110
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #243,339 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★☆☆☆
Great HD picture, but the buzz is awful!
The picture is gorgeous! As noted by tech review sites, the THX mode is definitely the most accurate and looks by far the best. The sound isn't awful through the TV, but I now have it running through my receiver, so that doesn't matter.
The Viera Cast Amazon on Demand works very well and the interface is actually better than my Roku when using Amazon. I have it wired through a Airport Express and it works like a charm without buying a single-purpose dongle from Panasonic.
The anti-glare screen coating works beautifully. The TV is on a wall with two large windows facing it and I can actually watch TV during the day for the first time without lowering the blackout shades. The bezel is really a very,very dark gray which is much more attractive that the usual piano black. Unfortunately, there are two problems with this TV that are proving hard to deal with:
1. The buzz on light colored scenes. There is a barely audible buzz on somewhat lighter scenes, but on truly light scenes it is loud enough to be heard over my newish central air conditioner and a pet fountain that is about 25' away from the seating area. Truly light scenes where the buzz is very predominant include the 1st season of Lost when they are on the beach or in the sun in the mountains, Crazy Heart when he is on the road with the sky and the NM desert around him and all of the ocean scenes in Pirates of the Caribbean. This is really disappointing. Not sure if this is fixable or not, if not it is a deal breaker for me.
2. It definitely shifts slightly to green. Flesh tones always have a very slight greenish tint to them. If I can figure out how to get rid of the buzz I will have it professionally calibrated to see if this is actually fixable.
I hope there is a way to get rid of the buzz, because otherwise this is a great buy for a really excellent picture
UPDATE: I gave up and sent it back to Amazon. The buzz never went away, got slightly worse and drove me nuts! After spending more time watching the TV I also decided that the TV's SD performance was not good enough. While I have HD cable and a blu ray, there are too many legacy SD shows/movies to have a TV that looks that bad on SD programming. I replaced this with a Samsung PN50C8000, so I will post a review on it with some comparison information. So far, no buzz with the Samsung!
One more note; not about the TV, but the return process. I called Amazon to find out the status of the return and discovered they didn't have the TV back yet. I called Pilot Freight and they eventually found the TV sitting on the dock. Assuming they shipped it out 2 days later when they said they would, it was on their dock for a week and a half. Beware of this type of issue if you are sending back something within the 30 day return period.
July 2010 · Electronics · verified purchase