Panasonic VIERA TX-P42ST60B Pro Reviews

Don't be put off by the lack of glamour exhibited by the P42ST60's exterior: inside beats a home cinema heart of gold with levels of contrast, light uniformity and colour accuracy you get only with a Panasonic plasma. This is joined, moreover, by a good 3D performance, above average audio, and a brilliantly friendly smart TV interface. You could do even better if you step up to Panasonic's GT60 series, but if you can't find the extra £200 or so needed for that the P42ST60 really is excellent for its money. Especially if you can show it the respect of dimming your lights while you watch it. With the writing on the wall for Panasonic's plasma TVs, the P42ST60 provides a compelling reason for snapping up a prime sample of the TV tech while you still can.

The Panasonic ST60 might be a ‘last year’ in terms of its looks but it’s still a pleasant sight with a narrow black bezel wrapped up in a silver trim sitting atop a stylish metallic, swivelling base-stand. Connectivity options are decent with three HDMI ports to the side and Wi-Fi built-in. In fact the ST60B lacks very little from the more illustrious Viera plasmas, in terms of the Smart features on-board and can also boast a Web Browser, my Home Screen, Viera Remote 2 and a very decent media player amongst its suite of attractions. We did notice that the experience wasn’t as snappy – it isn’t equipped with the new Hexa Processor – but in day to day use, it proved a very adequate Smart TV.

The Panasonic TX-P42ST60 is another outstanding plasma TV which produces lush, vibrant image quality in normal living room and home cinema environments. For passive movie and television viewing, it doesn’t deviate from the winning formula of 2012′s ST50 series, and in fact improves on it by delivering even better contrast performance, with black depth that’s better still. Impressively neutral colours are present in the out-of-the-box “True Cinema” mode, and a worthwhile increase in accuracy is attainable if you have your ST60 calibrated using the extensive indepth setup controls. The 42ST60 also does away with one of the very mild video processing foibles we pointed out last year, and also now offers expert calibrators more control over the picture quality, for users who want to have their ST60s fine-tuned (which we absolutely recommend for an HDTV of this quality – it deserves it). Colour accuracy was statistically a small step back from last year’s ST50, but not to a visible extent.