Customer Reviews

Panasonic TH-37PX60U 37-Inch Plasma HDTV

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

So I bought this from Circuit City a month ago and I am so plaesed with this TV. It is replacing my old college TV (27" Zenith) and it is a night & day difference. Movies look awesome, it's so cool to watch widescreen movies without any letterbox - just clear picture from corner to corner.

I also have an xbox360 and the games look gorgeous on the screen. It really makes it a more enjoyable experience.

As for the components built in: HDTV tuner, 2 hdmi, 2 component, and analog as well. It comes with a stand which I use since my TV is in the corner of the room. Also comes with a mounting set up.

Cons:

There is a chance for burn-in, so you really have to be careful with turning the TV off when you leave & so on. That said, burn-in seems to go away if you don't leave the TV on for hours. For example, I was watching the Wolrd Cup on HD and for the rest of the day I had a little trace of the ABC logo and the scorecard. Nothing outrageous, but it is something you need to be careful about.


Overall, I think this is one of the better entertainment purchases I've made in a while. If you enjoy movies, HBO documentaries, etc you will be thrilled with the quality of this TV.

I've owned this TV for about 2 months - and I'm still bragging about it. You can't beat it for the price. It's one of the better quality plasmas on the market, so if you shop around and see something cheaper - make sure it's the same level of quality (chances are, it's not).

I'm using it with an xBox 360 (component - HD), cable box (component - HD), and Panasonic upconverting DVD player (HDMI). The picture from each is amazing.

I would recommend this TV to anyone - especially sports fans.

I have no electronic aptitude whatsoever, but had no problem setting this unit up right out of the box. Once I turned it on, I couldn't stop watching until way past my bedtime. The color and image quality are unbelievable. One of the best purchases I've made for my family in a long time. Highly recommended!

I have no complaints about the tv. Great price. However, getting the tv delivered was another story. This seller uses Eagle USA and it was the worst experience of my life. They were supposed to deliver it on a Tuesday between 9 & 1. At 12:15 they called to say they would be an hour and a half later than the time they promised delivery, meaning 2:30pm. I didn't have time to wait around so I rescheduled for Friday between 9 & 1. When I hadn't received anything by 1:30 on Friday, I called and found out it hadn't even been scheduled. I had now wasted 2 days waiting at home for no reason. They said they would deliver it the next day. I had to insist and speak to a manager to have it delivered that evening. They said it would arrive before 9pm. Yeah, right. At 7:30pm Eagle USA called and again asked if they could deliver it the next day because they were having problems. What a surprise. I said an emphatic, "No!" Finally, at 11:30pm that night, my tv arrived. Until this seller changes who they use for delivery, I would not purchase from them, unless you have a lot of time to waste sitting at home waiting for a delivery that may or may not arrive.

I needed a an HDTV that had more than one HDMI input and that would fit on my TV stand in my bedroom. I debated about getting this TV and looked and more expensive Sony 32 inch TVs and the Samsung 37. On a whim bought this TV and let me tell you I am extremely happy that I did. I have Dish Network HD and the HD channels play so clear its like you are there, Football on HD is amazing, its even better than if you were there in person. I have been watching HD channels I normally wouldn't watch just because I am blown away with the image quality. I can't imagine a better picture.

The multiple HDMI inputs allowed me to hook up the HD Dish box and my DVD receiver. Both the TV remote and my dish remote allow you to change the aspect ratio. Some non HD channels have a smaller picture leaving black bars on the side and/or top of the picture. You can stretch or zoom in on the picture to fill the screen. Even on non HD channels this TV plays better than my old TV.

My Dad has the 50 inch version of this TV and this 37 inch plays just as good or better. The larger TVs defnately don't play as well with on non-HD channels. Unless you don't mind the black bars.

I've owned this model for about 8 months, and it continues to work great.

I'd sat on the fence for a long time waiting for a flat-screen that I liked at a reasonable price. Prices have dropped quite a bit over the last 8 months since I got mine, but in case you're wondering, my criteria were: great HD picture (at least 720p/1080i capable), 37-inch widescreen or bigger, LCD or Plasma, built-in ATSC/NTSC/QAM tuners, under $2000 after tax, from a reputable brand company. This was the first model I found that nailed every category. (Since then, there are likely others that have dropped in price and would now qualify.) I have no regrets in buying this unit when I did.

Appearance: The unit is silver with a black border around the picture. At first I wasn't sure I'd like this, since I'd had mostly pure Black components leading up to this, but it really looks nice. Some people complain that the "duck foot" stand is ugly, but on my TV-stand it looks fine. I'm in the process of moving, and in my new home, I have a place I'm going to wall mount it, so the stand won't even be an issue.

