Panasonic TC-P60S30

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Panasonic

Typical Price:

Overview

CNET Editors' Rating: 0.0 / 5

Design, Features & Performance (out of 10)

Review

Basic Specs

User Reviews

Average User Rating: 0.0 / 5

User Rating Breakdown

5 Star: 1

4 Star: 1

3 Star: 0

2 Star: 1

1 Star: 1

Not at all thrilled with this TV.

Rating: 2 / 5

on March 16, 2012

0 out of 0 users found this review helpful

Pros: Great Price - Purchased for $898.00 with a $100 3 year extended warranty from WalMart.
60" Screen size has me spoiled.
Viera Link works with my Panasonic Bluray player.

Cons: Substandard picture quality.
Picture is way too dark, even at the brightest settings, and in a dimly lit room. Panasonic says this is normal.
WiFi dongle, which must be purchased separately for $50 was extremely slow and constantly drops connection.

Summary: I've owned this set for nearly two months, which replaced my 50" Samsung plasma that eventually died. I also still own two 40" off brand LCD TV's, all of which have much better picture quality than this Panasonic TC-P60S30. The HD picture quality is substandard on this set. Not as crisp and detailed as my other sets. The worse part is the overall extremely dark picture. I realize plasma TV's aren't as bright and vivid as LCD TV's, but this set is ridiculously dark. My Samsung plasma had an awesome and bright picture, as do both of my LCD TV's. With the Panasonic TC-P60S30, I thought I had a defective set, so Panasonic sent out a tech who replaced the processor board, which did absolutely nothing to improve the picture. The tech informed me this is normal with Panasonic TV's to obtain "their great black levels."

Yes the blacks are black, but all of the colors are pretty drab, and it even makes the whites somewhat grey. If you've ever owned one of the older tube TV's and had it long enough for the picture tube to start going bad, which usually took 10 or 15 years until is gradually started to become darker and darker to the point it became dark enough to be completely annoying and you finally had to replace it, that's what this TV looks like brand new. Nothing pops at all, and it always seems like there is something really wrong with the screen's lighting. It's like watching a very cloudy winter late afternoon through a dusty window (no exaggeration). Look at this set next to all the others at your local BestBuy or wherever you can find them displayed, and you'll see, it's the darkest and most drab picture in the entire store.

I've also noticed, this set's "awesome black levels" really just black out the darker areas of the picture. In stead of shadows where you can still see the details of what's inside the shadows, you get blacked out areas, and you completely lose the details that should be there. I can watch a Bluray on either of my other sets and see all those details and pieces of the picture that are completely blacked out on this Panasonic set. There are very few picture adjustments. I'm told the ST30 and GT30 models have many more adjustments, but this one lacks all of those. In the end, thank goodness WalMart has a 90 day return policy. Yes, I got an awesome deal on a 60" TV, but the point is to enjoy watching it. I find watching this set, for the most part, actually kind of annoying, and will definitely be returning it.

Great value, nice screen size, lots of settings

Rating: 3.5 / 5

on February 14, 2012

0 out of 0 users found this review helpful

Pros: The price was great. It has hdmi and component inputs that other HDTV's don't these days. I like the remote and the Vieralink to control my blueray player. Lots of options, good for me, a con for my wife.

Cons: The biggest con so far had been flipping from one input to another (ie blueray to dish to roku). Each input keeps its own settings for some things, but the aspect seems to never look quite right. I eventually figure it out, but it is a lot of work.

Summary: This is my first HDTV. I think that it was a great value, I paid $899 at best buy with free shipping. It has a lot of nice features, but a lot of tweeking is required to get each peripheral device setting to look good just to have it change each time you come back.
I wish it was a little smarter to self adjust. I also end up watching a lot of programs in 480 resolution for some reason. I expected more 1080 or at least 720 resolution. I guess that I will just need to upgrade my programming.
Finally the speakers are pretty weak, I am either straining to hear the dialog, or I am blown away by the background noise on action scenes.
Again great value, huge screen, great functionality if you are willing to put in the time to sort them all out.

Just got mine and I love it. The picture is beautiful.

Rating: 5 / 5

on December 29, 2011

0 out of 0 users found this review helpful

Pros: Price was great and at 60 inches the picture is huge. I can't wait to watch the Superbowl on this thing. I splurged for a nice surround sound system and the cinematic experience is awesome.

Cons: Haven't found any yet.

Summary: I didn't intend to buy a TV this big but it was a deal I couldn't pass up.

Had TV for 3 days and screen cracked big time

Rating: 0.5 / 5

on August 8, 2011

0 out of 2 users found this review helpful

Pros: Never got a chance to use

Cons: Are plasmas prone to internal screen cracks?

Summary: I bought the TV on line through Sears. Brought it home, inspected it and let it set in the box bottom while I waited for the stand to arrive to mount it. On the 3rd day, I noticed a huge crack on the internal screen. The crack started on the lower right side and went all the way to the top left side like a semi-circle. Near that crack was 4-5 diagonal cracks to the left of the big crack. Did research on line and found problems with consumers where internal screen cracks for no reason. Theory is that the manufacturers have stress related micro cracks similar to a windshield and heat and cool causes cracks to propagate. Maybe in my case, the TV was in a hot warehouse,and cracked when the AC cooled it off??

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