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The Vizio P42HD 42-inch Plasma Television
By admin | November 15, 2007
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What You Get…
The Vizio P42HD is a 42-inch plasma television. It comes complete with tabletop stand, detachable speakers, an integrated NTSC as well as ATSC tuner and remote. The resolution is 1,024 X 768 and its wattage consumption is around 440 watts. The measurements for this model with the stand attached are: 27.25” in height X 10.75” in depth X 48.5” in width and with the speakers and stand attached it weighs about 85 pounds.
The Basics…
The Vizio P42HD is probably one of the cheapest plasmas on the market today. The model is housed in a plain but shiny dark graphite frame. It reflects a lot of light from other indoor sources and I was annoyed by it. The highly optioned low cost plasma does not live up to its specifications since the company chose not to put in a glare reduction screen. There really was not all that much that impressed me about this particular plasma.
This product, manufactured in Thailand, had many areas that were disappointing. I will discuss these further on in this review. The remote was manageable although it left little to be desired. The speakers screw onto the Vizio and the stand is pretty standard in appearance; completely color matching.
The menu did not help my headache as I became more frustrated that it did not offer many of the features that most standard plasmas often do and the PIP was very limited in its functionality.
The View…
The viewing of the Vizio P42HD is exactly what one would expect for such low priced plasma televisions. It meets the standards for casual observation but if you want that quality home theatre picture you would be better off if you look for it in a different model. There are several other models on the market that outperform the Vizio P42HD when it comes to picture quality.
There was much more distinction in the center area of plasma’s grayscale image than at the picture’s edges during viewing. The details were lacking on several simple images and this disappointment included not only the dark images but the lighter ones as well. The darks went almost immediately to black and even the lighter scenes would jump almost immediately to “too white” when viewing.
The plasma failed in my PLUGE test. It was unable to retain the dark areas of the picture while other parts became lighter. The contrast ratio is listed at 1,024 X 768 but I don’t believe that those standards were met. The skin tones appeared a little too reddish but a quick fix was implemented by dialing down the color setting to eliminate the issue. After making this adjustment, the white balance seemed more accurate and I really didn’t find any further need for adjustment.
The 3:2 pulldown filter was also somewhat of a disappointment. The de-interlacer lagged behind when picking up switches from faster speed scenes to stills. There were viewable jags when we switched to graphics and it incorrectly shifted several frames. The plasma had issues with false contouring as well. There were colors banded together instead of the subtle shades that are appropriate for those dimmer light scenes.
Noise during viewings that should have been silent irked me as well but the television is not all that expensive so I suppose that I should have expected that. The glare was also a major annoyance when attempting to view the picture although it did not seem to get any worse with increased angles.
Bang for Your Buck…
The price for what you get is, however, not all that bad for a television that would have come out four years ago. For the price of around $1600.00 you could probably afford to spend the extra cash to go with a much more pleasing product.
Topics: Plasma TV Reviews, Vizio Plasma TVs |