Well, after months of considering almost every plasma TV, I've finally settled for the best one (imo). I traded in my 42PD6600 of which the PQ wasn't satisfying enough for me.
I've been on these boards for months and have seen all the plasma's I've considered in person. My conclusions are in no way meant to tell the one and only truth. Your findings may be different, but I'm putting up mine to help people in the same position get a better perspective of which TV to choose.
Pioneer 436: Best PQ overall and beautiful timeless design. Handles colorbanding the best. But too vulnerable to screenburn, too obvious lipsynchproblems and (at least for me) too expensive. For that amount of money, I don't want to suffer 1500 hours of bad PQ and other annoyances.
Panasonic PX60/600: Good PQ, colorbanding a little less than the 9700 and a little more than the Pioneer. But in terms of clarity, sharpness and color, the 9700 beats it, except in blacklevels maybe. (Wasn't as noticable as I thought.) Plus, the remote lacks ext.input-buttons and the design looks cheap on the PX60, while the 600 is way more expensive while having no PQ-improvements, so no alternative for me.
Hitachi 7200A: Almost as good as the 9700. In the end, it was the only real alternative, but both in HD and SD, the 9700 performed (suprisingly) better (after some comments from forummembers who've stated the opposite). In HD, colors were more natural and blackdetail was a little bit better. In SD (DVD with component-hookup) colors were more evenly matched but in some scenes skintones were less natural on the 7200 and there was more noise in the picture. Colorbanding was more noticable than on the 9700. The 6600 was terrible at it by the way (which was also hanging next to the 7200 and 9700). Probably because it lacks the more sophisticated software to counter it.
In the end, I preferred the 9700 for the improved PQ in all areas over the 7200, the better design (the 7200 only gets pretty after you remove it's speakers and even then, the 9700 looks more sophisticated) and the improved resolution (so I can put my 360 on 1080i soon ).
I can still completely understand why somebody would still buy a 7200, but for me, the difference was big enough to pay the extra 630 euro.
The Hitachi's had all PQ-improving settings turned off, or at zero level (so I can't wait to see the PQ with post 200 hour settings! ) and I have dismissed soundquality as I always use an external system.
If you want to test for colorbanding yourself, use Finding Nemo: beginning scene 11 and The Matrix Revolutions: beginning scene 2, and be prepared to get a little less happy with your plasma TV!
I've been on these boards for months and have seen all the plasma's I've considered in person. My conclusions are in no way meant to tell the one and only truth. Your findings may be different, but I'm putting up mine to help people in the same position get a better perspective of which TV to choose.
Pioneer 436: Best PQ overall and beautiful timeless design. Handles colorbanding the best. But too vulnerable to screenburn, too obvious lipsynchproblems and (at least for me) too expensive. For that amount of money, I don't want to suffer 1500 hours of bad PQ and other annoyances.
Panasonic PX60/600: Good PQ, colorbanding a little less than the 9700 and a little more than the Pioneer. But in terms of clarity, sharpness and color, the 9700 beats it, except in blacklevels maybe. (Wasn't as noticable as I thought.) Plus, the remote lacks ext.input-buttons and the design looks cheap on the PX60, while the 600 is way more expensive while having no PQ-improvements, so no alternative for me.
Hitachi 7200A: Almost as good as the 9700. In the end, it was the only real alternative, but both in HD and SD, the 9700 performed (suprisingly) better (after some comments from forummembers who've stated the opposite). In HD, colors were more natural and blackdetail was a little bit better. In SD (DVD with component-hookup) colors were more evenly matched but in some scenes skintones were less natural on the 7200 and there was more noise in the picture. Colorbanding was more noticable than on the 9700. The 6600 was terrible at it by the way (which was also hanging next to the 7200 and 9700). Probably because it lacks the more sophisticated software to counter it.
In the end, I preferred the 9700 for the improved PQ in all areas over the 7200, the better design (the 7200 only gets pretty after you remove it's speakers and even then, the 9700 looks more sophisticated) and the improved resolution (so I can put my 360 on 1080i soon ).
I can still completely understand why somebody would still buy a 7200, but for me, the difference was big enough to pay the extra 630 euro.
The Hitachi's had all PQ-improving settings turned off, or at zero level (so I can't wait to see the PQ with post 200 hour settings! ) and I have dismissed soundquality as I always use an external system.
If you want to test for colorbanding yourself, use Finding Nemo: beginning scene 11 and The Matrix Revolutions: beginning scene 2, and be prepared to get a little less happy with your plasma TV!