Customer Reviews

Panasonic VIERA X1 Series TC-L26X1 26-Inch 720p LCD HDTV

5 star:		(160)
4 star:		(55)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

We replaced an 18 year old 27" CRT set with this one and it's a beauty. I am a TV news cameraman with thirty years in the business so I look at a lot of high end monitors at work.
When I went to the store I didn't expect to get a great set in this size and frankly 720P didn't excite me much either.
After looking at top tier sets from Sony, LG, Samsung, Toshiba and Mitsubishi I ended up on the Panasonic.
I was shocked at how good all the upper tier sets looked but the Panasonic seemed to have a little better detail down in the blacks and seemed to track highly detailed scenes with less digital noise than the others, but it was close accross the board.
The off air ATSC tuner is excellent and the set has all the inputs you could reasonably need. I do not intend to plug in an iPod so that wasn't a factor in my choice.
My DVD player is older and does not pass audio through the HDMI output so I connected it to the set via the component outs and I feel no need at all to upgrade to a BlueRay player. At this size this is a wonderful combination.
My general feeling is that if you watch a lot of HDTV that is live or tape such as sports then Panasonic flat screens just seem to pull a little more quality out of the signal. For movies it is more of a level playing field.
This is pretty subjective but it's how I see it.
It's amazing how far your money goes in this stuff anymore.

We have a 50" Sony SXRD Projection TV in which we paid over $5,000 for including the stand! I love the TV but when your Electricity bill is over $300.00, you need to find ways of cutting down on the utilities. Besides that, this TV needs to have its projection lamp replaced once a year at the cost of over $300! Even at discount places, this lamp is still over $250! Think about replacing that lamp every year. In no time, you would have spent enough to purchase a brand new 40 - 50 inch LCD TV. This Panasonic TV is not only smaller but Star Energy rated, so that should save some on the energy cost.

In the bedroom was an old Toshiba 13" CRT type TV and watching movies on it wasn't much fun, so what better time to replace the bedroom TV. Since I'm retired and have a limited income, my budget was under $350 and this fits the budget perfectly.

I read somewhere that the size of the TV one should buy should be based on the distance (in inches) from the TV to where you'll be sitting; divided by 2.5. After measuring the distance, I came up with 80", divided by 2.5 and it comes out to 32 inches. A 32" TV would have been perfect but too big for the stand I wanted it to sit on, so I settled for this TV and I'm a happy camper! Besides, it would have been beyond my budget! I do wonder however if this is just another advertising ploy to sell you a larger unit? I think that dividing the distance by 3 works out just as well.

In comparison, the Sony has a softer smoother image while the picture on this TV is more vivid and has more contrast. Having worked at a large Electronic Store, I have noticed that most people prefer a brighter more contrasting image when it comes to TVs and monitors. I still prefer the Sony because the picture (to me) is a bit more realistic but that's just a minor complaint.

One concern was choosing between a 1080P and 720P monitor. But from what I've been told, it makes a difference on a larger TV (40" or more), but not so much with the smaller screens. I tend to agree with that since it's all about the number of pixels (dots), the distance between each pixel and their size. Have you ever noticed on the old CRT TV's that the smaller the TV, the better the picture quality? That's because (without getting too technical) there's a set number of pixels horizontally and vertically on a CRT, and the smaller and closer the pixels are, the better the image. On the smaller screen size, the pixels are smaller and closer together which makes the images clearer. The number of pixels does make a difference, but only to a certain extent. It depends on the area to be filled. On this size TV, the 720P works very well and you won't see a major difference if it had 1080P.

Another concern was whether to purchase a new DVD player. Hooking up an old standard DVD player to an HDTV didn't make any sense. So I had to consider a Blu Ray or an up-converting DVD player. That was an easy decision since we have about 2000 standard DVD's. Replacing all those with the Blu Ray equivalent would get costly (about 10-20 grand), so an up converting DVD player was the obvious choice

So I purchased the Sony HDMI DVP NS710H up-converting player, and combined with this TV, works great! The picture is stunning and I couldn't be happier. No, it's not quite as good as having Blu Ray, but it does improve the image of a standard DVD considerably. However, the up-conversion only works if you hook it up via an HDMI cable. So please be aware of that!

You can hook your PC video output to this T.V. via a 15 pin VGA cable and the image looks fairly decent, but you may have to adjust the Horizontal and the Vertical positions on the TV, and the resolution on your graphics card as well. The native resolution for this T.V. is 1366 x 768, but you can try the different resolutions that your graphics card has to offer and find one to your liking. The process is fairly simple if you have the right cables and a 15 pin VGA output plug on your PC. However some of the newer graphics cards only have DVI outputs, so you will have to get a DVI to VGA converter. Right now, I have this set up to output my Netflix movies to this T.V.

