A (long) flat-panel walk through at Best Buy

Tags: HDTV, Plasma

After experiencing about 100 different plasma displays at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, I thought I would visit my local Best Buy and play the analyst again to see what the plasma buying experience is at retail. After all, plasma prices have already declined about 10-15% this year, and the expectation is that they will be down about 30% by Christmas. Like nearly everyone who is interested in the topic, I've read all the Internet material I can, including the AVS forums on flat panels, but I wanted to see some images with my own eyes.

Some calibration of me as a TV customer. My current TV is a 25" 1986 Sony XBR CRT, which was a very high quality monitor in its day, but is now approaching 20 years old and is not HD-capable. My current home computer display is a 22" Apple Cinema LCD display (yes, my computer display is nearly as big as my TV). On the TV front, I do own a TiVo box and digital cable. So I'm ripe for an upgrade to something gorgeous and flat, wallet permitting.

Now a caveat about evaluating TVs in retail. There's a psychological effect that most retail stores try to capitalize on which is that buyers will be drawn to the brightest picture they see. Therefore, almost all TVs in stores are in what is called "torch" mode. That is, they have their brightness, contrast, and color controls set for maximum attraction. Unfortunately, these settings typically create some of the worst pictures. So many retail environments are probably the worst places to evaluate flat planels.

And here are my quick reactions from my first flat panel shopping expedition.

• All of the flat panels looked amazing compared to what I am currently used to. It took probably five minutes for me to desensitize my eyes from HDTV dazzlement. Watching 20 or 30 high definition streams -- which by my judgement were mostly 720p -- just made me go "Wow" for a while, but not think critically. But after about five minutes of being dazzled, I could finally start seeing differences among the displays. Keep that in mind if you go shopping; let yourself get acclimated before you start evaluating.
  


• My favorites were Panasonics, Pioneer, and Sony. My favorite true HDTVs were 1) the 50" Panasonic TH-50PX50U (about $5K), 2) a 43" Pioneer PDP-4351HD (about $5.2K), and 42" and 50" Sonys (their XS955 series) which were even more. (I think they were $5.5 and $6.6K). I also liked the Philips 42PF9966 with Ambilight ($3.3K). All felt like they would be wonderful TVs to put in the family room, but all had different strengths.


• EDTV is quite good. The Panasonic 42" TH-42PD50U EDTV was one of the panels I had wanted to compare, simply because it is not a true HDTV. This EDTV has a resolution of 852x480, but will accept any digital HDTV signal. AT first blush, it looked great. And why not -- conventional wisdom is that EDTV is about 90% as good as full HDTV. But after staring for a while at a distance of six feet, I could start to see the screen door effect (SDE) from the large pixels (i.e., if you sit too close to an EDTV, it is like watching TV through a screen door). I could also see the "jaggies" effect of not having enough resolution on letters and logos. Interesting. it's not a profound problem; in fact, compared to my current TV, it would be great. But given the changes coming in HDTV, an EDTV is really a 2-5 year investment rather than something you'd want to keep forever. Still, for someone who is constrained by budget, this is a great way to gain a flat panel experience for viewing standard TV and DVDs, and most people would think it was HDTV.


• A 50 inch TV is much bigger than I thought. One of my favorite TVs was the Panasonic 50", but gosh, it looked like a monster; a 50 inch TV feel HUGE when you are used to watching a 25 inch one. The 50" Panasonic TH-50PX50U is considered to be the best bang for the buck, but the one I looked at had some odd "clay-face" gray scale artifacts -- cases where what should have been continuous shades turned into polygons because of not enough bits in the color. Panasonics are supposed to not exhibit that effect at all, and yet it was the worst of the bunch, even though it was perhaps also the sharpest TV in terms of detail. This was almost certainly a case of a set not being properly calibrated for best picture.


• Pioneer was good, but expensive. The Pioneer PDP-4351HD I liked a lot because it has a softer more vibrant picture than the Panasonic. And since it was a 43-inch panel, it appeared sharper. No real criticism of it other than the price: about $5.2K.


• The Sony's were elegant -- and even more expensive. The Sony KDE-42XS955 ($5.5K) and KDE-50XS955 ($6.5K) (why can't manufacturer's use names -- or at least shorter numbers) were both lovely as well. The general consensus is that they make a lovely panel but then overprice it. That is possibly true, but they do a great job on style and ergonomics. I loved the little spot-lighted Sony logos....


• I couldn't properly evaluate the Philips. They did have the Philips 42PF9966 with Ambilight, but I couldn't do a direct comparison with the other panels though because it was on a different aisle, next to the EDTVs. The Ambilight is a very clever idea because it improves their black perception by raising the ambient light. But because it was separated, it was very hard to evaluate objectively.

So what are my takeaways from this first retail shopping trip? I had three.

1. Flat panels are very hard to resist. It took most of my will power to keep my plastic in my wallet. And why not? Even EDTV flat panels have nearly twice the vertical resolution as my old Sony CRT. Just like color TV was the aspirational product of the 1960s -- everyone and their brother wanted one and saved their pennies to buy one -- I believe flat panels will be the aspirational product of the 2000s.


2. I'm also still fairly interested in the Panasonics, both the industrial versions (which aren't sold at Best Buy) and the consumer products. They are cheaper than the consumer versions, and are supposed to be great. Their reputation for having great bang for the buck remains, even after seeing the 50 inch panel that was poorly adjusted. But I wouldn't be able to buy one until I had seen one properly set up.


3. I was surprised at how much I liked the Sonys. I started this quest thinking I wanted a 42" Sony KDE-42XBR950 (the 42 inch luxury Sony panel) to replace my current XBR. Online, these panels have a reputation for being OK, but way overpriced. But even with the more mainstream XS955 line, they just look cool, and their picture quality was still first rate. So I'm back to my standard model of consumer electronics: there is no free lunch. You pay more, you get more. Simple story. We use Apple products here at Blackfriars because they look great, work well, and yes, they cost a little more. There's no reason that flat panels should be any different.