Hello

I am going to buy a new TV in the New Year and have about £1000 to spend

I've done a lot of reading on the net and decided I liked the Panasonic P42G10 and Samsung UE40B8000.

I went down to Comet to have a look at them and couldn't get a fair comparison because the Samsung was displaying a Ratatouille Blu Ray and the Panny was an SD program so the Samsung looked awesome and the Pannny less so. The sales guy was busy so couldn't ask to get a BD on both.

I'd like people's opinions as to which they would choose - my main priority is watching sports, then movies.

Thanks

The panasonics great and the Samsung has good reviews except the sounds rubbish...Samsung is much better looking though.

I seem to remember somebody on here saying there was a real issue with an lcd/led tv which I beleve was a samsung but I can't remember the model number. I think it was Nigel Goodwin.(The poster not the model number ) He'll be along later I suspect

Sound isn't really a consideration for me - I have a Sony A/V receiver so that TV sound is switched off.
Also, the viewing distance is about 12ft

Thanks again

There is a very thorough review of the 8000 series here if you haven't read it already.

Don't think it was me?, my only comments have been about them been mis-advertised as LED TV's.

Maybe I dreamt it, It was somthing about the backlighting doing lots of adjusting making it unwatchable and it had to be exchanged for a different make.

Maybe it was a different forum, and could well have been a different telly..

Sounds exactly like the issue we had with one we sold that was exchanged for a Panasonic G10! Can't remember if I've mentioned it on here though. The backlighting is poor especially on dark backgrounds with bright areas, the backlight visibly jump up and down meaning the black areas vary from quite black to grey in quite big stages.

That rings a bell, did you say it looked great in the shop but under normal household lighting the problems became apparent? and if you turned the shop lights off you could see the problems too?

This is what the independant consumer magazine Which? had to say about the Samsung....

Pros: Slim stylish design. Sharp and detailed picture, vibrant colours and glossy deep blacks. Natural looking Freeview. Lots of nice ergonomic touches - including two remotes and a mini-EPG

Cons: Awful sound quality, only one Scart and no dedicated analogue audio output

The only problem is they don't have a clue when it comes to TV's (and many other electrical items)

The G10 is a far superior set in terms of natural picture Quality, Motion Handling, colour , Black levels, shaddow detail & Sound.

Build quality is also much better & can be had with a free 5 year Panasonic warranty if purchased from a panny dealer.

The Samsung uses less energy & looks better

Review: http://www.avforums.com/reviews/Pana...10-Review.html

http://www.richersounds.com/product/...pana-txp42g10b

No, their reviews are usually rubbish

Ok guys,

I went to PC WORLD today to compare a Samsung LED (Seres 6) alongside a Plasma (not the G10 but a £600, Series 4 Samsung)
I think I might be a TV pikey as, to my eye, the LED picture was far sharper, brighter and more vivid.
A I understand it, Plasma TV's are supposed to have the 'blackest blacks', however the 2 screens were displaying the same content and when the screen was black, the LED was pitch black and the Plasma looked grey
The PLasma had greater detpth of colour but looked blurry compared to the LED
Have I misunderstood the benefits of Plasma?
Was the Plasma in the shop a bad example?
Am I a TV pikey?

I'm not sure what "TV Pikey" means but I'd say you were very unlucky to see such a poor comparison. The unknown factor is how messed up the settings on the plasma were. But then again I wouldn't trust the average big retail warehouse to have the first clue about setting up a TV correctly.

Have a read of the AV Forums review that paulr2006 posted LINK. In there you'll find out that the Samsumg switches off its backlights whenever the picture is black - hence the blacker background - but you'll also see what problems that causes.

At the end of the day it's your money. If you're impressed with the Samsung LED then you should go ahead and buy. Just remember though that a thorough review such as the one from AV Forums is probably a better guide to how the TV will perform in your living room.

Link not working for me

Buy the panasonic, if you buy the samsung and take it home you will think "Gosh that's a good looking TV" and then you turn it on and may think "The pictures a bit iffy" and take it back to the shop and buy the panasonic. then you'll look at the panasonic and think " Your big and ugly" and be disappointed.

Get the Panasonic first and you'll not know how pretty the Samsung is.

Go to post #11 and follow the link from there.

So their reviews that put Panasonic at the top most of the time are rubbish, OK then.

Our local Curries had a 3 way comparison between an LCD(LED backlight), LCD(normal) and Plasma (Pan G10) all being fed from blueray (Superman movie).

Spent ages with G10 remote and could never get the picture quality anywhere near that of the normal LCD tv (believe it was a samsung). G10 always seemed too dark and lacked detail compared to the normal LCD tv.

The LCD(LED) tv seemed too vivid and almost cartoon like. Although didn't have access to settings and this may have been due to the films comic book history and being produced that way.

Also went into Comet and compared G10 with some other LCD and Plasmas using their blueray test disc. G10 again definitely seemed dark and with less detail and also had a lot more noise in the backgroud.

All TV's were feed via HDMI in both shops.

Put me off G10 which I was about to get. Still looking for alternative!

store room comparison is problematic as said, the settings are wrong and the conditions are unnatural. people when comparing displays side by side naturally see the brighter one as better. even if its color/contrast are actually worse. plasma tends to perform where it matters, at home. contrast ratio and subtile reproduction of color difference can be lost in stores with those blast your retina backlight settings.. its not the darkness of the black that matters, your eye adjusts to what is black when it is viewed alone, theater screens don't have "black" either. but sometimes lcds gain their blacks at the loss of all shadow detail.

Panasonic and Sony are the top two manufacturers, but you can't consider a review 'good' just because you agree with the result sometimes.

It is never possible to review a plasma in store lighting conditions, this is why so many people end up with a poor quality LCD. LCD are suited to bright conditions & when in shop mode & Dynamic they suit the conditions. Get it home & it's a totally different story. It took me ages to accept this as every in store demo I saw looked poor. The level of detail on a 1080P Plasma is exactly the same as a 1080P LCD, the difference is in the way it presents it; Plasma is more natural (Softer) & has better colours, Black & usually better motion handling. LCD "appears" sharper due to additional processing.

Agreed; some of the items they report as being best are amongst the worst in real life, I would compare them to What Hi Fi in terms of actual ability At least the reviews in places like AVForums, HDTVTest & Cnet.com are done by trained professionals who actually know what they are talking about

Generally agree with this, but in Comet I was also comparing with other Plasmas (47" LG ps3000 - something like that) and a samsung plasma. The lg especially seemed to blow the Panasonic away, picture was amazing and jumped out the screen at you! Also had far less background noise than the G10).

Current tv is 42" p60 Panasonic plasma, so I'm use to/biased towards plasma if anything.

There's quite a few over on AVforums who have upgraded from the P60 to the G10 & are more than happy

One thing which might have affected your judgement is the Shop mode on Panasonic's is nowhere near as "Dynamic" as LG & Samsung's Shop mode. The Neo PDP panels that Panny are now using are much brighter & use less juice. Contrast Ratio is 40000:1 & Dynamic contrast 2000000:1
background noise is also not an issue, i think the set must have been poorly set up. I have nothing against Samsung/LG, they offer great value but they don't get close to Panasonic on black levels & of course they suffer with Image Retention badly