(Addendum as of Jan 16, 2010) I now have a Roku HD player for watching Netflix and Amazon movies and it works wonderful. Now I don't have to mess around with flipping back and forth from Computer monitor to the T.V. It was becoming a pain and the PC is unusable while it was being used to stream in the movies. The only thing you should be aware of is that you NEED some kind of a router for it to access the internet and use HDMI cable instead of the provided composite cable for best results.

In regards to the poor viewing angle; It IS disturbing that the description of this TV states that the wide 178 degree viewing angle ensures clear images even when viewed from an angle. This is clearly not the case as far as my TV is concerned. Well maybe to their point of view, having a clear image versus a washed out image are two different things. However again, it's a minor complaint because how often are you going to watch it from the sides?

Picture Quality (when hooked up to Cable, DSL, Antenna)?
Excellent IF you're getting good reception from your provider. But keep in mind that if your reception is poor, this TV will NOT improve the image quality. In the copy world it's referred to as "Garbage In, Garbage Out". That simply means that if you try and copy an illegible image or text, don't expect the copier to suddenly make it clearer and sharper. I am not aware of any TV that has what may be called an "Image Clarifier" but may be possible in the future. But as of now we know that NOT all channels will come in clear, and so this TV will only output what's coming in.

Sound Volume? It has plenty for a bedroom. In fact, I had it on a little over halfway and my wife who was in another room downstairs asked me to turn the volume down. However, audio output is only 10 Watts (5W +5W) and the speakers are located underneath: to the left and to the right of the stand. So this TV is meant for a bedroom or a similar environment. It is not meant to be the main TV in a large room connected to a surround sound system. That, I have on my 50" Sony TV. It is also not meant for a noisy environment such as a garage while you're working on your table saw or doing laundry, or in a Kitchen while you're running the garbage disposal or the dishwasher. No, it's not meant to compete with other surrounding noises. So please keep that in mind when making your purchasing decision.

Outputting TV sound to a sound system or Speakers: It DOESN'T have a Headphone Jack, and please be aware that this can only be done via an OPTICAL cable. So whatever you're connecting it into must have an OPTICAL (Toslink) input. You can purchase a third party converter such as the GENFEN but be aware that there are two versions (The cheaper model does NOT convert Hi-Def (5-1 Dolby Surround Sound) audio. Another option is to purchase one of the Behringer MS### Speakers which has an Optical input.

The SD card viewer: Would have been nicer if they had a USB port instead where you can plug in a flash drive or an SD card reader. There are so many different types and sizes of SD cards that if you don't have the right size, it won't work. As an example, I have a Nikon D200 (uses an SD card) and an Olympus C3040 Camedia Camera (uses a Smartmedia card) and neither one will fit into the TV's card reader. I could purchase the right size SD card, insert it into my SD card reader and transfer pictures into it, but why go through the extra expense and effort?

The IPOD Docking Station: I don't have an IPOD, but I'm willing to bet that it's a nifty little feature that a lot of people can use. Lots of people out there with IPODS! I have the less expensive Sandisk for listening to music while I work outside or walk and it serves me well.

The Controller: Easy to read with LARGE LEGIBLE buttons for Old tired eyes like mine! Two of my favorites are LAST (to flip back and forth from the last channel watched) and MUTE (for those annoying commercials!)

I know that this has been a lenghty review, but I hope that I've given you enough information for you to make an intelligent purchasing decision. I love this TV and would highly recommend it for it's picture quality, stylish look and it wasn't too long ago that you couldn't touch an LCD T.V. like this at this price! AWESOME!

I just received this TV yesterday and all I can say so far is WOW!!!!

It is in our bedroom and looks great (picture and aesthetics wise). The iPod dock is also very nice. The sound is excellent for a small (?) TV.

One thing to note. Unless you are a magician, be sure to use long needle nose pliers to get the screws started into the stand/base when attaching it to the TV. Very hard to do with just a screw driver.

My only complaint so far is that the sleeper timer does not have a dedicated button on the remote. You have to go into 2 different menu screens to get to it. My way around that was to set each of the 5 timers the TV has so that each one goes off at 11pm Sunday night through Thursday night. This obviously is not an issue if you are using it somewhere other than a bedroom.

P.S. - Don't be swayed by the talk about size of your TV and the viewing distance. This 26" is a perfect size for our bedroom (sits on 5 drawer dresser about 12ft from my pillow). The charts for LCD TVs had me at a 42" minimum, which is not true IMHO.

Great TV, a nice replacement for a recently deceased Sony Trinitron (RIP, old friend). Setup was straightforward, all went smoothly once we got it put together.

