NEWS: Panasonic 2018 LED LCD TV Line-up revealed

I think you are being a bit too negative here about the TV and IPS panels. There are surely those (inc. myself) who find VA panels don't make for great viewing if you sit off center. In that essence I've personally found the picture to be worse than an IPS panel if you sit anything off center; doesn't make great viewing for family or if you have a few people watching the TV.

I personally managed to catch this TV instore before closing as it was quieter. The staff kindly accepted my request if I could view the TV with the lights down. I'm not sure what Panasonic have done, but I was impressed with the blacks - in some instances they were black black (obviously not OLED black). I think this TV could be a dark horse and hope for the price to reduce a little.
Not negative at all I just want people to know their weaknesses, no matter how good a dimming system you always will have to compromise with a panel that lets more light from behind. Black levels suffer, contrast ratio is worse and their days are somewhat numbered for an outdated tech.

Given how release prices are on these TV's there's no reason other than knowing for sure you will get burn in not to go for a oled instead... United you can't fit 55" of course then your only option is an ips type TV.

Now that doesn't mean I'm saying colour will be worse, that smart TV or the upscaling performance will be badb there are of course more aspects to a TV than just its panel. I'm also not saying that these are bad TV's.. Just that in my opinion there are much better buys out there.

One of the main reasons I generally frown on IPS type panels for TV's is the number one complaint and reason people return TVs on this forum and that's bad screen uniformity. People hate DSE, they hate seeing vertical lines and patches on the screen that are lighter than others and this argument becomes even more valid in the hdr era where the backlight will be on full.

Not only that, but compared to the computer monitor market where IPS displays are very popular due to wider viewing angles and faster response times compared to VA that does not apply necessarily with TV's. TV's have a lot more processing going on which pulls the response time higher anyway negating the benefits of faster response time from a panel. This means the highest end HDR TV's with natively higher panel response times still manage to produce more than good enough motion once you factor in everything else that takes time to draw info on a TV. Couple that with TV's being larger and therefore more prone to uneven backlighting there are plenty of reasons not to buy a TV with an ips panel.

In all honesty if you need wider viewing angles you need to look at oled and if you can't look at oled due to size limitations you're going to get better performance from a good second hand plasma TV than you will from one of these. Ips panels are too much of a compromise and aren't needed anymore really on TV's when oled's are coming down in price.

Too many times have I seen horrible examples of poor uniformity from TV's and it's bad enough as it is using a VA panel with brighter TV's so I really see these as nothing more than a TV suitable for non critical family viewing with the lights on, fine for most people but not for most on an enthusiasts forum.

I say this as a Panasonic fan myself, currently owning a Panasonic TV and many before that. Now is not a good time to buy from them and I seriously worry about their future given recent business decisions and awful product support.

Let's hope I'm wrong.
 
Not negative at all I just want people to know their weaknesses, no matter how good a dimming system you always will have to compromise with a panel that lets more light from behind. Black levels suffer, contrast ratio is worse and their days are somewhat numbered for an outdated tech.

Given how release prices are on these TV's there's no reason other than knowing for sure you will get burn in not to go for a oled instead... United you can't fit 55" of course then your only option is an ips type TV.

Now that doesn't mean I'm saying colour will be worse, that smart TV or the upscaling performance will be badb there are of course more aspects to a TV than just its panel. I'm also not saying that these are bad TV's.. Just that in my opinion there are much better buys out there.

One of the main reasons I generally frown on IPS type panels for TV's is the number one complaint and reason people return TVs on this forum and that's bad screen uniformity. People hate DSE, they hate seeing vertical lines and patches on the screen that are lighter than others and this argument becomes even more valid in the hdr era where the backlight will be on full.

