Panasonic - VIERA / 46" Class / 720p / 600Hz / Plasma HDTV

I am writing this as an actual owner of this unit, unlike some recent "reviews" posted by people who admittedly don't own this set. Such reviews, cut and pasted from forums swarming with plasma-hating LCD fanboys, only serve to confuse and flat out mislead those of you considering this set. First, so you know where I'm coming from, I bought this unit a few months ago at regular price. Had I been able to purchase it for the current sale price (about $70 less than I paid), I would have been even happier but considering the size and performance of the Viera, I'm not complaining. I am not a video geek, who trolls the message boards reading up on the specs of the latest soon to be released tv. I am an average tv viewer who did a lot of research, including reading the reviews both here on Best Buy and a few other large online retailers. I decided that the Viera might be the tv I was looking for and Panasonic has been a reliable name in electronics for decades, so I felt comfortable in purchasing this tv. Here are the pros and cons of this tv, as related to my experience. I base this on a family of 4 watching several hours of tv per day at various times of day and night. The programming watched includes cartoons (Spongebob, Ni Hao Kai Lan, Family Guy etc), various sports (football, UFC, boxing, etc), movies (Netflix streaming, dvd, blu ray, cable). The Viera has looked fantastic with all of them. Pros: despite what seems to be the number one complaint about plasma tv's, screen glare, it isn't nearly as bad as I expected. And this is with 3 large windows right ajacent to the screen and a kitchen window facing directly at it. Even during mid day, there is only minimal glare with the blinds closed. The sound is better than expected. Again, after reading reviews by the video geeks, I was expecting audio that sounded like the actors were speaking into a tin can. While it isn't surround sound, the audio is clear and can get loud enough to fill a living room even with people talking using kitchen appliances nearby. The screen is nice and big. It looked ok in the store, but once I got it in my living the thing looks huge and after playing with the settings for literally a couple of minutes I was able to get a picture that rivals LCD and other plasma units that cost twice as much. Plenty of settings in the options menu to tweak the sound and picture to your taste. I find that either the Cinema or Vivid setting (with a little tweak to the brightness) works perfectly depending on the type of program you're watching. I've watched two of my favorite movies, Enter The Dragon and Rocky, and the Viera made them look better than I've ever seen. The pics attached were taken with a cell phone. The pic of Rocky is from a VHS video and the Enter The Dragon pic is from a standard dvd player that was connected via older composite cable, but even then the picture was great. I have since upgraded to a blu ray player with HDMI cable and the picture is even better. No motion blur that some of the LCD units have, and best of all, movies don't look like soap operas as is also the case with some LCD tvs. Now for the cons: The stand seems pretty flimsy. It installed easily and within a few minutes, but it feels loose on the stand. Those of you with small children may want to consider mounting it to the wall or at the very minimum watching your kids carefully around the tv, as it seems like it could pulled over with little effort. (To be fair, I looked at units from other manufacturers at the store and many of them had the same flimsy feel on their stand, so it's definitely something that all flat screen manufacturers could improve upon). Some of the cable channels don't look the best. I have Cox digital cable so it could just be poor signal. Other channels look great. Short delay in powering the tv on, and when switching inputs (say from dvd to cable, for example). Summary: If you're an average tv viewer, who watches a variety of programming and are looking for an easy to use tv, with great picture, I would say the Viera is a jack of all trades. I have no regrets about purchasing this tv.

This is a GREAT tv if you're not a snob. Some people get bogged down with techy specifics like refresh rates, 1080p, etc. Bottom line though is it just flat out looks good. I watch a ton of sports & movies and there's no problem with fast action. My buddy has a 52in Sony Bravia that he paid over $1,000 for, blacks are all blotchy and it looks bad. Buy this TV.

Since the dawn of HDTV and new TV's technology, I always thought PLASMA tech was the way to go, then LCD came around and debates began between those two. A few years later LCD got better and finally LED tech arrived to defend remaining LCD tech. Well, well well after I bought this model at BB, I only have to say, AGAIN, plasma should be the way to go...My dear BB reviewers the image on this model is way beyond crisp and beautiful. As far as I'm concern the feud beteween 720p and 1080p is overrated, believe me folks this model is as good as it gets, in fact the 3 models from this series 42" , 46" and 50" are just gorgeous. At first I wanted to get the 50" but the BB guy, nicely advised me about my viewing distance since I had about 9' to the TV set, therefore I got this 46" model, he couldn't be more right. This unit look humongous and perfect. I'm glad I bought it...!! A few more things... I don't know why so many complaints about the sound, I think it is great for a TV and finally, If you are getting any of these models it might be because you already switched to HD cable/satellite services, regular broadcast channels look awful...!! Pay attention to that issue.