Thanks to previous reviewers, I expected some issues with attaching the stand to the TV itself and was not disappointed. There are 4 short bolts that you have to insert, that connect the stand to the TV frame. The threaded holes for each bolt are at the end of a 1- to 2-inch deep (or so) tunnel in the back of the TV frame, so you can't get them started by just screwing them in with your fingers and finishing up with a screwdriver. The manual suggests that you do this by laying the TV screen-down on a towel, but (unless you have a magnetized phillips head screwdriver, maybe - I don't) the bolts just fall sideways off the screwdriver, down into the bottom of the well, with no easy way to get the bolts started in their holes. I have needle-nose pliers but they weren't useful - tunnels too narrow.

Instead, I started with the TV screen-down on a towel on a table, slid the stand into position in its slot on the frame, then carefully rotated the TV and stand upright. That way, I could use my "fat" phillips-head screwdriver to balance the bolt on the end of the screwdriver, and carefully insert the bolt on the tip of the screwdriver, horizontally into the tunnel. Even though you can't see where you're aiming, it wasn't hard to find the holes and all 4 went it quickly doing it that way.

The Panasonic TC-L26X1 LCD TV is a superb choice for an entry level 26" set. I ordered it from Amazon on June 2nd (free shipping) and received it on June 5th in excellent condition. Setup was a snap and the picture is great. Sound is so-so, but adequate for a small set. I hooked it up to a Samsung Home Theater and now the sound is fine. You should be aware, however, that the only audio out connection on this set is a Digital Audio Out port requiring a Digital Optical cable. This is only necessary if you want to connect the TV to a home theater or wireless headphones (also of the Digital Optical type). In addition, you can't find a better price than Amazon's. I tried Best Buy (they don't carry the model], and Bernies, who had it on sale for $499.99, but wouldn't come down on the price. All in all, a great set at a great price.

I needed a replacement TV in the kitchen and wanted a flat screen to save space. I ordered the TC-L26X1 as it was the largest that would fit in the space I had available. I've had the TV for about a month and I'm extremely pleased so far. The only reason I didn't rate it with 5 stars is due to the one con below. For some folks this will not be a factor, and truthfully it is not a significant factor for me either.

Pros:
- Outstanding OTA digital tuner (brings in two more channels than my Panasonic TH-42PZ700U)
- Excellent Picture
- IPod dock and on-screen interface is an extremely nice feature!
- Two HDMI inputs
- Digital audio output

Con:
- No RCA or headphone audio output. Not a big deal, but wanted to interface with a Bose Wave radio for better sound quality in the kitchen environment. The digital audio output would work great if I had a stereo receiver in the kitchen.

This TV is an excellent value and I would not hesitate to purchase the 26", 32" or 37" for a bedroom or small space environment. As usual Amazon provided an outstanding price and shipping service.

We spent weeks checking reviews, checking out actual sets in various stores and finally decided on a Panasonic, despite other brands (Sony and Sharp) being maybe $20 to $30 cheaper for this size (or close to it) during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.

I took friends and had them say what they liked best, without telling them what we liked. Three of the three people who traipsed thru stores picked the panasonic over the sony, sharp and toshiba models that were everywhere. It's all about what you see and it's always gonna be a crap shoot because as everyone will tell you, what you see in the store may not be the same as what you see at home, depending on cable provider/type of input, setup options, etc.

Ironically, everyone selling Panasonic has raised their prices in last week or two. (You could get the 32 inch for $399 or lower. THen it went back up to over $500. The 26 inch had reached a low of around $329 but then went back up to $400 and over for some merchants, with $349 being the lowest that we found, from Amazon.)

We had been considering a Hannspree 28 at $299, but not only could we not see it, the day we went to order, it was sold out everywhere. THat was the day when we looked at our old set and said: Enough already. 11 year-old Sharp had served us well (old CRT) but seriously, time to enter the LCD world. We could barely see the onscreen cable guide. It wasn't easy to bite the bullet when we needed a smaller set and the 32-inch models were so cheap. (But we have no room in our bedroom and it would have been a huge (no pun) mistake to get a 32 inch as we only have about 8 feet tops from the cabinet and our bed. And that's the ONLY place we could place it. Heck, this unit would be big in our living room. (City living but we actually have "large" rooms, they are just not wide rooms and that's where you get limits.)

The box did indeed have some bumps, etc on it and it made us a bit nervous that the Fed Ex guy did not have it on the cart the right way up (Why does no one look at the arrows on the boxes?)

But it seems to be intact.

Frankly, the interior packaging was worrisome. THese manufacturers don't seem to believe in any real padding or protection for these very delicate screens. I get junk stuff that costs nothing with more secure interior packing materials and real padding than this TV. (Panasonic: Pay attention!)