Not only that, but compared to the computer monitor market where IPS displays are very popular due to wider viewing angles and faster response times compared to VA that does not apply necessarily with TV's. TV's have a lot more processing going on which pulls the response time higher anyway negating the benefits of faster response time from a panel. This means the highest end HDR TV's with natively higher panel response times still manage to produce more than good enough motion once you factor in everything else that takes time to draw info on a TV. Couple that with TV's being larger and therefore more prone to uneven backlighting there are plenty of reasons not to buy a TV with an ips panel.

In all honesty if you need wider viewing angles you need to look at oled and if you can't look at oled due to size limitations you're going to get better performance from a good second hand plasma TV than you will from one of these. Ips panels are too much of a compromise and aren't needed anymore really on TV's when oled's are coming down in price.

Too many times have I seen horrible examples of poor uniformity from TV's and it's bad enough as it is using a VA panel with brighter TV's so I really see these as nothing more than a TV suitable for non critical family viewing with the lights on, fine for most people but not for most on an enthusiasts forum.

I say this as a Panasonic fan myself, currently owning a Panasonic TV and many before that. Now is not a good time to buy from them and I seriously worry about their future given recent business decisions and awful product support.

Let's hope I'm wrong.
@Dodgexander I get your point, and would agree that OLEDs / QLEDs are better (somehow I just can't agree re VA panels) and would easily displace both IPS and VA panels if the price was more competitive.

RE the FX750b - would you be able to have a look at it and share any initial impressions? I would be really keen to have your thoughts on that TV :) :)
 
It depends what you want from a TV - there is no point viewing them in the store really, I've seen TVs that are awful in the store and thought they look great and seen TVs that are supposed to look great that look awful. Picture modes, shop modes and demo reel material play a large part, together with the lighting. Really to draw a solid conclusion about any TV you'd have the shop give you the remote, put it in its correct picture mode outside of shop mode and plug in a USB stick or Disc spinner with some content that you will actually use....broadcast TV is also a good test.

Outside of having the ability to do that it's not possible to judge a TV. Who knows what settings are set? What about motion control? most of this in the store will not be the settings you use at home for a reason.

Now as I said before, I am not saying these new Panasonic's are going to be bad TVs. Being a die hard Panasonic fan myself I know where their strengths will lay. Picture and motion processing will be good, there may be slightly less blur and stutter from an IPS panel and colours will be accurate out the box. These are things Panasonic always seem to do right in recent years. They of course will have wider viewing angles if that is useful for your living room.

The negatives will be contrast, poor local dimming and worse blacks. Buying an IPS tv means you are also prone to more varied screen uniformity which really isn't going to be great if you want to use the TV to watch sport. An interesting point in the article linked above is what they made of the local dimming. They found it hard to notice how many zones the TV had because its not very aggressive at all. So why isn't the local dimming aggressive? Because of IPS tech, you cannot have aggressive local dimming when the panel by design lets more light through from behind. You would notice if it was more aggressive too much that lighter parts of the picture would be easy to make out from darker. Another negative is HDR performance, but really anyone buying a TV of this calibre should not at all be buying it with HDR in mind. For that you need to look at a higher end TV. Peak brightness and IPS tech is just not a good combination and it means that any TV with an IPS panel like this will never get bright enough to display HDR to a high standard. Smart TV, well nothing really can be said about it, it's alright but Panasonics after sales and product support with smart TV is next to awful so I'd have no expectations here.

So really, if you need wide viewing angles and you don't care to much about HDR these are okay buys. If you can fit 55+ though I would hold off instead for OLED prices to lower and if you are stuck sub 55 I would look at the Sony XF9005 instead.

If you can't fit 55" and need wide viewing angles your options are limited to IPS and out of all the IPS tv's in 2018 these may well be a good buy, the main rival being LGs SK8500 and SK9500 which compared to the Panasonic have more functional local dimming.

As for the QLEDs, they are so so until you hit the Q9FN and Q8DN. Do not assume they are a different tech from any other VA panelled LCD. They are just an LCD TV with a colour filter, the same as any other LCD and its the nifty Samsung marketing that leads people to believe they are a rival to OLED.

