Well after cursing flops for mentioning the size difference in 32" and 42" I spent ages dithering about what size tv to buy. Eventually I cut a sheet of old ply into 32" and 42" tv sized shapes and studied them in situ.The 42" looked pretty darn big compared to me old tv.
So I took meself of to various dealers and had a look at the real thing. This did not help much as they all looked ten times better than me old tv. The Sony did look very neat but then again so did the Panny.
I spent nearly a fortnight arguing with me Scrooge side trying to talk meself into buying the 42" as they were a good £150ish more than a 32".Which was lucky really as whilst I was wrestling with the thought of spending loads of loot the price dropped by £30 on my final choice.
Which was, ta da,
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/panasonic-tx-l42e6b-201303102720.htm
The 42" Panasonic TX-L42E6B.
An boy am I glad flops threw in the size conundrum as I would never have considered buying a 42" due to the cost.
So thanks flops for making me have a think
The picture quality is to me simply stunning. That is for SD, HD dvd's and content downloaded in various formats. I am mainly just using the pre sets at the moment and have only had a little tweak here and there. Sound is ok for me, certainly loud enough. I'll probably try to run it through my sound system at some stage, maybe just for movies and music vids. I may try out me HDR 170 cans at some stage too.
Disappointingly internet though easy to set up was not a resounding sucess due to a really crappy speed. The BBC iPlayer worked well until trying to run any content which showed up well but very jerkily just as on the pc. Unlike the pc leaving content paused only resulted in filling up the on board memory very quickly. As a result playing again only gave two minutes worth of smooth playback then jerk jerk jerk again.
This was not totally unexpected. On line chess played ok, one of the news apps had perfectly smooth playback and I could surf various sites with the browser in a usable fashion ish. So Smart tv here in the sticks will have to wait for a few years.
Gaming had to wait for the arrival of a cheap £5.24 8M HDIM cable.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gold-Plat...0M-/230768050475?ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:GB:3160
Which I thought was as cheap as chips. I also bought three short usb cables to use in the tv ports. Partly to save on wear and tear on the sockets and mainly as the usb sockets are a pain to use. Not at all like the ports on me mums Panny. Same can be said about the remote, me mums is great to use and this one has everything squashed into what sees like a slimmer remote. My stubby fingers keep overlapping the controls I am after and pressing on adjoining control. Which is darn frustrating, stil it is nothing a bit of creative sugaru modelling won't solve.
Ah ha, I was getting around to telling you about gaming wasn't I. Not much to say really. Cable plugged into me GT460 easily and Windows 7 recognised the tv straight away and of I went after setting the desktop to show on both screens. Keyboard worked just fine as did me mini Cyber Snipa keyboard aswell as the good ol Dominatrix mouse. No lag as far as I could tell. The mouse seemed just as responsive as it does on the pc. So I tried a few games out an I can tell you that CoD4, Just Cause, Alice Returns, Wallace and Grommit, Mass Effect, Rock of Ages and The Walking dead all seem to play fine and dandy. As far as I can tell that is after only half an hour or so with each game. Apart from CoD which I played for a couple of hours, it was such good fun. All in all I'm blown away by the gaming experience.
I still have to get properly set up but I can see that this is going to be one heck of a good winter here in the wild.
Did I say I am blown away by the quality of the pictures and the gaming ? Well I am.
TV was £499 from the Panasonic Store in Harrogate with a 5 year on site repair guarantee. So no taking the set back to the shop etc. Works out, with £5.24 HDIM and £1.76 2 x usb cables, a whopping £1.9461538461538461 per week over the five years. Cheap as chips.
Still, worth checking out.