Panasonic TH-42PE30B

Looks great, but isn't what it could be

Panasonic's last stab at a 42-inch plasma panel was a rather good one, garnering a T3 Gold award when we drooled over it in issue 92. But plasma tellies have moved on a great deal since the blithe, carefree days of late 2003 - we've since been lavished with a superb range of digital video-supporting (DVI and HDMI) high-definition screens from the likes of Pioneer and Hitachi. Panny's newbie, then, needed to do a lot to earn a special place in our hearts.

It does have a couple of aces: first and foremost, a revamped design that's truly eye-catching. The average plasma looks nice enough to draw a few admiring glances from your mates, but this one is likely to have them scowling with envy, especially when it's mounted on its hefty curved stand (an extra £500). Particularly noteworthy is the way that the screen's frame "flows" directly into the columns of the stand - which sports a couple of large glass shelves to accommodate DVD, video recorder, games console and the like.

Features and functionality have also been cranked up a few notches over the model's predecessor. There's a Freeview digital TV tuner (supplementing a terrestrial analogue one) and front-mounted slots for both SD and PC cards that allow you to view digital snaps directly from your camera's memory card.

Oddly, Panasonic hasn't seen fit to make improvements over the slightly poor connectivity and display resolution of its last 42-inch plasma. The resolution remains at a decidedly non-high definition 852 x 480 pixels and there's no sign of an all-digital DVI or HDMI input, though an analogue PC input is provided.

Another thing that remains is the sky-high contrast ratio. It's a whopping 4,000:1, which means that Panasonic should remain the plasma brand of choice for those who want dark areas of the picture to maintain a modicum of definition. With most plasmas - even very good ones - maintaining contrast ratios of around 1,000:1, it's unusual to see things that should be black actually looking black. Not on this telly.

In truth, the new Viera screen isn't much of an improvement on the old TH-42PA20 (T3 92, 5/5). That's not really a bad thing, as that screen was pretty damn fine, but the new model doesn't really take advantage of the recent advances. As it stands, this is a well-designed, capable but slightly disappointing effort.

FEATURES:
42-inch widescreen. 852 x 480 resolution. 4,000:1 contrast ratio. 3 Scarts, 1 component video and 1 PC input.