Hi there, I was looking at a Panasonic model CX400 48in" in Tesco's yesterday for just over £400 and wodered if it is a reasonable TV for the spec just for viewing not worried about any other feature, I have looked on the net but exampl's keep coming up with a 'B' at the end of it and the box didn't show this.

Thanks in advance

I'm not 100% certain but some reports on t'interweb suggest this is one of Panasonic's rebadged Vestel models. Not a "proper" Panasonic, if that is important to you.

I wouldn't worry about the B on the end of the model number. From what I've seen of Panasonic boxes they don't have the full model number on them, which in this case should be TX-48CX400B

I would have thought it's important to anyone?, paying over the odds for a short lived cheap TV.

According to sources in the trade it's been somewhat of a disaster for Panasonic, and they will be dropping their Vestel sets and starting producing their own 'bottom range' models this year.

Ok, I have trusted and followed Nigels input so far so not sure what i should be looking at, it's for my parents viewing but don't want to buy any crap TV, they have saved all their lives and My Da, bless him won't spend anything! Unless I take mother out shopping so would like to get him a decent set as he likes F1 and footie but he is as mean as H**l so can't spend anything unless mother says she likes it or I take the decision! hell there must be sum folks out there in the same situation. Failing parents and trying to improve their lives when they come from the lean generation!

If you want 'good' then buy a Sony or a higher end Panasonic, if you want 'middling' then buy Samsung or LG - if you want cheap crap, than buy anything else

Panasonic's UK models always used to have a B at the end, which I believe is to show it's a British variant.... or was it black cabinet colour, well one or the other....anyhoo, it's normal.

To be blunt it's a 4K set (the latest TV resolution) and it's also a pretty big screen, and yet only £400, so what's your gut telling you? [Hint: Something doesn't add up if what you're looking for is quality] You'd be much better off getting your parents a decent Full HD TV and giving cheap 4K TVs a very wide berth.

The whole TV market is engaged in some kind of suicide pact with itself when it comes to entry-level TV pricing. Either the manufacturers hemorrhage cash in a bid to compete or they look for ways to cut costs. The idea of planting a flag for quality and bucking the trend to chase the lowest common denominator sets seems to be beyond their thinking.

Go for a main brand and in general steer clear of the entry-level product if possible (or at least do some homework to find out what's inside). The Sony KDL48W705C at around £400 and the Samsung UE48H6400 at around £450 would both be on my shopping list. Both have been around a while but that's no bad thing. Any serious flaws will have been well publicised and sorted otherwise they wouldn't still be on sale. The other benefit is that they were launched to sell at much higher prices than today's market supports. This means you're getting a £700-£800 value TV for a fraction of the price. That's a much better deal than buying a newer TV targeted at a £500 rrp.

While we are at it, forget any romanticised ideas of buying a set with only basic features in the hope that you're getting better components because money isn't wasted on Smart features, 3D etc. The market doesn't work like that. All the decent sets come pretty-much loaded. You can't get away from it unless you buy something much older as a used TV buy.

As has been stated the bottom end Panasonics are Vestel manufactured - having said that this http://www.johnlewis.com/panasonic-v...ew-hd/p1999279 is probably worth a punt if you're after approx 50" set for your parents - not least because JL put a 5 year warranty on it.

So, £ 350 for an average 50" set with 5 year warranty.

If you don't want a crap set don't buy Panasonic. Over the last few years various design faults have come to light and Panasonic customer service don't want to know.

There were MPEG 4 sets that would not work in Ireland.
More recently there have been Freesat sets that won't work properly on ITV HD.

Both of these problems did not show up originally but when they did Panasonic did not want to know. Who knows a Panasonic set you buy now may not work in a couple of years time.

Another one, remember the split NIT?

Neither of these problems would bother me in the least as I always use an external PVR and don't care what the tuner does - my current Panny plasma is not Freeview HD but it doesn't matter.



No, what was that about?

The above reads like a broken record.

Whilst not denying that Panasonic has had its fair share of issues (and name me a TV manufacturer that hasn't), is banging on about some problem receiving the Republic of Ireland's version of Freeview really that relevant on what is largely a UK-centric sub-forum?

From what I can see, the main issue goes back to when the ROI finally (after a number of delays) decided to switch over to digital. Bearing in mind they launched digital in May 2011, and that was almost 10 years after the UK kicked off with digital, so the ROI was a late starter and adopted a different standard to the UK, then is it any wonder they had issues trying to get older digital TVs to work with a platform they weren't designed to accommodate? (Incidentally, UK Freeview HD uses the same MPEG4-based platform as the ROI uses for its version of Freeview.)

As for the Freesat set issue with ITV HD, as others in the trade have noted, for many UK TV buyers this is another non-issue. It seems that the majority of Panasonic TV owers where the set has a Satellite tuner don't bother with it anyway; they're using Sky or Virgin Media or doing their recording/viewing with a PVR to make use of features such as pause/rewind live TV.

