Going back to plasma - need advice

TALON1973

TALON1973

TALON1973

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Joined
28 Jul 2004
Posts
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Location
llanelli , south wales
Ok long story short - after nearly 18 months of my panny 39" lcd ive had enough and want to go back to good old plasma.

Now due to size constraints it cant be any bigger than 42 " ideally A panny , and I need to use a shop that does buy now pay in 12 months.

I also don't want to do silly money .......

Now in my local panny shop I can get hold of a few older models :-

a 42vt10 for £499

or 42vt30 for £799

my preferred option is the cheaper one .... unless someone can suggest somewhere I can do 12 months / or a tv in plasma that would suit my needs

Is the vt10 still a good Plasma set ? even 5 years on ?
 
My Panasonic PW6 lasted me a decade, and it was still going strong when I donated it to charity last year because I had purchased a full HD display and didn't have room for both. Five years of normal use is nothing for a Panasonic plasma, but at those prices, they're never used, right?
 
EssexBoy said:
P42ST60B is what i have and love it.

Does your dealer have any left?
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Not sure. I did state what I was aftervwhike in the shop. She quoted me the 2 I mentioned off the computer. And going by the number you quoted that sounds newer again, and more expensive
 
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They are good sets but I wouldn't go near either of them.

I would be looking at something new (old stock) from panny, samsung or even LG but plasma is dead and has been for a year or so now, so new stock is impossible to find.

I wouldn't go near a tv that old (with no warranty) for that kind of money. You would be better off sticking with what you have and saving up for OLED or waiting for them to drop in price.
 
TALON1973 said:
Not sure. I did state what I was aftervwhike in the shop. She quoted me the 2 I mentioned off the computer. And going by the number you quoted that sounds newer again, and more expensive
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ST60 was the bottom of the range 1080p set from 2013. So it's a couple of years newer than the VT30. It's £750 2013 set vs £1500 2011 set.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
They are good sets but I wouldn't go near either of them.

I wouldn't go near a tv that old (with no warranty) for that kind of money. You would be better off sticking with what you have and saving up for OLED or waiting for them to drop in price.
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The sets would be bought in my local panny with free 5 year warranty .... its new , old stock if you get my meaning
 
TALON1973 said:
The sets would be bought in my local panny with free 5 year warranty .... its new , old stock if you get my meaning
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do they have anything newer?

I would take a 50/60 series over a 10/30 any day.

I have a GT50, if your gaming on it then avoid the ST60 but any other set should be fine from the 50/60 range, including the ST50. The ST60 was intentionally made bad for gaming (high input lag) because most gamers opted to pay less and get a ST50 because it had the lowest lag of the 50 range.

Do they have any 50/60 in stock? If not take the cheaper of the two older V's and in 3 years time hope something breaks inside it which cannot be fixed ;).

Then ask for an equivalent replacement model. :cool:
 
Psycho Sonny said:
do they have anything newer?

I would take a 50/60 series over a 10/30 any day.

I have a GT50, if your gaming on it then avoid the ST60 but any other set should be fine from the 50/60 range, including the ST50. The ST60 was intentionally made bad for gaming (high input lag) because most gamers opted to pay less and get a ST50 because it had the lowest lag of the 50 range.

Do they have any 50/60 in stock? If not take the cheaper of the two older V's and in 3 years time hope something breaks inside it which cannot be fixed ;).

Then ask for an equivalent replacement model. :cool:
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its not so much stock ... its price ... and is the £499 option I have worth it ? i'm pretty confident the blacks on even a 5 year old panny plasma will kick arse over most lcd up to £1000 but just looking for some confirmation
 
a few of the older sets have had issues, i'm sure it was the 10 series that had some sort of issue with purple and DSE, etc.

they are very good in the black department but some sets had problems iirc, they are so old now i've forgotten which sets it was but i'm sure it was the 10 or 30 series.

avforums is your best bet, read through both the official threads over there to see what issues they had.
 
I've just brought a 6 year old Pioneer Kuro KRP500A with only 5k hours on it. The pinnacle of Plasma sets and still performing flawlessly! I would highly recommend a KURO for the ultimate Plasma panel but there are not many avaliable now and you would have to buy used with no warranty.

Regarding the Pannys, the 10 series I think had floating and rising black levels and the 30 series had the green blob issue. I had a 50ST30 and that had the blob problem so it got returned.

The VT30 would be a good TV but you may run into problems like mentioned above.

LG's are ok but the black level isn't great on them and would be worth having a demo to see for yourself. How about this:

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/2487298.htm
 
I have 42GT10 and can confirm that the 10 series has rising blacks. This is a result of a firmware issue (which Panasonic refused to fix) incorrectly stepping the voltages up too high. My blacks are now grey. I also have a lot of banding as well.
 
I bought a 60ZT65 a few months back

other than more fan noise and buzz than my previous 42 inch Pro Panasonic plasma

its FANTASTIC :) PQ is second to none
 
Are these supposedly "new"? Not refurbished?

I'd be a bit wary as the VT10 was released in 2009, now I appreciate that it is possible especially in small independant shops to have old stock but that's over 5 years old?

I would personally avoid both of those, they 10 series and 30 series were very problematic, the 30 series had banding and green blobs, and the 10 series had issues with rising blacks.

What sort of viewing are you doing? If it's mainly sd tv, and maybe a bit of netflix etc I'd probably pick up a 42x60, yes it's low end, and yes it will be highly reflective as it won't have an anit-reflective filter. But it's cheaper than the two you've mentioned (around 299) and could be a stop gap until oled comes down in price.

Obviously considerations are the res, as it's only hd ready, but if you're watching mainly tv, not connecting a pc etc and can control the light in your room then it's worth considering. Plus you can do buy now pay later at Argos (who stock that model). The blacks won't compare to the recent higher end plasmas but they're better than even top end lcds, plus not far off the likes of the GT30 that had blacks at around 0.018, the x60 has blacks at 0.025. Plus you can be certain of having better uniformity than any lcd, and certainly no motion blur especially when playing any 60fps material

I hate lcd tvs due to motion blur, backlight bleed etc but plasmas are hard to get hold of now, there's only one place I've found new stock in but they're 4 hours away in Manchester, they have GT60, and VT65.
 
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Viewing consists on nowtv ... blu ray and my ps4 which does both duties , and I use the tv as a monitor so 1080 is a must . there was actually a 720p plasma in the shop going for £249 , and if I wasn't gaming id probably take it on a temp basis. I owned a 720 panny back in the day and loved it.
 
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