Plasma, it seems, is
continuing to lose the PR battle with its arch LCD rival - at least
where the mass television market is concerned. It hasn't helped, either,
that the new energy rating system for TVs doesn't exactly work in
plasma's favour, with most plasma TVs measuring Cs at best versus the A
and A+ grades routinely boasted by LCD TVs.
The Panasonic P50ST50,
though, is out to prove that plasma still has a big part to play in the
modern TV world. For starters it looks surprisingly svelte for a plasma
set, proving that the technology doesn't have to be fat and old-school.
It's
also got some fearsome specifications to shout about, including a
mind-boggling 5,500,000:1 native contrast ratio (no dynamic contrast
backlight shenanigans here), a response time of just 0.001ms that
destroys the response times of all LCD TVs, not to mention such up to
the minute features as active 3D playback and a healthy online feature set, courtesy of Panasonic's Viera Connect platform.
Perhaps
even more importantly, the plasma panel at the Panasonic Viera
TX-P50ST50's heart is a radical reboot of last year's debut NeoPlasma
panels. This delivers - in particular - improvements to energy
efficiency that Panasonic has bravely used to help the TV deliver more
picture brightness, rather than taking the more politically correct
route of just going for a lower energy rating. The
50-inch Panasonic P50ST50 is priced at around £1,200 in the UK and
$1,400 in the US. It's joined by the 65-inch Panasonic P65ST50, 55-inch
P55ST50, and 42-inch P42ST50.
As
for rivals, Samsung and LG are both still in the plasma market
alongside Panasonic, with the upcoming Samsung P51E6500 looking to be
the closest match in price and specification terms.
LCD
alternatives are 10 a penny really, except that LCD panel size trends
mean you'll be looking at 46/47-inch or 55-inch sizes rather than the
50-inch screen of the Panasonic P50ST50.
Features
The
single most important thing to know about the Panasonic P50ST50 is that
it uses plasma rather than LCD technology - a fact that instantly
generates a series of expectations about where its performance strengths
might lie.
Contrast is generally an area of real strength for
plasma TVs, especially Panasonic models. And this trend looks like it's
going to continue on the Panasonic P50ST50 if its vast quoted contrast
ratio of 5,500,000:1 is anything to go by. This is a 'native' contrast
ratio figure too, meaning that it isn't achieved by dynamically shifting
the overall image brightness (and thus reducing image stability and the
dynamic range of dark scenes) as happens with LCD TVs. We'd
also expect a plasma TV to show fast motion more clearly than LCD TVs,
on account of plasma's much faster screen response time. Plasma screens
also support viewing from much wider angles than LCD ones. Indeed,
during our tests you could sit almost at right angles to the Panasonic
P50ST50 before the image degraded to any significant extent.
Experience
would suggest, too, that the Panasonic P50ST50 should be able to show
its active 3D pictures with significantly less crosstalk ghosting
interference than most LCD TVs. But while we're on the subject of 3D,
it's a little disappointing to find that Panasonic doesn't include even a
single pair of active 3D glasses for free with the Panasonic P50ST50.
Presumably
Panasonic took the decision that it wanted to keep the P50ST50's price
as low as possible rather than charge more to include a set or two of
the £60/$80-ish active 3D glasses. But experience and consumer research
suggest that unless people can enjoy a TV feature right out of the box,
they're much less likely to ever try that feature at all.
Plasma
technology isn't all about benefits, of course. You would also expect
plasma TVs to be less bright than LCD ones - even though they use
markedly more power. Panasonic doesn't quote a brightness figure for the
Panasonic P50ST50, but its quoted average power rating of 180W is up to
three times as high as the figures quoted for some of Panasonic's own
LCD/LED TVs.
Panasonic TVs struggle to deliver the same highly
fashionable ultra-thin looks that LCD TVs can, too. However, while the
Panasonic P50ST50 certainly isn't nearly as svelte in either its bezel
or its rear end as the latest LCD supermodels from LG and Samsung, it's
still pretty attractive in its dark grey colour scheme, offset by a
trendy see-through accent along all four of its edges. Certainly it's a big improvement over the rather dull aesthetics of most previous Panasonic plasma TVs.
The
Panasonic P50ST50's connections show few signs of any
'old-fashionedness' either. For instance, its three HDMIs are all built
to the latest 3D-supporting v1.4 standard, and it's got two USBs through
which you can play a good set of multimedia file formats.
The
support level here is much higher than it was with last year's
Panasonic models, with all of the following file types now in play:
JPEG, AVCHD, SD-Video, MOV, AVI, DivX, MKV, ASF, MP4, FLV, 3GPP, MP3,
AAC, WMA, FLAC, PS, and TS. Do note, though, that you'll need to run
Windows 7 as a media server for a few of these formats.
Any
mid-range or higher TV now is likely to have some sort of online
functionality, and so it is with the Panasonic P50ST50, which provides
both LAN and built-in Wi-Fi options for logging the TV into Panasonic's
Viera Connect online service. You can also, of course, employ both these
options for streaming files from a connected DLNA PC.
Viera
Connect's appeal continues to grow, slowly but surely. The single most
significant addition to it this year, to date, is the Netflix
movie streaming subscription service, which joins the likes of BBC
iPlayer, AceTrax, Fetch TV and YouTube in providing you with on-demand
video servers. Viera Connect is also to be commended on having secured a couple of startlingly good-looking games from Gameloft (Asphalt 5 and Let's Golf 2), and for covering all the key social networking bases.
There's
a growing number of small (and thus less actually useful) apps too,
although the number of these isn't as distractingly overwhelming as it
is on the latest smart TV services from Samsung and LG.
Panasonic
has got considerably better in recent times at making sure its TVs have
the sort of calibration tools desired by the enthusiast end of the AV
market. The adjustments on the Panasonic P50ST50 aren't bad by any
means, and include gamma and white balance fine-tuners. But you don't
get the full colour management options - or THX endorsement and presets -
found on the Panasonic's higher-spec GT50 and VT50 plasma TVs.
The
plasma panel inside the Panasonic P50ST50 is one of Panasonic's very
latest designs. Indeed, the ST50 range is the cheapest point at which
you can get your hands on one of these panels. What this new panel does,
predominantly, is improve colour balance and black level response while
also driving down energy consumption.
Intriguingly, Panasonic
claims to have put this increased efficiency to use in boosting the
P50ST50's brightness rather than simply pursuing a reduced overall
energy consumption rating. Why? Because it sees plasma as the picture
enthusiast's choice, where a likely buyer will prefer more picture
dynamism to saving a few bob on their electric bill.
If you want to go down a more eco-friendly route, the argument continues, then there's always Panasonic's A-rated LCD TV range.
Also
of note on the Panasonic P50ST50's spec sheet is its 2000Hz Focused
Field Drive technology. This is a vast improvement over the 600Hz
systems previously found on Panasonic's plasma TVs - and actually, so
far as we can tell, 600Hz remains the maximum figure employed by any
rival plasma brands this year.
What these fancy numbers all mean,
hopefully, is that the Panasonic P50ST50 will suffer considerably less
with judder than typical plasma televisions, as well as enjoying
enhanced brightness and colour saturation.
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