Buy Panasonic at cheaper price or wait ???

[greyhorse]

Hi to all.

I have been waitng to buy a Plasma or LCD screen for the last 6 months and thought I had come to the point I was ready to buy.

I have had my eye on the Panasonic th42pe30 with cab and the new model has just been released(th42pe50) I understand the quality of the images displayed are the same?? I know the card slot has gone and also a few changes in design. I do prefer the older model with the glass surround !!

Now I have started to read about HD panasonics out now in 50" and soon to follow on the other models 42 pv and 37pv.

I really only have a budget of £2000 and a dealer has offered me the th42-pe50 with stand and free recorder.

Does anyone have any idea how much more the HD 42" model will be, will it be worth the extra. I watch sat tv and play dvd through my Panasonic hdd 160gb recorder and surround sound amp.

My local dealer has told me that the PE30 will play hd television but will downgrade it.

I must say that I watched normal tv on the Panasonic PE30 and also the top of the range Pioneer 43" hd model and had to say the panasonic looked better.

I dont want to waste £2000 now only to find in 2 years time i will need to splash out again for a new HD model. The dealer has advised it will take 5 years plus for the UK to be running HD tv on all stations at no cost to the viewer. i wouldnt want to pay more money to SKY, so refused to get sky + and opted for the Panny 160 gb dvd recorder.

Please can someone offer some advise before my wife kills me !!!!

 

[Deleted member 39241]

Hi to all.

I have been waitng to buy a Plasma or LCD screen for the last 6 months and thought I had come to the point I was ready to buy.

I have had my eye on the Panasonic th42pe30 with cab and the new model has just been released(th42pe50) I understand the quality of the images displayed are the same?? I know the card slot has gone and also a few changes in design. I do prefer the older model with the glass surround !!

Now I have started to read about HD panasonics out now in 50" and soon to follow on the other models 42 pv and 37pv.

I really only have a budget of £2000 and a dealer has offered me the th42-pe50 with stand and free recorder.

Does anyone have any idea how much more the HD 42" model will be, will it be worth the extra. I watch sat tv and play dvd through my Panasonic hdd 160gb recorder and surround sound amp.

My local dealer has told me that the PE30 will play hd television but will downgrade it.

I must say that I watched normal tv on the Panasonic PE30 and also the top of the range Pioneer 43" hd model and had to say the panasonic looked better.

I dont want to waste £2000 now only to find in 2 years time i will need to splash out again for a new HD model. The dealer has advised it will take 5 years plus for the UK to be running HD tv on all stations at no cost to the viewer. i wouldnt want to pay more money to SKY, so refused to get sky + and opted for the Panny 160 gb dvd recorder.

Please can someone offer some advise before my wife kills me !!!!

Buy it now!
Life is too short to wait for the next best thing, and technology will always be evolving. HD plasma's will be a lot cheaper in a couple of years, by which time you can move your current screen to the bedroom, or sell it and upgrade.... or if you love it just keep it and enjoy it.

 

[Chrissywis]

The new Panny is £2300ish from AV-Sales with free DVD recorder and is due in the next month, so it depends on just how strict your £2000 budget is.

 

[Jazz Monkey Jr]

Wait until new PV500 comes out in a couple of weeks and see what the price comes in at - it should be below £2300 hopefully - with a free DVD recorder.

 

[greyhorse]

I have found that the price of the current th42-50 panasonic with stand and free recorder can be purchased for £1950

If I wait a few weeks the best price for the new HD panasonic th42-50 will be around £2795 including the stand.

At the moment with all the confusion over HD tv is it worth spending that much more money, what are you thoughts ??

Many Thanks
Paul

 

[Jazz Monkey Jr]

If you can afford it, then I would definately get the PV500 (once you ave demo'd it), it may even come with a free cabinet when it comes out, or soon after, as the current Vieras are coming with free cabinets.

If you think how much you are gong to watch your TV over the next few years, the extra cost isn't much.

You could even put it on an interest free credit card...

 

[JulianL]

One thing you might want to consider is whether it's worth waiting a few weeks anyway even if you go for the PE30. I'm inclined to agree with your dealer, i.e. it'll be years before HD is available at little or no incremental cost for a worthwhile percentage of broadcast content. I'm like you, I held off for ages getting Sky+ because I refused to pay the £10 per month premium, so I don't think that I'll be in the market for HD for another 3 to 5 years.

