[DEAD] 50" Panasonic Plasma + Xbox 360 $849 at BestBuy

tylerh1701

tylerh1701

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I went and picked one up yesterday, I thought it was a pretty good deal, so I thought I would share.

Panasonic Viera 50" Plasma 1080p 3D Smart TV (wifi ready, not built in) for $849.99, and you get a free 250GB Xbox 360.

The TV has gotten really good review from CNET as a "great bang for your buck" TV.

Online it's showing $899.99, but in store and in the ad it says $849.99.

Just thought I'd share in case anybody else was in the market for a new TV. I haven't seen it lower than $850 (that's how much it is on Amazon right now).

EDIT: Posted at the bottom my initial impressions.
 
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Anyway you can tell me what the price of the TV it self was listed for on your receipt? I bought this TV at the end of July when it was $899.99 with a free soundbar. And I ended getting them to sale me a 3D Blu-ray player at half price to close the deal. But on my receipt the TV is listed at $785.00 because of the free soundbar. If yours is listed lower than that I can get the differece back still on a gift card.
 
[quote name='Mako1215']Damn. I would totally grab that, and sell the 360 if I had the money to buy that.[/QUOTE]

That's my plan. Altho I may upgrade to the 250gb and sell my old 120gb fat, haven't decided yet.
 
Just being a plasma set kills this. God forbid you pause live tv, a game, or even a movie playing on it for an extended time, cause you'll get an image burn on the screen. Worse could probably happen. Anyway for an idea of what I'm talking about check the amazon reviews. 14 out of 50 who bought it rated it 4 stars or less, 9 of those being rated 3 stars or less. I havent read any of the reviews, but with the numbers speaking for themselves I'd steer clear of that set.

Same set on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-VIE...?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0
 
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I believe there is a setting now that gets rid of burn in images.

Plus from what I've heard they've improved on that and it's not as bad as it used to be.
 
[quote name='Mako1215']I believe there is a setting now that gets rid of burn in images.

Plus from what I've heard they've improved on that and it's not as bad as it used to be.[/QUOTE]


I'd just stay away from it. I actually took the time to read a couple negative reviews. Some claiming this particular set will die early, or just after the warranty period. There's a couple other reviews noting other less than desireable effects of the tv. Not being bright enough, to Panasonics crap customer service when trying to send the thing back under warranty.
 
Oh I understand there's some great tv sets they make, but I've never cared much for plasmas. If this deal were for a reasonably good brand LCD I'd do the same as you would. Sell off the 360. However my plans are just to wait til my cable subscription is up in 2013, and get a new plan to take advantage of a promo offer. I took advantage of Verizons Holiday promo last year for the $300 pre-paid debit card. Anyways from there I'd get a LED around this size with the same specs to replace my current media tv. My only problem is I'd have to find a set with 2 component outs, and 3 HDMI out connections, cause all my gaming systems, and movie players are played over those types of cables.
 
[quote name='aeroforce325']Just being a plasma set kills this. God forbid you pause live tv, a game, or even a movie playing on it for an extended time, cause you'll get an image burn on the screen. Worse could probably happen. Anyway for an idea of what I'm talking about check the amazon reviews. 14 out of 50 who bought it rated it 4 stars or less, 9 of those being rated 3 stars or less. I havent read any of the reviews, but with the numbers speaking for themselves I'd steer clear of that set.

Same set on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-VIE...?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0[/QUOTE]

Not trying to start a flame war here but the issue you're referring to is called image retention. Burn-in is when the image is literally etched into tv screen (you're able to see it even when the TV is off).

While a buyer does need to take IR into account when purchasing a plasma, there are also positive benefits for gaming (such as a very high refresh rate)
 
[quote name='aeroforce325']Just being a plasma set kills this. God forbid you pause live tv, a game, or even a movie playing on it for an extended time, cause you'll get an image burn on the screen. Worse could probably happen. Anyway for an idea of what I'm talking about check the amazon reviews. 14 out of 50 who bought it rated it 4 stars or less, 9 of those being rated 3 stars or less. I havent read any of the reviews, but with the numbers speaking for themselves I'd steer clear of that set.

Same set on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-VIE...?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0[/QUOTE]
Panasonic plasma's are the best bang for the buck in terms of image quality on the market today, the only LCD in its class is the $6000 Sharp Elite. Motion resolution, color accuracy, blacks, extremely low input lag, nothing will touch a plasma in those areas until OLED's come out.

