Panasonic G25 54" Plasma
After spending a couple of weeks seriously researching tv's I decided I wanted to go plasma. I weighed the options of LCD LED-LCD Plasma and DLP and concluded that all along I've wanted Plasma. Friends and acquaintances tried (hard) to convince me that LCD or even LED was the way to go...especially in my living room with 3 windows. I spent many hours trying to convince myself that LCD was what I wanted but no matter what I always came back to "...but with Plasma I can..." Thus the search began for the Plasma that best suited our needs.
I considered LG (PK750/950) Samsung (C550/590) and Panasonic (S2/G25). I knew going in that Panasonic was the brand to have (some might argue) if you want Plasma. Given their purchase of Pioneer's Plasma tech in the last year I figured they'd be a lot more expensive than the price I paid. LG's looked great but although slimmer were priced a little higher and had a major glare issue. Not for us. Samsung is leading the way in tv tech. Their LCD's are top-notch (from what I've seen) so I figured their Plasmas must be close behind. They looked good had good specs but 2 things kept me from Samsung - Glare (not as bad as LG but not as good as Panasonic) and Buzz. So many people complain about their Samsung Plasmas making loud buzzing noises. I didn't want to take a chance and narrowed it down to Panasonic. There's about $400 price difference between the S2 and G25 and before yesterday only 2 reviews existed on Amazon for this tv and both were not-so-good. But I made the decision to go with the G25 and I couldn't be happier. On to the review...
I purchased from Amazon for almost $250 less than Best Buy's "on sale" price saved on tax (about $150) and got free shipping. Amazon contracted Pilot freight to deliver my tv and they did a great job...especially for free shipping. Wasn't white glove but the delivery guy was well within the time frame friendly and put the box exactly where I asked him. I opened the box and there stood the largest purchase I've made in quite a few years. I thought the tv stand I had would suffice for this but it is a little larger than I thought so we need to shop for a new tv stand. The pedestal the tv comes with is solid - wide base and has two posts on each end to support the tv. Eight screws later the tv is mounted on the pedestal sitting on my now-dwarfed tv stand. I didn't have any HDMI cables at that moment so I hooked up my antenna and ran a quick setup and tuned in to the lcoal digital channels. WOW!!! I'm not sure I've ever seen a tv display look so good. I've always been in awe of my friends DLP and LCD tv's but from a not-so-great antenna signal our tv looked way better than theirs. I purchased HDMI cables last night and hooked up the satellite receiver and my PS3. WOW again!!!! I've never seen a movie game or tv programming look so clear with so many colors and black blacks...not like the LCD we have upstairs in our room. I switched the tv to THX setting and to my untrained eye it looked liked a well-calibrated tv. I softened the contrast brightness sharpness etc down to 50 as Panasonic and other tech-ies recommend a 100 hour "break-in" of the tv. So I'm gonna be cool with it for a week or two and then modify the settings more to my liking. The frame of the tv is black and one of my two least-favorite parts of the tv. It will definitely retain a lot of fingerprints and smudges but I figure once the tv is on a new stand and placed where we want it there will be no need to go touch the tv except to dust it off. There are 3 HDMI connections (2 back 1 side) 2 component connections SD card slot USB ports and an ethernet port. Plenty of connections to do what you want...although my second least-favorite part of the tv is the fact that the Digital Optical out only sends out a PCM/Stereo signal to my audio receiver not Dolby Digital 5.1. Only what is being pulled in from the OTA tuner will be sent DD/5.1 if available. From what I understand though all tv's do this not just the Panasonic. The remote is handy has a "light" button and lights up almost all the buttons in red (helps in the dark). The menu is not too complicated to navigate through and use. The speakers a just ok but I am running all sound through my reciever and speakers. The screen is large and does and excellent job blocking out glare. The display is crystal clear and like said earlier the tv produces such rich beautiful colors and some very black blacks...and all with very little glare. Very smooth motion for sports or action flicks to round it out.
Overall the G25 is a top-notch tv with plenty of bells and whistles. One could go larger for the same price but will sacrifice many features that this tv provides. And I'm conviced that no other retailer could beat the price that Amazon sells this for. For a plasma or any tv for that matter at the $1600 price-point this is the tv to have.More detail ...
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