Picture: Watching HD on this unit is amazing. The first time I saw an HD PBS broadcast, I was stunned. I kept it on that channel for several hours, sometimes flipping back to the SD version of that channel for comparison. The bright colors and vivid details in the scenery and art they were showing were completely eye-popping & mind-blowing. Like moving from dial-up to broadband, once you see HD, you never want to go back to SD signals. Up until I bought this, I thought I'd seen good HD signals on other HDTV's, but this one puts most of them to shame.

DVD's played from my few year-old Panasonic DVD player look equally amazing. Most SD signals from a cable source also look good. However, recorded SD signals from my TiVo sometimes look faded. I suspect the color loss is in-part due to my record quality settings or something in the TiVo's output, since I noticed this color dulling even on another TV, but to a lesser degree. For most TiVo viewing it's still good. Eventually, I hope to get some kind of HD recorder, but the price on those units is still prohibitively high for me.

Weight: The unit is fairly leight-weight for its size and is easy to move. It has built-in handles near the bottom for easy gripping.

Heat: Despite all the stories I'd heard about plasmas getting hot, this one doesn't seem to generate much heat. After several hours of operation, holding my hand against it on the back or top registers only mild warmth.

Value: I thought this was a fantastic deal when I got it for about $1800. As the price falls further and further, this is simply an amazing unit for the cost.

Tuners: If your local cable provider sends unscrambled HD signals down your cable, you need the QAM tuner to decode them. Don't let incompetent salespeople try to tell you otherwise. They'll often say the ATSC tuner is all you need to decode HD (it only does so for ones received via antenna), or they'll feed you some garbage about the QAM tuner only helping to clear up the HD picture. I have just the bare-bones basic cable ($16/mo) from Charter which is just major networks and not much else, but the QAM tuner lets me see all the major networks and some PBS stations in HD. IMHO, the QAM tuner is one of the most important options for any modern HDTV.

If there are any dings against this unit, it is within the tuner(s):

The initial channel scanning operation can take several minutes. With only one coax connector, this means there's no quick way to switch between an Over-the-Air antenna vs. Cable input. It would have been better if they had offered 2 Coax inputs on the back, one to recieve antenna signals and decode HD via the ATSC tuner, and then another one to receive cable and decode any HD stuff via QAM. Even if you use an A/B switchbox, each time you switch sources you will need to go back and let the TV rescan for the new channel sources.

When switching between SD channels and HD channels, it will end up with a brief flicker. At times, a top or bottom edge will end up with a persistent a flicker as well, but rotating all the way thru the aspect options (for example, rotate thru Full -> Just -> Zoom -> 4:3 -> back to Full) will nearly always cure this. Supposedly that flickering edge is usually due to a non-video portion of signal (audio, etc) at the edge of the picture not getting properly masked off. It's partly due to the way the cable company is encoding things, and partly due to how the TV decodes it. Apparently, other brands of HDTV's (especially certain Westinghouse models) have had an even bigger problem with this. Fortunately, that aspect rotate trick seems to cure it every time for me, but depending on your own cable company, it may be better or worse.

I also have to "flip" between two HD tuning modes. I suspect this may be due to the frequency ranges my cable company has chosen to use. The unit can see all the SD channels along with a subset of HD ranges: 2-1(pbs)/4-1(cbs)/5-1(abc)/5-2 or 2-1/10-1(nbc)/10-2/47-1(fox). To do the flip, I simply change to channel 105 which freq decodes/re-maps me to 4-1 and the first set of channels or channel 104 which freq decodes/re-maps me to 10-1 and that 2nd set of channels. I've spoken to a few other people and haven't gotten a straight answer as to whether it's something funky with the panasonic tuner, or if it's due to the way my cable company is using the channel frequencies. Either way, it's not a big problem. I tend to watch cbs & abc, so I rarely need to flip to the nbc/fox setup.

Despite those minor inconveniences (a couple of which may entirely be an issue with my cable company), I think this is a great HDTV for the price.

