas are dedicated tweakers who will undoubtedly spend hours adjusting settings to perfection.
Screen/picture clarity
Black level is a key indicator in performance of HDTVs, as deeper blacks make the pictures pop and the colors much more realistic. And the PDP-6010FD is unrevealed in this aspect. Thus, thanks to its state-of-the-art blacks and more-than-average color accuracy, pictures are just short of jaw-dropping: well-saturated hues, natural-looking skin tones and impressive shadow details that outperform all other HDTVs in its awesome size.
As the PDP-6010FD is one of the first Pioneer plasmas to offer 1080p full HD resolution, it handles 1080p and 1080i sources quite well. Video processing is quite good, with its PureCinema feature delivering vivid images with smoother motions. Motion blur and artefacts are uncommon for 1080/24fps sources, with the 72hz. refresh rates and additional PureCinema dejudder action. To top it all, this Kuro has superb screen brightness, with no hint of the screen uniformity issues common in most HDTVs.
Features
Pioneer is known for providing endless tweaking options: numerous picture modes and color temperature presets to choose from that can be adjusted to suit ones preferences. The picture-in-picture feature can be enjoyed in two ways: overlaid (one screen is superimposed over the other screen) or two-screen (screen is divided into two equal areas). The connectivity options for the PDP-6010FD include four HDMI ports, VGA connector slot, USB port, CableCard connector and a slew of standard input/output jacks.
The PDP-6010FD may be more than a year old but it’s still surprisingly up to par with the latest HDTVs, including its siblings in the Kuro line. It’s an impressive set that is certainly worth every penny of its hefty price tag.
| Do you own this TV? Submit your rating… | |
 | GD Star Rating loading... |
