Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic TH-42PX25U/P 42-Inch High-Definition Plasma TV

This is one of the best rated HI-DEF Plasma TV's!

You will want to be highly suspect of any seller that has an unbelievable price and insists that you email them before purchasing. They will offer a scam escrow company to handle a transaction outside of Amazon. Amazon.com is aware of this scam but unable (unwilling) to provide any responsibility in this area, thus providing a free advertisment arena for scams.

I have only had this TV for about 2 weeks. It produces an unbeliveable picture in HD almost photograpic. Like one of the other reviewers I am running Comcast HD so I came in on a DVI to HDMI converter cable. If you look on the net a little you can find the cable for about $25 (computercablestore) instead of the $120 for the Monster cable. The audio on this TV is also one of the best I have heard. Almost sounds as if they have put in a subwoofer, the bass is very deep for a TV. Standard TV also looks better than a regular set. If your looking for a great high-def set this is it.

Watch out for those new or used plasma TV being advertised for less than $1500.00. Those sellers have a rating of "just launched" it seems that the same person or group of person used several different email address and they ask you to contact them first. Be very careful, all they need is to have you wire the money to them, you won't be covered by Amazon if you do that.

I usually recommend LCD TVs (esp. Sharp Aquos) over plasmas, mainly because the LCD screen lasts longer, is brighter, consumes far less electricity, and does not suffer the burn-in problem as plasmas.

But if you are set on getting a plasma, this Panasonic "Veira" 42" is one of the best plasmas on the market today. This HDTV set (with built-in HDTV tuner) is fully 720p and 480p native, and can scale 1080i content gracefully. (BTW there's very little 1080i content available right now.) The picture quality is simply gorgeous, with brightness and details that rival LCDs. Color reproduction is excellent, making watching Nature on PBS such a wonderful experience. The screen's response time has improved over earlier models, so fast-action sports looks good instead of ghostly. The Veira also has a Cable Card slot and although I haven't tried it, a recent New York Times review says it works seamlessly with Cable Cards. (Cable Cards can replace set-top cable boxes; check with your cable provider for details.)

To get the most out of DVD movies, get a digital-output (HDMI) DVD player from Panasonic, Sony or Denon. These players can "upsample" DVD's standard-NTSC resolution and provide somewhat better video quality when you play DVDs on an HDTV like this one. The Panasonic player in particular is a great value and a perfect match for the Veira.

While I still think LCD TVs are a better value for the long term, the Panasonic, along with plasmas from Fujitsu and Pioneer, does give you the best possible picture out of today's state-of-the-art plasma technology. I have friends who own Panasonic and they are all very happy, even the ones with the EDTV (instead of HDTV) sets.

When you buy a big screen TV, you are making a serious investment (unless you just won the Mega Millions or Powerball), and I highly recommend you buy the best you can afford. Sub-$2000 plasma TVs have poor image quality and are likely to break down quickly, plus they are very noisy. Just go for the best after you get over the SAF (spouse approval factor) hurdle! The Panasonic Veira is a great value considering its top-notch image quality, gorgeous styling and built-in HDTV support.

After researching and looking at plasma, lcd, lcd projection tv's for couple of months, I finally bought this TV from amazon.com. Had it for couple of weeks now, and am amazed at the quality of the display. Got HDTV from comcast cable and the HDTV channels look and sound great. Of course I wish there were more HDTV channels. I recommend using the Monster DVI-HDMI cable. This TV has a HDMI port. I also recommend Samsung DVD player HD-931 that generates HD outputs via DVI for your DVDs. The resultant image quality is excellent, even though it is not "TRUE HD".


An update. It has been a year since I last updated this review. This TV is still one of the best plasma displays in the market. Pioneer plasma is the only one that looks slightly better. I have added monster power supply to my setup and have replaced the cable with satellite. More HD channels on the satellite. Monster power supply is essential to keeping your expensive home theatre setup safe from power quality issues. Have also added Onkyo A/V receiver to my setup along with Cambridge speakers. Had zero issues with this display. Was a little bit apprehensive of dropping big dollars on this display. But so far, it has given awesome performance and zero problems.