Panasonic’s TH-42PV80D is a 42-inch plasma display. It has a very neat look with no real standout attributes but everything looks put together well and with care. The front is finished in a smooth glossy black and the bezel isn’t too wide — it’s a suave looking display that will subtly attract attention.

And it’s built very well too. We were surprised to find a n SD memory card slot integrated into the front bezel and recessed under a cleverly designed, flush fitting tray that opens outwards. This means you can now access images taken with your camera by simply the card into the SD/MMC slot and view your images at a resolution of 1080p! There is also USB connect on the side of the display. The front panel also features an HDMI port and one composite connect. This is a great display with a superb contrast and great colours.

Once calibrated, we could not see any issues with colour or contrast 95 percent of the time. In fact our 1080p clips have not looked this good too often and there is absolutely no deficiency in the contrast that is noticeable by the naked eye. Colours are rich and vibrant but not unrealistically so and everything on-screen has a very life-like look to the colours.

It’s a superb display for movies and gaming of any sort. A pity that its text rendition using HDMI connectivity is not as good and text looks a little blurry around the edges and all fonts are rendered as well as we’d like. Hooking up this display via DSub reduced the issue with text to a great degree but doing this means going without the wonder of 1080p or 1080i — since 1920 x 1080 de-interlaced/progressive scanned is not supported via D-Sub connectivity. The price of the Viera TH-42PV80D is the killer — Rs 64,900 for a 42-inch display is good by anyone’s standards and superb for a really quality display.

In fact so impressed were the lot of us, that we awarded it our Digit Editor’s Choice. If you’re looking for excellent value for money and want something in the region of 42-inches for movie watching or gaming — this is the one to get.

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