New Panasonic TH-50PZ700A 50" / 127cm 1080p Plasma TV + Panasonic DMR-EX77 160GB HDD DVDR.
Picked it up, tied it on the back of the ute standing up the correct way, and took it home.
At around 60kg (69kg boxed with packaging) the TV is pretty heavy - definitely a 2-person job to lift & manoeuver it etc.
See this webpage for several pics I took during setting it up:
http://www.whaledive.net/pana.htmSeemed to be packed pretty well, though there was some confectionery rubbish floating around inside the box which was strange.
The TV needed mounting to the separate base stand (unlike my mate's 52" Sony LCD we setup the other week which had the base stand already secured to it in the box) and it was pretty straightforward to do so.
All the input/output ports seem to be fairly obvious.
The unit in general seems to be manufactured and put together quite solidly - upon examination everything appears to be fairly good - the air vents, screws, labelling, shaping, fans etc.
I'm impressed with the inbuilt speakers - it's difficult to actually tell where they are at first glance, but on closer inspection you can see the fine mesh along the extreme lhs & rhs edges, they look good and perform well for what they are. Certainly all we need audio-wise at the moment.
When first powering it up it appeared to automatically enter into it's auto-scan & inbuilt HD STB channel setup process - can't recall if I had to hit OK once or something, but it completed it clearly and smoothly.
As someone said most of the new Plasmas from late 2007 / early 2008 are "10th generation" plasma flat panel technology, and the image is pretty slick. You can still tell the lack of fine detail in many situations when examining it closely (compared to a good CRT), but honestly the images are pretty much as I'd hoped they would be - which is very good.
Watching footy and tennis on it (especially Wimbledon via Channel 9's HD broadcast) is pretty impressive, especially when the room is kinda dark.
I am surprised that the screen aspect ratio cannot be changed (from 16:9) for all viewing of the channels via the inbuilt HD STB - this is one downside to it, I suppose some other brands of similar units can do this?
Am running the brightness, contrast, colour & sharpness at 45-50%, as well as colour balance and viewing mode on "normal" and will do for several months as is recommended to help the unit display a better range of all of these for more years down the track.
I quite like the remote - reasonably large which is good, with fairly clear large-ish buttons.
I can't say that the "Viera link" has been an overall benefit, in some situations it's more of a pain, whilst slightly advantageous in others.
Haven't tested nor used many of the features of the DVDR unit as yet, it's own inbuilt SD STB seemed to auto-setup pretty easily, it plays DVD movies ok.
Although one thing that it (appears to be) missing is a Disc Eject button on the remote - I would have thought these are standard these days - why would they not put one on it?
Will actually record some stuff on the HDD when I have more time.
Whilst the TV would look good mounted centred on an appropriate wall in our lounge room, I'll never do it as I am happy with it's position on our entertainment unit etc.
Overall, it's kickass.
Am going to plug an Xbox (on loan) into it next week and see what that looks like too.
Flawless so far, and very happy with it all.