Panasonic TX28PL1

Excellent tube TV, great sound and stero and long lasting quality set

My Panasonic is great, I've been thinking about upgrading for a HDTV but this TV is so good, that I don't want to yet!

I looked around for a while for a television - many reviews and recommendations. Main influences towards my purchase of this Panasonic TX 28 PL1 were; price - got it for £400-00 in a locally owned suppilers - and the quality of previous panasonic sets.

The picture is probably the best you are going to get in the sub £1000-00 category - I kid you not,it really is fantastic. With the RGB scart input (ONLY ONE RGB IN- I purchased an auto RGB scart switcher) from SKY and DVD it is superb - contrast and colour are without fault.

There is no smearing or jitters due to this being a 50Hz set.

The sound is fine for watching normal telly, but for movies you really should pair this with a Home Cinema system.

I have a Yamaha amp and a 5.1 speaker system which cost me less than £600-00. A modest setup compared to some - but consider this. Its a lot better than you would get built in with a telly, has DTS and the whole lot comes in for less than £1000-00.

And as always with Panasoncs - the remote is easy to use and very intuitive.

This model has been discontinued so I guess this review might only come in handy if you are buying second-hand. Anyway, bought this Panasonic TX 28 PL1 in May 2003 for £400 web offer from Comet. Soon after, the geometry at the top and bottom end of screen became increasingly distorted. Anywhere there are straight lines - for example: door frames, rugby uprights curve away the closer they are to the opposing ends of the picture. This happens on both TV pictures (Sky Digibox) and DVD. It does spoil the enjoyment of what is otherwise an excellently defined picture. Comet tried to fix it but this made no difference. Haven't tried using expensive SCART Leads to see if that makes any difference, but I reckon its a problem the tube. As for the sound, this model's slimline speakers lack punch and you really need to turn the volume almost as high as you can to capture background sound

I still own a 24" Sony widescreen which I now use in the bedroom. This set easily outclasses the Sony in picture quality and only cost £399 inc del from Comet. They are having to compete with Empire Direct and matched their price. Delivery was also at the time I requested.

The set was very easy to install and came with a free stand, which only has one shelf, shame. Still it still looks good once it's all set up. The whole family are impressed with the overall picture/sound quality and combined with my home cinema system makes watching DVDs a pleasure. Not much else to say other than buy one!

Got TV from Curry's on line for £458, after searching about for best price, Panasonic shops were charging £599 for same product.

Good value, excellent picture, good sound quality, choose a Panasonic after a friend who has had his for 20 years and still working.

Quality on Sky Digital and DVD excellent.

I would stongly recommend this TV to anyone who is looking for a good value product with easy set up procedure

See the other reviews for more detail on the Panasonic TX 28 PL1 TV but.... this is a terrific value product with very good picture quality indeed, easy to set up and a good remote control. The stand is a little time consuming to assemble - the pictures in the guide are not as clear as they could be. I'm really happy with this TV, though, and think it looks great as well.

Having spent 2 or 3 Saturday's trudging round the high steet and local retail parks I decided that Panasonic make some of the best in terms of picture quality and, compared to say Sony, offer good quality at a much lower price point.

I had thought of the Panasonic DK series but was able to locate the newer Panasonic TX 28 PL1 TV on the internet for the same price Comet et al were charging for the discontinued versions as "manager's specials".

So what's the spec?

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28 inch flat screen

Receives:

PAL 1

PAL 525/60 (playing NTSC tapes on compatible video recorders)

M.NTSC (plays from M.NTSC video recorders)

NTSC (plays from NTSC videos from AV input)

Front panel - standard buttons plus:

S-VHS socket

headphone socket

RCA Audio/video sockets

Rear:

Aerial input

AV1 Scart - RGB in, Audio/Video in/out

AV2 Scart - Audio/video in/out, s-video in, Q link

RCA Audio monitor out (L/R channels)

Other features:

Automantic aspect control

Qlink to your video (same remote control, automatically downloads tuner information etc.)

Owner Id system to deter thiefs (I have my doubts if this is worth much)

AI noise reduction

Subjective rating

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Picture is excellent - pin sharp and well balanced. No colour bleed. Panasonic Auto setting seems to effortlessy cope with resizing all picture types to the full screen but can take a second or two to kick in. Noise reduction seems to work well.

Sound is also excellent - very loud and clear with good response in bass and treble and little noticible distortion even at high volumes.

Ease of setup/use

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I had it up and running in 5 minutes with minimal referral to the manual. Manual isn't bad but isn't great either - doesn't explain some features very well. In use I've never had to refer to the manual - everything has been reasonably intuitive having read the manual once in the beginning.

I don't like the teletext controls - not as good as my last Panasonic.

In summary

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Not quite a Sony but runs a good second IMHO. On punch/pound much better value than the Sony though.

You can read fuller details of the specification at

http://www.techtronics.com/uk/shop/862-panasonic-tx28pl1-crt-widescreen-tv.html

I have no affiliation with Techtronics other than as a completely satisfied customer - it might take a few weeks for delivery but they were very cheap and very helpful.

The Panasonic TX 28 PL1 has to be one of the best sets about these days. Spent forever looking for a 28 inch set. Forget the 100 HTZ, too much ghosting on action etc. The set was a dream to set up and everything worked first time. The manual is easy to follow. Picked it up for £520 from the John Lewis group on a price match (inc 5yr cover), so it was an excellent buy.