I’ve had the same TV (a 32″ Toshiba WLT 58) for around 5 years now and when I bought it, I was completely blown away at how great it was but at the time, £1200 would buy you a 32″ TV which was HD Ready at 720p. Five years on, TV’s have got an awful lot bigger and the prices have come tumbling dow with advert after advert coming on the TV for cheap TVs which claim to be better than ever.
For the average consumer, HD was just talk 5 years ago and the price of a decent full high definition television was astronomical but if you were going to buy a TV in 2010 / 2011, you’d be silly not to contemplate anything but full HD or possible even a TV with 3d capability.
Panasonic have sent me one of their new LED Viesta TV’s, the Panasonic TX-L37D28BS 37″ and suffice to say it’s absolutely incredible. I guess throughout this post, we have to remember that I’m comparing everything I see to my five year old television but like many people, the January sales are the time when we’ll start to see people upgrading their television sets to one they may have had 5+ years ago.
This new TV has some many features on it I dont really know where to start. Here’s some of the spec’s from the tech sheet to start us off.
- 37-inch HD Ready 1080p LCD TV with Integrated Freeview TV Tuner
- 2,000,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio
- 2x SCART, 4 X HDMI inputs
The television itself comes with every input you could possibly want boasting 4 HDMI sockets and a couple of scarts for any older devices that you may still have along withFreeview HD built in. Something I wasnt expecting was the ability to put the TV on my home network and allowing me to stream media from my computer straight to my living room using the build in media server that comes with the L37D28BS. As someone who watched an awful lot of films and media directly from my computer, this was an excellent added bonus which I made full use of.
The TV also has Skype built and also the ability to plug a webcam into one of the 2 USB slots on the back of it plus the facility to watch YouTube videos directly through the television and BBC iPlayer even comes direct to the device! Panasonic are doing their best to allow you to never leave your living room and they’ve done a very good job!
The TV’s picture quality is astounding, with blu rays looking crystal clear, the HD freview bright and clear with the immersive screen pulling you in like no other television that I’ve used (and most definately owned) before. The sound is pretty good on the TV as standard but I found myself always using my surround sound for watching TV but that’s just personal preference and is something I’d always do no matter what TV I was using.
The one flaw with this TV was the base unit that it sits on. It’s not flat and points at a slight angle towards the ceiling meaning any lights you have hanging from the ceiling or possibly up-lights on the wall, will reflect into the TV and it’s most frustrating. I’ve had numerous friends visit and ask me why that is and I have no explanation other than the fact it’s not been designed very well unless I have a faulty base. If you were planning on mounting your TV to the wall then this isnt an issue.
Other than this slight annoyance, the L37D28BS is a fabulous TV and I would highly recommend it if you’re upgrading your five year old TV or if you were looking for a brand new TV from scratch. If it werent for the angle pointing towards the celing, I’d give this top marks.
[Rating:4.5/5]
The Panasonic TX-L37D28BS is available to buy now.
Official Website.
Full Specification:
|
TV Tuner |
|
|---|---|
| Integrated Tuners*** | PAL-I, DVB-T2/S |
| Teletext Reception | 1500P FASTEXT Level 2.5 |
|
Display |
|
|---|---|
| Motion Focus Technology | yes |
| Resolution enhancer | yes |
| Screen Size | 37″ (94 cm) diagonal |
| Panel | IPS LED LCD Panel |
| Viewing Angle | 178 degree |
| Contrast (Dynamic) | 2,000,000:1 |
| Resolution | Full-HD 1,920 x 1,080 (16:9) |
| Applicable PC signals | VGA, WVGA, SVGA, XGA, WXGA, SXGA 60Hz |
| Applicable Scanning Format | |
| FULL-HD | 1125 (1080)/50i, 1125 (1080)/60i, 1125 (1080)/24p (HDMI only), 1125 (1080)/50p (HDMI only), 1125 (1080)/60p (HDMI only) |
| HD | 750 (720)/50p, 750 (720)/60p |
| SD | 525 (480)/60i, 525 (480)/60p, 625 (576)/50i, 625 (576)/50p |
| Moving Picture Resolution | 800 lines |
| Intelligent Frame Creation | Intelligent Frame Creation Pro |
| 24p Smooth Film/Playback | yes/ yes |
| Deep Colour (10-bit Panel) | yes |
| 3D Colour Management | yes |
| Picture Mode | Dynamic/Normal/Cinema/True Cinema/Game/Photo/Pro1/Pro2 (ISFccc) |
| Vreal | Vreal Pro 5 |
|
Sound |
|
|---|---|
| Speakers | 2 x 10 watt 1-Way Bottom Speakers (Box) |
| Sound Mode | Music/Speech/User |
| Virtual Surround | V-Audio ProSurround |
| Dolby Digital/dts Out | Dolby Digital Plus |
|
Input/Output |
|
|---|---|
| CI (Common Interface)* | yes |
| VIERA Image Viewer | yes (AVCHD/SD-VIDEO/DivXHD/JPEG/MP3/AAC playback) |
| USB | 2 (1 rear, 1 side); Flash Memory/Keyboard/WiFi/USB HDD Recording/HUB |
| HDMI Input/ Support Feature | 4 (3 rear, 1 side)/ Audio Return Channel (Input 2) |
| Composite Video Input | AV3: RCA phono type x 1 (side) |
| Audio Input (for Video) | AV3: RCA phono type connectors (L, R) (1 set, side) |
| Component Video Input | RCA phono type x 3 [Y , PB, PR] (rear) |
| PC Input | Mini D-sub 15-pin x 1 (rear) |
| Audio Input (HDMI1, PC, Component) | RCA phono type connectors (L, R) (1 set, rear) |
| 21-Pin Input/Output | AV1: AV In/Out, RGB In, Q-Link (rear) / AV2: AV In/Out, S-Video In, RGB In, Q-Link (rear) |
| LAN Port | yes |
| Analogue Audio Out | RCA phono type connectors (L, R) (1 set, rear) |
| Digital Audio Output (Optical) | 1, rear |
| Headphone Jack | 1, side |
|
Features |
|
|---|---|
| EPG | yes |
| VIERA CAST | yes |
| DLNA | yes |
| VIERA Tools | yes |
| VIERA Link | yes (HDAVI Control 5) |
| Multi Window | PAT |
| C.A.T.S. (Contrast Automatic Tracking System) | yes |
| Game Mode | yes |
| Q-Link | yes |
| Off Timer | yes |
| Child Lock | yes |
|
General |
|
|---|---|
| Power Supply | ??? |
| Rated Power Consumption | 147 W |
| On mode Average Power Consumption** | ??? |
| Standby Power Consumption | 0.3 W |
| Dimensions (W x H x D) (w/o stand) | 917 x 590 x 77 mm (Panel depth: 45 mm) |
| Dimensions (W x H x D) (with stand) | 917 x 605 x 291 mm |
| Weight (w/o stand) | 14.5 kg |
| Weight (with stand) | 20.0 kg |
| Wall Bracket | TY-WK3L2RW |
| VESA Standard | yes |