Burn in and non square pixels are things they overcame 5 years ago. Plasmas do still have image retention and you must be super fucking careful in the first 200 hours during the break in period, but after that as long as the HUD isn't the only thing ever on that screen you should be OK. I've had my Plasma for a year, I tend to play the same game for long periods of time and I haven't had any issues. But I also watch a lot of TV on it and I'm not dumb enough to leave static images on it for long periods of time or watch 4:3 content with black bars all day. You can fuck up a plasma if you're stupid, I wouldn't trust kids with it but all you need to do is maintain the slightest amount of awareness and you'll be fine.

http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/panasonic-tc-p50ut50/4505-6482_7-35153392.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/panasonic-tc-p50st50/4505-6482_7-35117941.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33199_...50-vs-sharp-elite-pro-how-much-would-you-pay/
 
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So far I've really enjoyed the TV. The picture looks great, the 3D was good (it's the first time I've used a 3D TV so my opinion doesn't count for much there), and the speakers are even pretty sweet. I was able to unload the new Xbox for $220, so it made my total purchase price for the TV $689.90 ($909.90 after taxes - $220) (EDIT: Oh, and I'll get a $15 Rewards Zone Cert from Best Buy too :))

Had no problems with burn-in, retention, etc so far. I am being careful not to play too many games with static images for too long, and definitely don't watch anything with black bars (I just zoom the screen, it looks like shit but usually whatever I'm watching I've seen a million times already so I don't really care.) It's probably only been on for 40-50 hours so I still have some more break-in to do.

I have learned from this experience, and I won't ever ask for TV advice on the internet again. The fanboy-ism between LCD/LED and Plasma is insane, it's worse than I've ever seen it for Xbox and PS3. It's pretty near impossible to get honest opinions about TVs from people on message boards. Just look at here, where aeroforce started a huge flamewar for no reason, and also called out the TV's 4.1/5 rating on Amazon as "bad". For $850, I'm not expecting a perfect TV, and I'm not anal enough to care about the minute details between a "very good" TV and a "great" TV.

I did use those CNET reviews that dafoomie posted in my search for a TV, and I have a close friend who swears by Panasonic (though he does definitely fall into the fanboy category). I was actually leaning towards a 51" Samsung Plasma for the same price ($850) but then this Best Buy deal popped up last weekend and I knew I couldn't pass on a savings of what turned out to be $160.
 
[quote name='tylerh1701']So far I've really enjoyed the TV. The picture looks great, the 3D was good (it's the first time I've used a 3D TV so my opinion doesn't count for much there), and the speakers are even pretty sweet. I was able to unload the new Xbox for $220, so it made my total purchase price for the TV $689.90 ($909.90 after taxes - $220) (EDIT: Oh, and I'll get a $15 Rewards Zone Cert from Best Buy too :))

Had no problems with burn-in, retention, etc so far. I am being careful not to play too many games with static images for too long, and definitely don't watch anything with black bars (I just zoom the screen, it looks like shit but usually whatever I'm watching I've seen a million times already so I don't really care.) It's probably only been on for 40-50 hours so I still have some more break-in to do.

I have learned from this experience, and I won't ever ask for TV advice on the internet again. The fanboy-ism between LCD/LED and Plasma is insane, it's worse than I've ever seen it for Xbox and PS3. It's pretty near impossible to get honest opinions about TVs from people on message boards. Just look at here, where aeroforce started a huge flamewar for no reason, and also called out the TV's 4.1/5 rating on Amazon as "bad". For $850, I'm not expecting a perfect TV, and I'm not anal enough to care about the minute details between a "very good" TV and a "great" TV.



I did use those CNET reviews that dafoomie posted in my search for a TV, and I have a close friend who swears by Panasonic (though he does definitely fall into the fanboy category). I was actually leaning towards a 51" Samsung Plasma for the same price ($850) but then this Best Buy deal popped up last weekend and I knew I couldn't pass on a savings of what turned out to be $160.[/QUOTE]

I have the same exact TV also and love it.
 
[quote name='tylerh1701']So far I've really enjoyed the TV. The picture looks great, the 3D was good (it's the first time I've used a 3D TV so my opinion doesn't count for much there), and the speakers are even pretty sweet. I was able to unload the new Xbox for $220, so it made my total purchase price for the TV $689.90 ($909.90 after taxes - $220) (EDIT: Oh, and I'll get a $15 Rewards Zone Cert from Best Buy too :))

Had no problems with burn-in, retention, etc so far. I am being careful not to play too many games with static images for too long, and definitely don't watch anything with black bars (I just zoom the screen, it looks like shit but usually whatever I'm watching I've seen a million times already so I don't really care.) It's probably only been on for 40-50 hours so I still have some more break-in to do.

