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Review 4 of 4
Price Paid:
$2300.00
from Best Buy Summary:
I should have gone with my first instinct when purchasing my Plasma. Before I purchase anything, I research it to death! In my research, I found that for Plasma displays, it comes down to 2 choices, Panasonic, and Pioneer. The Panasonics for Black levels, and the Pioneers for processing. Now the latest models for each are so close together in each of these catagories, that it's a toss up. When I went to BB to purchase a Panasonic, they were out, and weren't expecting any in anytime soon. The Pioneer was quite a bit more, and the one-whome-you-must-keep-happy, didn't want to spend that much. Since I was ready to buy, and I read somewhere that Toshiba's electronics are made by Panasonic,(there isn't a lot of info on this TV) I took the advice of the salesman (bad thing to do) and against my better judgement, bought the Toshiba at a discounted price. That was a mistake!
I am quite picky when it comes to electronics, and am a self proclaimed electronics geek, so just a caviot before I begin. First, this thing weighs over 100 pounds, so my wife and I were huffing and puffing after hauling it in the house, and up onto the fireplace. After hooking it up to local cable, and letting it do an autoscan for channels, I was surprised to find out it picked up an NBC HD channel. I was watching the Olympics in HD that night, and was watching snowboarders go down a hill at night. The false contouring on this TV was soo bad on dark shadows, that I didn't get any sleep that night, I was so upset with myself! I popped in my Avia DVD Essentials to try and tweak the picture thinking it would improve.....well, that really pointed out the shortcomings of this display. When setting the Brightness, there are bars that move that are at just before black, and one below black level. This is the first display that I've run accrossed that only showed part of the bar when adjustment was close. And it was full of visual noise! The section of the disc that shows gray scale pointed out how bad the transition from the dark black grey to light grey. Noise all over the display from that screen in certain gray levels. That was enough to make me return it, and pay a little more for the Pioneer 4360HD display. Which weighs in at a little over 50 pounds, and looks stunning on my wall. It's grey scale was as smooth as a baby's butt. No false contouring, or noise. It was 100 times better than the Toshiba!
So, in conclusion, don't cheat yourself out of sleep, get a Panny or Pioneer, and sleep well. If your spending this kind of money on a display, you'd better be happy with it!
Strengths:
Toshiba build quality Weaknesses:
Picture quality is very poor. Black levels are grey, and false contouring is horrible. Very heavy. Similar Products Used:
Pioneer PDP-4360HD
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