How do you rate a great TV that has a major design defect?? I gave it 3 stars but if I were rating just the picture quality I would give it 5, and if I were rating the build quality I would give it 1, so 3 is the average of the two ratings. Now, here's why:
FIRST THE GOOD: I spent many hours in a retail store comparing the picture of this Plasma set to the 32" LCD sets that are in the same price range (the Samsung, Panasonic and Sony were the best looking of the bunch). There are not too many other small Plasma sets to compare it against (the Toshiba 40" Plasma had terrible color rendition) and I do not have the space for a 42" Plasma, which is the entry size for most Plasma sets. Although LCD sets as a general rule are brighter than Plasma, the colors and black level of the Panasonic are superior. Also, the 'stretch' algorithm Panasonic employs allows you to watch SD (standard definition) shows in full screen mode instead of the 4:3 letter box mode (which puts the black bars on the sides). SD looks very good on this set, as compared to some LCD sets I have seen. And there doesnt appear to be much picture distortion on the Panasonic 37" Plasma when watching SD tv in full screen mode, and even if the picture is arguably more degraded (which I honestly don't see), to me that sacrifice is worth not having to watch with the black bars. Kudos to Panasonic for this great design, as lets face it, there still aren't many HD channels out there to watch yet, so you will be watching SD broadcasts for several years to come. I will say that the sound quality out of the TV speakers is only so-so and there isnt any bass to speak of, probably due to the thin cabinet design and lack of any bass sound chamber. This is not an issue, of course, if you are using the tv with a home theatre receiver.
NOW FOR THE BAD: the tv emits an annoying buzzing from the back of the set which can be heard when the volume level is even up to 11. I have this set in my bedroom and typically dont play it loud so there isnt any way to drown out the noise by turning it up - nor should I have to. The buzz is related to the transformer or a capacitor and gets more pronounced the more white is displayed on the screen. If you do a search on the internet, including at the avsforum website, you will see this seems to be a popular complaint with this set. I have already placed a call to Panasonic to have the tv set serviced. Hopefully it can be repaired. Other owners have written mixed answers about the issue. One said that the tech came out and claimed that if you sit 10 feet or closer that the buzz is normal to hear (which is ridiculous since it REALLY is annoying), while another said a tech told him if you hear it with the volume up more than a few notches then its definitely defective. I have not read yet of anyone that actually had the problem and had is succesfully repaired (most just took the set back and bought another brand) so I am a bit concerned. Frankly, its an annoying enough sound and defect that I would just return the TV altogether except for my space limitation and this Panasonic is the only 37" plasma around, and having seen it perform vs the LCD sets, I would prefer to stay with Plasma and the 5" larger size over the 32" LCDs. I will just hope the defect can be repaired. PROCEED with caution especially if you buy this TV online at Amazon as returns may be difficult.

I've had my TH-37PX60U for a couple of weeks now. I bought it because I read many enthusiastic reviews and very few negative reviews, and in particular Consumer Reports and [...] rated its 42" brother highly. I needed a panel that would fit in my cabinet. I was originally planning to buy an LCD, but when I was in the stores, I was impressed with the colors on the Panasonic plasmas. I recall seeing a cooking show, with someone doing barbeque outside, and the flesh tones and so forth were clearly better than the neighboring LCDs. Plus, the best LCD panels cost more than this panel.

Now that I have this in my house, I can confirm that when I am watching a decent HD show, the picture really is terrific. Rich, warm colors, nice blacks that make the image seem almost three-dimensional. My local PBS station shows three hours of HD programming every night, and many of these are absolutely beautiful on my TV. This is signal right off the air. The TV has a native resolution of 1024 by 720, a bit less than typical LCD panels (but the same as 42" plasma TVs), but the images on my TV are plenty sharp, I doubt I would see much more in 1080p.

But I do have some regrets. First, you have to be careful with aspect ratios and such when watching 4:3 material, or movies in 2.4:1 format, because you don't want to view things with sidebars or letterboxes because of the risk of burn-in. (Particularly in the "break-in" period of 100 hours.) So you find yourself switching modes a lot with non-HD sources. I've learned that you can zoom things a bit to get rid of letterbars on wide screen movies, and it has a nice "just" mode that stretches 4:3 material in a way that lessens distortion in the center of the image. (Zoom is adjustable, very handy.) If you wish to avoid this, and to watch things without any distortion or croppinig, you might be happier with an LCD.

The second regret is that my progressive scan, component output DVD player is very disappointing on this TV. Colors look lousy. I tried replacing the DVD player with one that upconverts and has HDMI output, which didn't seem to improve things much. I am not sure if this is inherent with the TV or just that I got a lousy player (or if there are settings that I had wrong on the player or TV). If you have a large DVD collection you might need to consider this.

My last regret is that plasmas have something called "edge-flicker". If you look at bright objects against dark backgrounds, and you move your eyes, you might see the flicker (with a hint of dull yellow or other color). The Panasonic support web site says this is normal. This isn't as bad as "rainbow sparkle" on DLP televisions (which I see loud and clear). I suspect few people notice it or care about it (I have reason to believe I am more sensitive to flicker than most people). If you are sensitive to flicker, perhaps LCD would be better.

