Panasonic VIERA TX-L42ET50B Pro Reviews

The Panasonic TX-L42ET50B is a beautifully designed LED LCD TV with good picture performance and a great lineup of “Smart TV” internet features. Its key strengths and weaknesses are completely predictable for an LCD television using the IPS panel type – although the viewing angle performance is better than many LCD competitors, black levels are not a strong point of this technology, meaning that instead of absolute darkness, the ET50 can instead only display a dark greyish-purple shade. However, the TX-L42ET50 has enough strengths in other areas for it to justify its existence in the marketplace. Compared to the LED LCD competition, it performed very well with regards to screen uniformity, with only a mild “mottled” effect visible with test screens, and basically no screen unevenness apparent with real-world content, meaning that it avoided the common edge-lit LED LCD flaw where the sides of the image appear brighter than the middle. And like all of the LED LCD TVs we’ve reviewed, it can produce a great amount of light in return for incredibly low power consumption, making it a good choice for exceptionally bright, sun-filled rooms. Its out-of-the-box picture accuracy was serviceable, and after calibration it was brought up another level – although nearly every name-brand HDTV on the market now does well in these areas, meaning these achievements aren’t unique.

If you’re not one of those that likes to watch with the lights down low, the Panasonic ET5 will make a fine choice. In fact, if you’re requirements are for a 3DTV in a family room, we can think of few better. The ET5 is pretty much what we’ve come to expect from an IPS based LED TV, the black levels and contrast won’t leave you agog, motion clarity can be bettered and there are some mild, but nagging, uniformity issues. That’s the bad. The positives are bright and accurate images, generous viewing angles, an absolute wealth of features and the 3D performance, which is gloriously bright, crosstalk and flicker free plus detailed, to boot. There’s Wi-Fi built in as well, which makes accessing all the connected features the ET5 possesses that much easier with the highlights being the new Web Browser, lots of Video on Demand Services and capable DLNA streaming of media files. It’s not going to knock the socks off the videophiles amongst us but the Panasonic ET5 still delivers on a lot of fronts.

3D is an expensive luxury on this, Panasonic's biggest ever Edge LED TV. It may have sacrificed plasma at this living room-friendly size, but its love of active shutter 3D tech refuses to budge. That's a strange move that leaves the Panasonic TX-L42ET50B neither a slim and cheap option nor a high-end home cinema screen, although at its best it's just capable of surviving in either environment.