I urge anyone to read IPS vs VA: Comparing LCD types found in TVs and the differences between tech.

Also take a look at the sections of gray and black uniformity here: LG SK9500 vs Sony X850E Side-by-Side TV Comparison - RTINGS.com

Comparing the flagship LG LCD (better local dimming than these) to a mid range VA Sony LCD from last year. Notice how the screen is far less uniform with both blacks and gray. This will make these Panasonic TVs incredibly prone to the number one pet peeve people have with TVs and that's the dreaded dirty screen effect, clouding, backlight bleed and misused "banding" or "vertical banding" you hear on here. You will not want to watch football or tennis on one of these TVs and you certainly will not want to watch it with the lights off or dim.
 
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@Dodgexander - Thank you for your insight on various types of TV. I'm considering whether I should pay a little bit more and get last year's Panasonic OLED. I do however worry about screen burn in - any thoughts?
 
Not only that, but compared to the computer monitor market where IPS displays are very popular due to wider viewing angles and faster response times compared to VA that does not apply necessarily with TV's. TV's have a lot more processing going on which pulls the response time higher anyway negating the benefits of faster response time from a panel.

Why is it that computer monitors, which almost invariably use IPS panels don't seem the suffer the same problems as IPS TVs? I am typing this on an iMac, which has an IPS screen supplied to Apple by LG, and it looks superb. Blacks are very good, image is completely uniform, and of course the viewing angle is excellent. Are such screens using a different type of IPS?
 
Why is it that computer monitors, which almost invariably use IPS panels don't seem the suffer the same problems as IPS TVs? I am typing this on an iMac, which has an IPS screen supplied to Apple by LG, and it looks superb. Blacks are very good, image is completely uniform, and of course the viewing angle is excellent. Are such screens using a different type of IPS?
They are allot smaller so less prone to it, a lot dimmer compared too TV's usually too. Some samples will be better than others and Apple displays are notorious for having high standards and very good quality control. I have a lovely laptop display which is IPS because I value the viewing angles but it has obvious backlight bleed, most noticeable in the corner.

Also depends on content and viewing conditions. Black's can be black enough if you aren't used to better or if you always have a light on. If you view in the dark and compare having an IPS panel to VA you'll soon notice a difference.

Even when I compare my shoddy old Samsung TN monitor to my laptop display I notice how much nicer it's Black's are.

Years ago when TV's (or av equipment as a whole for that matter) had better build quality and IPS was as good as it got the very best LCD TV's were using IPS panels and Panasonic had some very good models with IPS like the AX series fald models but things have moved on and harder times have meant companies cut corners more. Complicated fald designs cost too much and quality control is one of those areas that's sadly got worse too. When I see some horrible TV's with bad uniformly when they are using VA panels it really puts it into perspective how much worse an IPS panel would be compared.

IPS monitors, much like TV's will become less popular if they are going to be good with HDR since the pixel structure just let's through to much light for brighter HDR content. That's why the best (and brightest) computer monitors coming out are all va similar to TV's.

There are different types of ips and va displays, some ips models have better black's than others (Samsung ADS for example) but they still let too much light from behind.
 

Thanks @Dodgexander - it most definitely helps. I couldn't stand the thought of a VA panel so it looks like I will save up and when the time is right - pounce on an OLED - most likely Panasonic. hat is - unless I can get the LED TV for a seriously cheap price.

You're welcome Sherwinator,
I'm still with my old TV, not changed yet !

@technomen - my bad! Are you looking to get a new TV? :)
 
@technomen - thanks for posting this! It sounds promising...compared to another review which was not as positive.

On that note, I see that the 55 Panasonic OLED has dropped in price to £1799! the 49FX750 is now £999. Tough choice! :S
.. suggestions!?
 
No problem Sherwinator !
if the price of oled have fallen it is better to take the latter is better than an LCD with IPS panel !
 

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