I am writing the post a bit too late for most who purchased to take advantage of my advice, however, for the few that are still considering please weigh my experience when purchasing.

TV was purchased just over a year ago and am already on a quest for a new TV. What happened? My gripe come from what the technicians called a "panel malfunction" 3 days past the 1-year warranty.

I brought to Panasonic's attention and they said they couldn't help since it was just past the 1-year warranty. Eventually, I spoke with a reasonable service manager who decided to review the case and asked me to get a service estimate for consideration (see Panel Malfunction above).

I dropped off the TV and the estimate came back at $1,200 which the representative explained they wouldn't cover and am now eligible for a "reduced" TV from their lineup. I guess that's not too bad but now I have to fork over a few hundred (or thousand) more bucks on a brand for which I have almost lost all faith. Overall, customer service has been ok (we'll see about that "deal" they've promised).

Now, aside from the MAJOR disaster just weeks ago the whole experience of owning the TV was extremely stressful, mostly in the case of image burn-in.

I know people will tell you that plasma technology has improved and burn-in isn't quite the problem it used to be. Well, those people have been disillusioned from the beautiful picture quality these sets provide (I must admit, I went through 4 TV's before settling on this 37" set that has deep blacks and an overall incredible HD picture).

Unfortunately, after the Circuit City return period was over I started noticing some lingering burn-in tendencies. I realized that I couldn't watch any type of sporting event without switching channels every once in a while to refresh the screen. I don't know about you but if I'm watching something I'm interested in, the last thing I want to do is switch channels out of my burn-in fear. If I didn't I would get lingering box scores and logos for hours after the event. This is very frustrating and will genuinely piss you off when paying top dollar on a piece of electronics (it ruins the viewing experience completely). Maybe mine was a dud through-and-through but needed to make my experience know for your benefit.

Now that I'm on the market again, I'm going LCD and avoiding the burn-in issue altogether. What sucks is Panasonic only offers 32" as largest LCD, so I can't even use this as an opportunity to upgrade to 42"...so disappointing

Plasma = Stink
Do not use for Sports, News, Video Games, Computer Monitor
Great for Planet Earth

YMMV

I know a lot of people need to have the newest thing out there and they don't care how much it costs but for me I would rather get a slightly older yet still very fresh product for a bargain. I did a lot research when I was looking to upgrade to an HDTV and I saw this on costco.com for $899 so I came on here to check what the price was and to see if there were any reviews. As you can see, it was $200 cheaper there and it also has many great reviews so I called my local Costco to see if they had any in stock and they did so I went down there to check it out in person.

I got to the store and was looking at this TV and some other ones around that price range and this really stood out against the others as far as image, sound and value were concerned. I know it's an '06 model but like I said earlier that doesn't really concern me because it's still a great TV and something that will last me for years to come. I was also pleasantly surprised to find out when I checked out that it wasn't $899 but it was $849 which made it even better. The only thing that was difficult with this TV is the box is so big I had to unpack it to get into my car but the box is so well designed that it was really easy and wasn't hard at all.

I got it home and hooked it up to my cable box and immediately was amazed by the picture. It was clear and crisp and I didn't even have my HD DVR yet. As a reference, I went from a 25" Phillips TV to this this so it was still a nice change even without having the HD hooked up yet. I went the next night to pick up my HD cable box and couldn't wait to get it home and hooked up. After getting home it was really quite easy to hook everything up and having all the inputs that this TV does really makes it nice for adding other components down the road. Okay, so after hooking everything up I ventured to the HD channels and was just floored. I couldn't believe how amazing everything looked. I pretty much left it on Discovery HD for about an hour just because it looked so amazing.

After getting over the shock of how sweet the picture was I browsed through some of the other HD channels and then flipped back to MTV and it just looked awful compared to the HD channels. It makes you wonder how you survived this long watching regular TV but then you quickly jump back to the HD channels even if nothing really interesting is on because it just looks so much better. One of my favorite channels in HD is MHD which has programming from MTV, VH1 and CMT all in HD. Earlier tonight I was watching the Foo Fighters perform and it was cool seeing them in HD because they're probably my favorite band right now and it just blew me away. Also got to check out the VH1 Rock Honors shows in HD as well and I'm definitely hooked on HD that's for sure. The next step is getting a nice Surround Sound system but the built in speakers are actually really good so I'm not really in a hurry.

For me, this TV was a no brainer. I mean the price on here is great but to get it for another $250 cheaper made it so nice and I may even get another one down the road for my bedroom. If you want a great HDTV that has some great features and won't break the bank definitely check this one out. If you want something a little bigger they have some bigger screens too so you should be covered whatever size you need...