Using the above argument, I'm really close to buying myself a 42" PWD7 but I'm waiting another month or two because I want to see if the HD stuff coming onto the market at the £2300-ish price point will have any downward price pressure on Panasonics totally antique and obsolete SD models (I use the last phrase not as a genuine comment, but to make a point. I strongly suspect that Panasonic will be talking up their new HD models as the latest and greatest things that the smart consumer just has to have so to a large extent their very own marketing might end up denigrating their current SD models and creating the downward price pressure that I'm hoping for).

All speculation. Time will tell.

- Julian

 

[Sulis]

Remember that the panels are now almost exclusively supplied by the business arm of Panasonic - the consumer side is going totally Viera. So any panel bargains you see now may well not last, since the G8 panels won't be here until September (October). In fact the prices may well rise....

 

[greyhorse]

The G8 panals are in all the new viera screens now Prices will never go up !! they always come down................. with all electronic goods.

 

[Sulis]

The G8 panals are in all the new viera screens now Prices will never go up !! they always come down................. with all electronic goods.

If only... Yes, the new Vieras have G8 panels in them (whatever that really means). But to buy a G8 panel (ie. no speakers/tuner/etc.) you're going to have to wait until September at least.

Panasonic will not be making any more 'G7' panels, so as supplies of the PW7 and PHD7 panels start to run out (no idea what stock levels are), the laws of supply and demand will mean that they may well become dearer. Not because Panasonic are upping the price, but just because they're harder to get hold of. The panel side of Panasonic (selling to businesses) seems to be completely separate from the consumer side now, so don't expect consumer pricing, either...

 

[JulianL]

Sorry to Greyhorse for slightly (and un-intentionally) hijacking this thread, but re Sulis's point that "Panasonic will not be making any more 'G7' panels", I thought that it was only the PW7 consumer version that they had stopped making. I thought that the PWD7 business line was still going strong.

- Julian

 

[Sulis]

Aaaah... you may be right. It doesn't make sense for Panasonic to leave their Business business high and dry... So it's most likely the consumer (silver) panels that are being phased out. Sorry for any confusion.

 

[x5tjf]

If you look around the net you will see that the older PE30 models are being sold off (or are now out of stock) at most dealers. The new standard resolution TV sets - PE50 - are here and are cheaper than the older sets. The PE50 has the new G8 plasma panel (where the PE30 had the previous generation G7 panel). Typical price for a 42PE30 with stand was about £2300 where the new 42PE50 is about £2000, so prices are going down. But also note that many features of the PE30 have been dropped on the new PE50 to get the price down.

Gone is the 5 speaker 26W audio in favour of a cheaper 3 speaker 16W setup. The Picture in Picture (POP,PAP,PAT) is gone. Many of the external connections are gone (PE30 has 3 SCART plus front panel inputs plus PC VGA input plus SD/PC card slot, PE50 has 1 SCART and no front panel inputs and no PC input and no SD/PC slot).

So the new PE50 has moved nearer to a display panel so that you can use an external A/V Receiver/Amp to control things, rather than the TV itself.

The HD PE500 TVs will be out this summer but they are stated to cost £700 more than the equivalent PE50 version (at list price), but they do have a HD 1024 x 1024 G8 panel of course.

If you are looking at a £2000 budget then the PE50 is the solution. It will be a couple of years before the HD broadcasts are readily available and by then there will be another generation of plasma panels out (G9, G10?). So my feeling is to wait until you can see what HD broadcasts look like on (probably) the next generation set before deciding which HD set to buy.

Terry

 

[neilmcl]

The HD PE500 TVs will be out this summer but they are stated to cost £700 more than the equivalent PE50 version (at list price), but they do have a HD 1024 x 1024 G8 panel of course.

Sorry to contradict you but the resolution of the 500s are:

50" 1366x768
42" 1024x768
37" 1024x720

Also I don't think the prices will be £700 or greater than it's equivalent PE50 version, more likely £300-400.

 

[x5tjf]

Sorry to contradict you but the resolution of the 500s are:

50" 1366x768
42" 1024x768
37" 1024x720

Also I don't think the prices will be £700 or greater than it's equivalent PE50 version, more likely £300-400.

Whoops!

Sorry for the error - I don't have the spec for the 500s to hand and I was going from memory (which gets more difficult as time goes by). But I do recall seeing a press article from Panasonic (or so I recall) that mentioned that the price difference would be around £700. I guess that the market price difference could be a good bit less than this though.

Terry

 

[Sulis]

Also, the PV500 models will have 26W speaker systems - 2 x 8cm woofers (!) and 4 tweeters - so 6 speakers instead of 5!