Yawn - all this rant is missing is a comment about the use of PLTs, and we'd have been able to call 'bingo'.

(Re: the Split NIT)

This was to do with the increase in the number of digital TV stations being broadcast on Freeview. The NIT is the Network Information Table; it's a kind of directory that tells the TV or Freeview receiver/recorder about the channels being broadcast. Originally it was sent as a single data parcel, but following the expansion in the number of channels the NIT had to be split in to two parts - hence 'Split NIT'

The issue for older TVs was they weren't designed to accept the data in two parts, there would be a memory overflow. The result was the TV would tune in from the first part of the NIT, but then lose those channels when it received part two.

To hear (read) Winston_1 talk you'd be forgiven for thinking that Panasonic was the only manufacturer affected. That isn't the case. Panasonic weren't alone, some of the other manufacturers affected included Bush, Daewoo, Echostar, Ferguson, Grundig, Humax, Labgear, Matsui, Sagem, Samsung, Sony, Thomson, Topfield and Triax. There's some big names in there, but in Winston_1's world Panasonic is the spawn of Satan so it must be their fault... for everything... and global warming

It is for your parents not you. Take them somewhere that gives a cheap or free five year warranty and let them pick the one they want, ensure that they check the ease of use of the set's remote control, and make sure they are happy with the sound quality.

You missed Nokia, Pace and Philips from that list - who provided most of the original OnDigital boxes - which were unable to handle the split NIT as well.

As you correctly say - the split NIT thing was not something the manufacturers could reasonably have foreseen at the time those STBs were designed and put on the market - they were designed to meet the standards in place at the time and that they did.

It's a bit like complaining that a TV manufactured in 1959 would have been incapable of receiving BBC 2 in 1964 - but at that time, there was no definite plan to broadcast a third channel using a totally different system to the one which was already in use.

***Duplicate***

It's obviously a massive issue. So massive that as a repairer we have not had one come in with the fault!

Don't worry - Winston's view that PLT problems are massively widespread is on the basis of about 5 complaints to OFCOM of which hardly any have been upheld......

Yeah but that is a problem bigger than the millennium bug.....

Quite - I mean how silly of IBM and others back in the 80s not to foresee that such systems would still be in use 20 years later.

I mean it must surely be shortsightedness on the part of the GPO not to make the standard British telephone compatible with digital exchanges.....

There's no point in buying a big TV if it doesn't last long, false economy.

Get yourself a smaller TV from a reputable company if your budget is tight.

I got myself a Sony 40" for £300 new. I would rather have a kdl40705c than anything Panasonic after how they sold their name to a cheap panel company

Eh? What do you mean 'sold their name to a cheap panel company' ?

It was one or two bottom line sets - oddly enough, Sony did the same a couple of years back and had Beko making sets for them.

And Sony had form for doing that - pretty much all of their VHS video recorders came from '3rd party' sources - including Grundig and Samsung.

As for buying cheap sets - if they've got a 5 year guarantee on them, what's the problem?

How long do you actually expect a TV set to last?

For me, Panansonic have shot themselves in the foot recently by using Vestel panels.

I used to rate Panasonic highly but I wouldn't any more. How many other sets are doomed to fail because of inferior parts? Cost cutting, pure and simple.

Buy smart, buy once.

Ok so an electrical appliance is not a house or a car but its a fair investment, research and you'll usually do yourself more good than buying cheaper stuff.

Seeing as we are talking about TVs, I'm not inclined to start digging up Sonys past on their other products (how old is a VCR lol!)

call me blinkered but until I find out Sony have done something similar with TVs to what Panasonic have done, i'll stay with them for my next purchase in the years to come too

A product doesn't have to sell itself with a longer warranty for me to see it as something good, maybe I prefer quality over aftercare

To answer your last question, my previous Sony is 6 years old from new.

Nothing wrong with it except it wasn't 1080p, so I decided to get the 40" I've mentioned earlier.

No fuss, no gimmicks

Are you going to get peace of mind with a cheap brand and a 5 year "warranty" ? I wouldn't but whatever floats your boat. Delve into the small print and you'll probably find a get out clause somewhere.

I've worked for a service centre for 12 years and trust me, some "warranties" I've seen from customers are not worth the paper they are written on

Panasonic stupidly think they have to compete with bargain priced TV's and so to acheive that they contract out to Vestel. Why on earth they bother is a good question, they can't make any money doing it, they're damaging their brand by having a crappier product be associated to their good name.

The Japanese have forever failed to realise that they don't have to have their product in every household regardless of whether they make a profit. They're rather stupid in that respect and they always have been.

They didn't the sets are tottaly manufactured by Vestel, and simply badged Pansonic


Sony 'did' something similar a few years back, in that they temporarily bought some portable sets (19 and 22 inch only) from Beko - it was a stop gap measure while they waited for their own 19 and 22 sets to become available. They also (amazingly stupidly) initially put their five year manufacturers warranty on them as well