Have your say & ask the experts

I have been running my Sony Triniton CRT for 17 years but it's so good it refuses to break. However, it's time to move to something new and I am confined to the 37" market.

Can anyone tell me why, given that there are numerous 37" LCD tv's in the £600-£800 bracket receiving 5 stars (Sony W5500, Panasonic S10, Philips....), that I still find myelf drawn to the HD Ready Panasonic plasma X10.... which get some good reviews but only 4 stars and is less, at £500, than I have to spend. It just doesn't make any sense.... I've never had a plasma before so I'm not sure why I keep being drawn to it.

Can anyone give me a valid reason to rule the X10 out of my shortlist?

Please, my girlfiend is going to kill me. I simply can;t spend anymore time researching this!! 

There are better looking tvs out there. You seem to view the fact that it is priced lower than the other tvs as a negative, so in that spirit, the panasonic x10 can be bought online at amazon for about £440. As you point out, it's only HD Ready, not FullHD but other than that, it seems like a bargain, and it has an average 5 star score from 31 customer reviews on amazon's site.

If you haven't already seen the tvs in a shop, make sure you view them. You may find that you prefer LCDs over plasmas or vice versa. I wouldn't rule anything out prior to viewing the sort of content you'll be using on a couple of sets.

I know it can be a long process. Enjoy!

I spent a long time looking at the X10, but after I auditioned it I was only marginally impressed rather than blown away. For starters, the picture is quite soft on the X10. Then there's the issue of contrast levels -- even when the contrast was cranked up, the picture still seemed quite dull. You can definitely get better performance for a little more money -- the 37" X10 got a four star review in a WHF supertest this summer -- but it still seems like reasonable value for money, as long as you don't mind the fact that it isn't a 1080p set?

You don't really need 1080p on anything below 40" anyway.

More time spent with the set and playing with it's settings might be the winner for you. Plus it'll dpend on the source components being used - if you viewed it on the end of an average Bluray player, it's not going to help the panel shine.

What are you going to be watching?

  If it is mostly SD then you don’t need full HD, and anyway, sets under 40” you won’t notice the difference.

  In addition, many people have said that for SD TV The plasma you are looking at is much better than full HD tv’s anyway. If you are happy with Plasma over LCD (which I would be because I rate Plasma for fast action motion above LCD, and I think the colours are more natural.) then at the price I think you can’t go wrong.

EagsBeags:

I have been running my Sony Triniton CRT for 17 years but it's so good it refuses to break. However, it's time to move to something new and I am confined to the 37" market.

Can anyone tell me why, given that there are numerous 37" LCD tv's in the £600-£800 bracket receiving 5 stars (Sony W5500, Panasonic S10, Philips....), that I still find myelf drawn to the HD Ready Panasonic plasma X10

Because its very well priced, will show SD TV in the best possible light (for modern flat panels, but some will look very good indeed), and because it looks like what we all came to know and love as the best TVs - CRTs.