The trickiest part of assembly was the small screws that held the stand in place. It would have helped to have had a magnetized screwdriver because it took us a while to get each one in the proper way.

As others have noted, it's a very bare bones info for setup and we had it up and running in like 10 minutes (it took longer to move stuff to get at the back of our old TV and our TW cable box to unplug old set and its cable.)

Here's the best part for us, as Time Warner-dependent folks: The pix quality with just the regular cable input on back (and three component in connections) is fantastic. Which makes us wonder how astounding the HDMI will be (We would need a new box and we've heard about lots of problems with all of the HDMI-equipped boxes that Time Warner uses, which are all Scientific Atlanta (now Cisco?). Tons of online forums filled with complaints.)

We were concerned that pix quality would be compromised without another box. Now, we can wait. (And we'll see how HDMI works by connecting our new Sony laptop to the HDMI connection on the set.) We really don't want to mess with another box as we have lots of other stuff attached, including Slingbox.

Setup was fast. The options are relatively limited, but really, how much do you need if the pix looks good?

The onscreen setup is fairly intuitive (if you've ever used a cable company remote), so you can access features easily.

The two things we loved about this model were the iPod dock (for select iPods, nanos, touch and phones--don't waste your time calling the Apple stores. THey can't tell you which units work. They refer you to Panasonic.) because we have friends who have lots of stuff on their units and this is a quick way to share (video, photos). We haven't tested that yet.

The other feature is the easily accessed on left side SD card. We love this, especially for friends and family who want to share photos. Very quick and easy. Small lag time between accessing photos (their is a slideshow feature).
A word of caution: We don't know if it's just our unit, or all of them, but you have to be very careful taking the SD card out. It seems to stick and you have to try the in/out bit a few times and then gently pull it out. (This has never happened on our computer or our camera, so...)

My only gripes, as it is about all these models: Speakers should be upfront, not underneath, but sound quality is still more than OK. (We're not looking for theater quality in this size room.) And the bases should turn.

The other thing is this whole shiny black cabinet. HATE that quite frankly and it does pick up glare due to the windows and lights we have in the apartment.

But the viewing angles are good enough that we can watch the TV from the bathroom about 12 feet away and it's not all that bad in terms of color or "depth."

The DVDs (regular, not blue ray) we've played so far look outstanding. (Almost as great as they do on our Toshiba laptops, which have exceptional resolution. We often watch on the fly while traveling.)

One last thing: We could not mount this on a wall so it's on a stand that raises it so its now about 46 inches off the floor, which is maybe a foot or more higher than our bed. So we can't vouch for how it looks when you look "up" as you do with a wall mount.

All in all, we're pretty satisfied. Now, let's hope for some long-term reliability and several years of use out of this. (We're spoiled. We had Sony and Sharp units, big ones, over the years that each lasted over a decade. We had smaller models that lasted 15+ years! We're not big on buying just to have New New New.) Only time will tell.

FYI: I believe this model was one recommended by Consumer's Report.

I love this LCD TV. My Sony 21" tube TV of twenty plus years finally started to go out on me so it was more cost effective to buy a new LCD TV rather than fix the old Sony. The clarity of what HD channels I have on cable are wonderful. I have basic cable and most digital channels are converted down to analog but it still displays the analog channels fairly well. I've read most LCD's don't do a nice job with analog signals. The speakers are mounted underneath the TV but do sound surprisingly good. You can't expect home theater sound from any of these types of speakers or even much bass but voice clarity if great. I also looked at a equivalent Sony model in this range but settled on the Panasonic as it seemed to have more vivid color. The remote control is well laid out and does the job well. I won't be using the iPod dock and have no opinion on it but have used the SD memory card slot. The TV has built in software for the SD card for viewing digital photos and it displays photos well, of course this also depends on your camera as well. Can't go wrong with the Panasonic Viera TCL26X1 if your looking for a 26" for the bedroom or kitchen.

I've owned the TV for about 2 months. One thing to be aware of is that the viewing angle on this TV is very poor. I have it in my Kitchen and as soon as you get a few feet from straight on viewing you can see the picture start to fade. I can't believe no one else has mentioned this. If have to watch this from the side or below you would want to look for a different TV. Unfortunately i think most 26inch TVs have poor view angles. I have heard the LG is good. If I would have bought this at a local store i would have taken back because of the viewing angle. Otherwise seems like a nice TV and if you are viewing straight on has a good picture.

I bought this TV on Amazon.com. It arrived quickly and in perfect condition. I couldn't be more pleased. The iPod integration, which is an added bonus even works with my iPhone. It was disappointing that the movies and podcasts play in a small window - but they would look terrible if they went full screen, so I can't complain. I frequently use the dock just to recharge my phone overnight! I'm a very satisfied customer.