I have learned from this experience, and I won't ever ask for TV advice on the internet again. The fanboy-ism between LCD/LED and Plasma is insane, it's worse than I've ever seen it for Xbox and PS3. It's pretty near impossible to get honest opinions about TVs from people on message boards. Just look at here, where aeroforce started a huge flamewar for no reason, and also called out the TV's 4.1/5 rating on Amazon as "bad". For $850, I'm not expecting a perfect TV, and I'm not anal enough to care about the minute details between a "very good" TV and a "great" TV.

I did use those CNET reviews that dafoomie posted in my search for a TV, and I have a close friend who swears by Panasonic (though he does definitely fall into the fanboy category). I was actually leaning towards a 51" Samsung Plasma for the same price ($850) but then this Best Buy deal popped up last weekend and I knew I couldn't pass on a savings of what turned out to be $160.[/QUOTE]

Flame war? Wtf are you smoking dude? I merely pointed out valid reasons why I dont like plasma sets, and then pointed to the negative reviews this has everywhere, which stated the various issues others have experienced with this. All that aside the conversation about the pluses and negatives about it between me, and everyone else with their view has been completely civil. You need to get some reading comprehension man, cause I was far from flaming the set let alone anyones views. Some liked it, but I never called them out on it. There's a thin line between outright blasting a plasma for no good reason, without anything to back it up, and saying something about them in the negative sense when there is supportive information to back those up.

To me the plain fact of the matter is that even if someone bought this and didnt own a 360 that they'd get a gaming console plus a tv that by viewing the reviews on it say it's an iffy set as far as it's reliability goes. Nothing more. Valid as it gets, and no flaming involved. So again get some reading comprehension, before you try to make something bigger than it actually is.
 
I don't know if it is this exact model, but I bought a 50" Panny 1080p 3D TV for $999 about 2 years ago.

The set has been amazing. As long as you get past the break-in period 200 hrs, you don't really have to worry about image retention. I've left games paused, played NES games with stale backgrounds, and watched 2.35 movies on it and have had none and I don't worry about it at all. These are like 8th or 9th generation Plasmas, not the first couple of sets. The are advertised as 100,000 hour sets as well. Again something the first couple of generations struggled with. So these just seem to be talking points that get perpetuated to me.

It's always hard to look at reviews on websites anymore because anybody can rate a product. And there are those that go LED/LCD that would rate a Plasma down so they can feel better about their purchase. I mean aero, you might be well intentioned, but you are the most vocal and from what I've gathered have never owned a Plasma TV. I think going to picturephiles websites and getting their opinion of sets is more valid than some bad website reviews.

To that end, most picturephiles believe a Plasma will get you a better picture than even most high end LED tvs. The two big legitimate knocks that my set had was that black levels go from industry leading to average after a couple thousand hours (I haven't noticed anything yet) and banding (where you get a wave within the black bars). I also haven't noticed banding.

I have 3 Panny Plasma's because I think they have superior picture quality. My oldest one is going on 7 years old now with no issues. I have a 4 year old one and the 2 year old one mentioned above. I think they make excellent sets and you can't go wrong with one. Samsung (quantity leader in LCD sets) seems to have much more issues to me. I even had to help my inlaws get their Samsung LCD fixed after 18 months. Usually this would be after the warranty, but since it was such a massive issue they fixed the set for free.
 
^^^I'm only vocal, cause I've had nothing but problems with plasmas, and I've gone the extra mile to search this tv sets specific make and model number for more review sources on google. Needless to say they havent influenced me either way. I used to own a couple sets from multiple brands back in 08 up to 2010, and while I understand they were bettering the sets against their various issues, and such I had gone through 4 sets. Some lasted beyond the 1 year warranty by a lil bit. Others didnt. Gaming didnt change things much either, and you're talking to someone who can sit a good 3 hours straight gaming, and only take a break once I was finished. So I knew well enough to not leave things alone for an extended period. The moment I went to LCD sets I havent experienced any issues. I got a small personal set for my bedroom that's going on 4 years, and the image quality hasnt changed a bit. I got 2 more sets for my den, and gaming room, and they are the newest ones but they are coming up on a year, and so far so good. The brands in question. A Toshiba, Samsung, and TCL.

Anyways all I'm doing is trying to tell people what I've read on the net. I'm sure a few hundred individual negative ratings arent LCD owners trying to make themselves feel better, but probably people thinking they got a too good to be true deal in which this honestly is. I know I aint one of them, cause I've experienced plasma sets, and as I've noted I tried, but once they leave a sour taste in your mouth it's kinda hard to get rid of. The fact so many negative reviews are out there doesnt help matters.
 
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