HDTV Trends

Amazing TV
I was trying to convince my dad to help me on getting a TV for my room. We have a VERY old Hitachi (and by very old, I mean a 14 YEAR old back project TV, huge and clunky) and I wanted a new HDTV for gaming on my Xbox 360. I was looking at the TH 42PX80U, the 42" version of this TV because of its cheap price and very good reviews and picture quality.

My dad being the frugal and handy man he is, and only buys things he needs because he can make or build pretty much anything from wood or steel, said I couldn't get one and walks away. I did mention how old our TV was, and after about 30 seconds, walks back and asks if I can find a 50"-er.

So, I did a little research, and this was my top pick. We found THC50HD18's at Costco for 899.99. Noted that down, and they looked really nice. Went to all the major places such as Best Buy and Circuit City. Finally found this TV in Sears on a huge sale for 899.99. Convinced my dad to come down that same day because the sale was ending and put it in a Sear's card for an additional 10% off. It was either that, or 2 years with no interest. Pretty sweet deal. Dad purchased 3 year full warranty from Sear's and a table stand. All in all, around B00142MUDI,500.

Hooked everything up, and got the DVD working. We only have standard def stuff right now, don't know if we'll be upgrading because we have over 100 DVD titles and my dad's reluctant to switch over. But, watching The Dark Knight is AMAZING. Very clear, with some fuzz because of the Standard Definition DVD.

Hooked up my Xbox and started playing. I immediately saw a HUGE difference. It looked amazing. Then, I remembered that I didn't even switch the display size to 720p. I proceeded to do that, and I couldn't believe it. It looked EVEN BETTER than before.

If anyone out there that has an Xbox and has the game Braid, it looks absolutely FANTASTIC on this TV. The colors are all extremely vibrant and pop-out like crazy. Everything is incredibly detailed and vivid.

I can't stop raving about this TV. We got it for an amazing deal, and I'm sure you guys can, too. BUY THIS TV NOW!

SEARS PRICE 9 till January 10th
I personally do not own this tv, have just been shopping a while and noticed the low price at sears 9. Even after adding tax, it would still be cheaper than the current alternatives. And no I do not own any Sears stock. lol

Wow! What a difference, and what a screen!
I recently upgraded from a 27" Panasonic tube TV to this 50" 720p plasma screen TV. Wow! What an amazing piece of electronics!!!

I opted for the 720p instead of a 1080p unit for the following reasons:

1) I have a large collection of DVDs, and the main use for this screen will is for watching movies.
2) Since my collection is not hi-def, there was little reason to pay the nearly 00 more for additional pixels/inch that I will not use.
3) The price dropped significantly on this unit in the weeks before Christmas, thus making it an even better buy!
4) You can see the picture clearly from nearly every angle - and that's important for my family since my wife often prefers to watch while she stands by the fireplace, and that vantage point gives her about a 75 degree angle of view - and it even looks great from there!

I had never owned a big-screen TV before, so I didn't really know what a difference the screen size and quality makes when watching anything. Even my wife, who watches movies only occasionally readily admits that the big screen greatly enhances the movie-watching experience.

I found this TV to be easy to install, intuitive to use, and a joy to have. There were sufficient inputs to accommodate two DVD players and a game system. The TV can also be used to view photos stored on SD cards, and the remote is also easy to figure out and use...that's a nice perk!

Why oh why did I wait so long to invest?!

Oh, I heard that plasma is better than LCD for watching things like sports and action movies. While I have not been able to do a side-by-side comparison in my own home, I found that observation to hold true when I compared plasma and LCD units in the store.

This Panasonic is a great find. While it may not meet every need of the top-flight Blue-Ray disc watcher, it meets and exceeds my every need!

I'd highly recommend this set to my extended family and best friends.

Oh, if you do not have someone come and install this unit for you, be sure that you have someone else handy that can help you load and unload it, as well as help you unbox it and move onto your TV stand, because this is one heavy TV. It probably weighs about 100 lbs., and it's kind of bulky.

By the way, if you plan to use the provided TV stand, it is easily installed onto the TV itself, since it takes only four screws to attach the TV to the base.

All in all, I've been extremely pleased with this TV, and I highly recommend it!

5 stars all the way for watching standard DVDs.

Awesome Purchase
I would encourage anyone to buy this television. My husband and I researched Plasma tv's and 720 vs. 1080 for several months. We are exceptioanlly pleased with this model and the picture is great. Amazon is a great site to make a purchase and we ended up getting a .00 refund for using an Amazon Visa card. Shipping was free too. This is definitely the year to purchase Big Screen TV's.

All Around Nice 720P Plasma


Everyone has the specifications on other reviews so I will give my impressions. The screen is huge compared to our old 32" TV. At 11 feet away the 50" looks wonderful. Seems to be plenty on inputs. The RCA jacks and HDMI jack in front, I think, are nice. My friend has his jacks on the side and in his TV cabinent, it is hard to hook up a camcorder due to space. There is two more HDMI and other inputs in back. The standard definition channels looked pretty good with cable input, then I connected the HDMI from the digital cable box (needed to use the RCA jacks for sound for some reason, be sure to change the audio in the TV to the proper input)to 50" TV and saw a big improvement. Not High Def which they are not, but impressive. I also discovered that our digital cable has 15 - 20 High Def channels in the 900 channel range and these look awesome. The digital channels also filled the screen with the proper aspect ratio. The switching between picture modes and changing the aspect ratio is easy, and the sound is better than the old TV. Regular DVD's with our surround sound stereo is cool too. I bet the picture would be suberb with Blue Ray. Maybe not as crisp as with a 1080p flat screen, but the 0+ in savings will help us overlook that.

Bottom line is that Sears had this new 50" Plasma for 9.00 plus tax. At the local Sears we looked at it, decided to buy it (over the internet since it was late) and picked it up the net day. Pick up was like 5 minutes. For some reason, buying at Sears suprised me. I thought that I would be buying it from an Amazon site since they typically have some of the best prices. Use the best connctions on this or any flat screen to get the best picture. Bottom line is that I think any of the name brands (and probably the off brands too) will be impressive over a standard TV.