[borich]

I am looking to replace my 32D3000 sony Tv for a full HD 40" tv for my sitting room. I currently view mainly xvids through my xbmc with skyhd, some blu rays and xbox 306 gaming. I don't want to go for LED back lighting tv's as i would like for the technology to mature. I have never owned a plasma before and have read that some are not good for viewing Sd and in bright rooms?

However looking aroudn the 700 mark these are some of the options:

Sony 40W5500 (£698)

Pro's

Blacks among the deepest on a non-LED-backlit LCD TV
Very good standard-definition upscaling
Highly competent SD film mode deinterlacing
White balance and gamma controls available in user menu
Motionflow 100Hz reduces motion blur without significant artefacts
No undefeatable edge enhancement on 1080i/1080p
Relatively wide viewing angles (for an LCD TV)
Applicast, USB playback and DLNA streaming functionalities

Cons
Mediocre SD video mode deinterlacing (limited jaggies reduction)
Slight red push (colour decoding error)
Input lag may affect sensitive gamers
Mild clouding and LCD backlight bleed (negligible once calibrated)
RSS widget very fussy about feed format and character encoding


Panasonic TXP42G10B (£759)

Pro's
Exceptional black level that rivals that on an entry-level 8G Pioneer Kuro PDP-4280XD
Revealing shadow detail delineation
Fantastic motion clarity even with [Intelligent Frame Creation] disabled
Handles 1080p/24 signals correctly without telecine judder
Very effective video-based jaggies reduction
High quality upscaling of standard-def progressive video signals
Natural-looking colours
Negligible input lag allows for enjoyable gaming response
Virtually no image retention
Integrated Freesat tuner
Wide viewing angle with no drop-off in contrast/ colour up to 150° (but can exhibit the odd “double image”; see Cons)
Perfect screen uniformity
Consumes less power than previous 1080p plasmas

Cons
No white balance and gamma controls available in user menu
Non-existent film mode deinterlacing
Some picture resolution and detail loss with 576i to 576p conversion
Green primary oversaturated and bluish
Mild red push
Settings cannot be saved independently per input (though can be saved separately for each picture mode)
Multilayered plasma glass causes “ghost image” of specific material (e.g. white text on a black background) to be repeated behind the original image, which is noticeable from certain off-axis angles/ distances
Still consumes more power than similarly-specced LCD TVs.

Both conclusions are taken from HDTV Reviews – LCD TV & Plasma Television Display Rating

Borich

[duncfunk]

In a head to head I'd definitely go for the G10 as it's strength is its HD picture quality. Do you watch much sd tv as you haven't listed it?

I'd also look at reviews on this site, they're much more detailed than most other sites

[borich]

I watch a lot of xvids on my XBMC soon to be replaced by popcorn hour and the odd stuff on sky. I have a sky HD box so it has HDMI which slightly increases pic quality of SKY SD channels.

Borich