To put my review into perspective let me preface by saying I currently own a 42" Viera 1080P S model and a 50" Viera 1080P U Model. They are both plasma. I am a big plasma fan and a big Panasonic fan. On Black Friday I was purchasing the 50" 1080P model to replace another set when I came across this 46" 720p model for $499 plus free shipping and 36 month interest free financing. I thought this was a pretty ridiculously low price and thought maybe I could put it in my bedroom to replace another older CRT. I was able to purchase online on Black Friday and not have to wait in line and with the purchase of the 50" I qualified for the free shipping and the 36 month interest free financing. A few days later both TV's arrived. The 50" is fantastic of course (read my review for it on another page). I was leary about the 46" 720p. The reason I decided that the 720 would be ok is that we only use the TV in our bedroof for watching news in the morning or watching news or late night shows before bed. We have a DVD player hooked up, but rarely use it. Basically there wasn't much of a need to pay the extra money for 1080p. We did want a nice size screen and the ability to mount on the wall and save some space after having the CRT I referenced. I'll segment my review in a few different areas. 1st the over the air HD channels are actually terrific. You can tell that the picture is not as clear as 1080, but it is still a very sharp bright picture. Impressive for 720. 2nd the non HD channels are basically exactly the same as any other TV's non-HD channels, not great, but still watchable. 3rd, with just DVD's the picture is actually outstanding. Again, not as good as Bluray with 1080p, but for several hundred dollars less and with us not using it much it was a very fair trade-off. The audio is of course lackluster, but for our purposes we didn't even hook up a sound system as the volume gets plenty loud for our use. If you would use this in a living room as a main TV, a secondary sound system is suggested. The TV was very easy to mount and has a pretty slim profile. Its not light, but certainly not bad for 2 people to lift and mount. I could digress about the glare of the Plasma, but everyone who is buying a TV of any kind should review the differences between Plasma, LCD, LED before buying. The glare is not a problem for us because we basically only watch in the morning and late at night with the lights off. I still prefer the Plasma color vs. any other. I would NOT suggest a 720P television as your main Movie/favorite TV show watching TV unless you are on a strict budget. Spend a little more money and buy a 1080P. I WOULD suggest this model as a secondary TV. As always, I would definitely suggest Panasonic for the price and quality. I have found Panasonic to be very reliable and will be my trusted TV brand until I have a problem with them.

I returned a 42" 1080p 120hz LCD cause I couldn't stand the "soap opera" effect it produced. This TV blew me away and I couldn't be happier For the same price i got 46" instead of 42" and the picture is 10x better. Sound is just fine for what it is. I had no use for 1080p anyways as I don't plan on hooking up a blu-ray to this TV, but the picture is amazing. I only made a few small adjustments from the factory settings and was like WOW, thats what I'm talking about! Highly recommend using the cinema setting and adjust from there. This TV isn't loaded with features that some others have but gave me what I needed at an affordable price. If I had to pick something to dislike at all, it would be the glossy screen, but I knew that going in. Some plasma's have an anti-reflective filter on them, but this one doesn't, its full on glare if you have a brightly lit room. BUT to be honest its more noticeable when the TV is off than when its on. When watching football I hardly even notice it. If your contemplating LCD vs Plasma like I was, in my mind there is no comparison anymore. If experienced both and plasma is the way to go!

I've been using regular old tube tvs since I was a kid. The Sony I've had for over 15 years is still going strong, but I decided to finally upgrade to a flat panel with a larger display. I settled on the Viera 46" after going to several retail stores and looking at Plasma, LCD, and DLP sets in a variety of price ranges. For the money, the Viera can't be beat in my opinion. 46" is a nice size for most living rooms and from what I could see in the store, not that much of a difference from the 50" yet you save enough coin to put towards a blu ray player or video game. After having watched movies, cable tv programming, and gaming (Modern Warfare and Left For Dead 2 look awesome on this set!), I have zero doubt that I made the right decision in buying this tv. After raving about it to a few coworkers, one of them bought it on sale this week and he can't believe the great picture. As the Viera proves, you no longer have to spend a huge amount of money to get a good tv. As for those on the fence and worried about burn in, i have noticed none so far and this unit does have a screensaver. But use a little common sense and it shouldn't be an issue with any plasma: if you have to pause a game or movie for more than a few minutes, just turn the tv off until you're ready to resume. Oh and like others have said, the sound isn't high fidelity surround sound but it's pretty good. A Best Buy salesperson even tried to convince me that the sound would suck, but I'm glad I actually waited before buying a sound bar because I don't even need one.

I have had this set probably longer than anyone, I pre-ordered it before it's release, and received it as soon as it was available to the public, I love this set more everyday, the colors, fidelity, and depth of the picture is memorizing, I own lcd sets, and they just don't compare to plasma, although I haven't really looked at the LED's much. This plasma panel offers such a smooth fluid beautiful picture in both broadcast, dvd, and amazingly stunning blu-ray. This set gives the picture of a set that costs many times as much, forget lcd, forget 1080p the price on this set is unbelievable, you could easily spend twice as much and get an inferior tv, get this set and use your savings for a blu-ray player and blu-ray collection, and a subscription to netflix, anyone who gives a bad review on this set either doesn't own it, didn't set it up properly, or got a freak lemon or something, This is an Awesome set.

Tony seems to have an agenda, this $499 has no blur on NFL or auto racing footage over cable TV. i've seen blur on LCD TVs that cost more than twice as much. on Australian Open coverage, you can see the pores and even the downy hairs on the womens faces. i don't know the technical specifics of how Panasonic does their 720p plasmas, but this is HD, and compares to anything i've seen at friends houses w/ their $2000 Sony Bravia LCDs, etc. DVDs are also great, i use Cinema mode adjusted for all viewing. i should have got the 50" but i'm really happy w/ the 46". ALSO, everyone who has come over and seen it in action, esp on NFL games, has commented on how beautiful the picture is. Zero complaints or suggestions that i should have got another model. also, if you have a Panasonic DVD recorder, it automatically switches picture (video input) to the recorder when you press play. Nice how the Viera senses that