Should you buy the Panasonic Viera TC – P65S1?

Although not one of the best Viera models out there, the Panasonic Viera TC-P65S1 offers a lot for its price. Thinking of getting one? Read this first.

One of the best things about the Panasonic Viera TC-P65S1 is its black-level performance. In fact, the TC-P65S1’s innovative Neo PDP panel allows it to produce not only outstanding but infinite black levels that make the entire image look sharper and more eye-catching. The other colors are also highly saturated and generally accurate, with the greenish cast only noticeable to HDTV experts.

Another good thing about the TC-P65S1 is its wide viewing angle. This may be nothing new for a plasma HDTV; After all, Plasmas are well known for having wider viewing angles than rival LCD televisions. Still, this ensures that you get stunning images wherever you are sitting in the room, not just when you are directly in front of it.

You also won’t have to worry about blurring or any other motion artifacts on this rig, as it comes with a 600Hz subfield drive and revolutionary image analysis technology that offers excellent motion resolution, ensuring images stay sharp and clear when watching sports and thrillers. Overall, video processing is excellent, as each line of 1080p content is delivered while video-based sources are properly deinterlaced.

In addition to improving its contrast ratio, the Neo PDP panel that comes with this particular Viera model also improves screen brightness, an area in which LCD HDTVs are known to reign supreme, and more importantly, it reduces power consumption to about half. This makes the TC-P65S1 a very energy efficient plasma, although it could still use some power saving options as it still consumes more power than LCD HDTVs, which are widening the gap even more with their lighting. LED.

Connectivity is adequate too, though by no means extensive. While three HDMI inputs are provided, two on the back and one on the side, and two component video inputs, the analog audio output and VGA-style PC input commonly found on HDTVs are absent, which means that you will have to find a more difficult way to connect your computer to your HDTV. There is also no Ethernet port to connect to the internet, nor a USB port, but there is an SD card slot that allows you to share photos and videos from your phone and digital camera.

Another thing that the Panasonic Viera TC-P65S1 will be lacking is interactive features such as internet widgets found on many HDTVs or online video streaming capabilities. After all, it doesn’t have an Ethernet port. Although four adjustable picture modes are provided, the picture controls are also quite limited, with no gamma control or color management settings and the game mode is just another picture mode, which does not disable video processing or remove video. game controller lag.

On the other hand, you should be aware that the TC-P65S1 is relatively inexpensive, priced under $ 2,500 compared to the nearly $ 4,000 Viera TC-P65V10 or smaller-sized high-end models from other brands like Samsung. and Sony. So the Panasonic Viera TC-P65S1 lives up to its price, which is more than can be said for some HDTVs, so it is still a worthy, if not excellent, consideration for someone looking for excellent. image quality but on a fairly tight budget.