 

[greyhorse]

Spent another sunday having a look at the screens for the 100th time in six months. (My wife will end up dumping me !!)

Powerhouse had a special Panasonic launch of the new th42-30b, I asked when the new HD model in 42" will be launched and girl said ( this is the 42" model, i replied I know !! but when will the HD model be out in the shops. She didn't have a clue, ( I only do shows etc at weekend so I don't know she said)

What a laugh. Then the spotty boy came over from Powerhouse and tried to sell me the set, he thought HD tv was the hard drive found in video recorders and said " oh yeah hd tv wont ever get that in the uk know one wants a built in hard drive in tv sets"

I shook my head and walked away, just how many people in the uk are just buying sets on how they look. Its a real shame companies are not telling the truth and the shops don't want to inform buyers. How many people are just buying on brand name alone and really don't have a clue about screen res, hd, progressive scan, hd inputs, scarts, rgb.

Perhaps these low informed people are better off as they just don't suffer the brain drain that I have not being able to decide what set to buy.

Still cant decide to have the cheap low res panasonic, wait for the new HD res panny and save a few more quid up. then I have started looking at the new HD rear DLP from Toshiba which gives a fantastic picture which is HD ready. *****!0$£21 My head is still in a spin some one help me before i go CRAZY !!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[totalmadness]

I know exactly what you mean. This weekend I went into various Comet stores and started talking about all this stuff and the sales staff were like "????^$%^$% WTF??" So then he called another member of staff, and he called another....so basically I ended up giving them a training session on HD technology. I even ended up training the PANNY repy who was showing off the 42PW50. Ohh these KIDS!!

 

[thegooseman]

I know exactly what you mean. This weekend I went into various Comet stores and started talking about all this stuff and the sales staff were like "????^$%^$% WTF??" So then he called another member of staff, and he called another....so basically I ended up giving them a training session on HD technology. I even ended up training the PANNY repy who was showing off the 42PW50. Ohh these KIDS!!

Luckily I dont have this problem. my local panny dealer is excelent. absolutely superb.

 

[WhiteNoiseMaker]

I'm having a nightmare of a time deciding between the TH-37PV500B and the TH-37PE50B.

The Package from av-sales with the wall bracket and free DVD recorder looks good and if I go for the PE50 everything is there that I need right now. If I go for the PV500 yes I get a free DVD recorder but it doesn't have HDMI output so I’d need to sell that and buy a new DVD player/recorder which again bumps the price up.

Plus I’m off work for a week in 2 weeks time and it would be great to have it delivered sometime during that week off ...only hope av-sales have the 37" PE50 or PV500 in stock by then.

 

[greyhorse]

He will be able to supply the 42th-pe30 with stand and free recorder for £1950 or If I wait I can have the new HD 42 model with stand for around £2400, thoughts on that guys ????

Just read the review on the new Toshiba 46WM48P DLP and it looks a great set although I dont know if it would fit where I want to put the plasma.

The review states its one of the best pictures ever seen !!!!!!

So where do I go now ...................please please help

 

[Jazz Monkey Jr]

You can get John Lewis to price match and get a free 5 year guarantee

 

[totalmadness]

On the question of John Lewis price match.....do they only match their competitor store prices only???

 

[rooster-x]

We went looking for the new Panny but all Curry's had in Lancaster was the old Panny PE30 and a Pioneer HD plasma. The PE30 is as good as a CRT on SD, but the Pioneer PQ was awful. This was after the poor rep had connected a cheap sony DVD player to the Pioneer through scart. Now I know this screen can display excellent pictures with the right kit (high end HDMI DVD player with internal scaler), as I saw at the Practical HIFI show last year but what about Freeview or Sky? This is what people watch all the time. My heart wants a Panny PV500 but my head says PE50 as the SD picture will be better, or am I completely wrong? Can't wait to see a PV500 with my own eyes. Anybody else seen one yet?

Rooster-x

 

[Jazz Monkey Jr]

They are all numty's in Lancaster Currys, same as comet etc. They have a PE50 at powerhouse at the bolton reebok stadium if you want to see one. There is a good shop in Tarleton that has the PE50, more of a proper shop, they sell B&O, BOSE etc and will give you a better demo, woth your own VD's etc. may go down myself when they get the PV500, that is the one I want.

Quote:
Originally Posted by dempsey
Well the screens were running Blu-Ray DVD when I saw them at the trade show in March so can't comment on SD material but what I did see was fantastic.


I hope it is worth the wait...