Panasonic VIERA TX-P50VT50B Pro Reviews

We'd say that Panasonic's even larger TX-P65VT50B takes the crown of the brand's - and the flatscreen TV industry's - king of plasma TVs. But at the arguably more important 50-inch size, this sumptuous Full HD plasma TV barely puts a foot wrong. Still, unless you're a perfectionist, it's worth considering a more affordable plasma, and buying the 3D glasses yourself - but stick with Panasonic and you'll retain the core brilliance of the Panasonic TX-P50VT50.

The Panasonic TX-P50VT50B is another outstanding Plasma television from the company’s 2012 lineup. It features the killer combination of outstandingly deep black levels, excellent screen uniformity, freedom from meaningful viewing angle limitations, natural colour, crisp, blur-free motion, and ultra-fast video gaming responsiveness. It also has a brilliant design that almost matches the thinness of poorer-performing LED-based LCD TVs, and a great lineup of internet connectivity and multimedia features. We’re glad to see that, as with the updated version of the VT30, Panasonic has avoided the “floating gamma” issue that we found on the first versions of the 2011 models (although calibrators should take care, because a much milder version of the same thing can be introduced with one of the calibration controls). Watching the best 2D Blu-ray Disc transfers on this Plasma HDTV was just breathtaking due to the nearly flawless image characteristics of the NeoPlasma panel. It does not present rock-solid accuracy, but the deficiencies are mostly at the level of being statistical rather than imposing an unwanted look on the picture.

The TX-P50VT50's fantastic image quality, excellent 3D and smart features makes it the ultimate TV

Panasonic’s flagship set delivers stellar performance in every area

It would be easy to make a case for the Panasonic VT50 as being the new Reference Television. It’s our belief that there is simply no other available that combines these incredible levels of dynamic range with such glorious colour reproduction and general excellence in video processing. Black levels are quite simply awesome and the VT50 is capable of hanging on to them when all else around is bright and colourful. For movie watching, the flagship Panasonic has no contemporary equal. But that’s not the whole story and it’s a shame we can only report minor improvements with 50Hz material over its predecessors. The fabled ‘50 Hz Bug’ is there and the observant will notice edge break-up on medium to fast panning shots but we were able to mitigate it somewhat by using the Intelligent Frame Creation feature. Some will also have problems with occasional instances of dynamic false contouring also, although in our experiences, this area of 50Hz processing has seen some improvements but this is largely a limitation of plasma technology. We accept that plasma images aren’t for everyone but it’s our firm belief that they still produce the finest pictures.