Panasonic TX-P42S10 or TX-P42G10?

norliss

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My Panny TX-42PX600 recently went down with the green line of death and having been deemed "beyond economic repair" by John Lewis I am being offered a replacement set.

They are offering me what they believe to be today's price (if not spec) equivalent of the TX-P42S10 and said if I didn't want that I could use its value (£900 at their prices) toward another set. So this would mean I could have the TX-P42G10 for an additional £200.

Now I know the G series has a built-in freesat tuner but that aside, is it worth the extra £200 in terms of its video performance? Once upon a time I probably wouldn't have needed to ask this question, but given that I intend to get a projector later in the year - which will end up being the main movie watching display device - I just wonder whether the G series is worth shelling the extra for...?

All comments/opinions gladly received :)
 
It might be worth checking some of the other threads, but some of this year's Panasonics (particularly at the lower-end, but not including the X series) are making use of the panels from the previous generation - so the S10 might well be last years PZ80 in new clothes.

The G10, as I understand it, is the first of the brand new NeoPDP panels - they are thinner, consume less power and have better contrast ratios.

I'm still looking myself, so much of this is from my own research through these forums. If someone like alsina (who works for a independent retailer, it would seem) sees this, he should be able to tell you for certain.
 
I made this comparison today - if you are going to be using the internal tuners as an everyday source, I think you need to give the S10 serious consideration.
I think it handles motion on Freeview better than the G10, the colour saturation on the G10 looks a bit gaudy by comparison to the S10. There also seems to be over emphasised sharpness compared to the S10.
The FreeSat source on the G10 was not free of motion glitches - ***???!

It is not accurate to say the S10 is just the Z80/Z81 dressed up in new chassis. The S10 does not suffer from the same soft scaling that afflicted last year's PZ models!

However even the G10's scaling for standard def is a little soft above 42".

Where the G10 and V10 series models score is with High def, this truly eclipses last year's PZ and the S10. The G10 looks more real - based on BBC HD channel source.

For my own use, I had reservation about motion on snooker broadcasts on the G10 - I still felt that there was more blur compared to the S10 on fast shots, despite the superior definition!
It's never straightforward is it? lol

And then we have the V10 series with more finely tuned picture performance courtesy of the THX mode!!:eek:

There's no substitute for seeing them in person, no matter what opinions you read here. The S10 wasnt well received by John Archer on Trustedreviews.com, I beg to differ IMHO : it depends what you want from it!
 
The G10 is £920 at Richer Sounds so you could get it for only £20 more than the S10. The G10 is better from what I've seen, there's little in it on SD sources though. To the above comment the S10 uses a similar panel to last years PZ series but has improved processing and other little things, overall it is a much better TV due to the dodgy SD quality on the PZ80s compared to what you might expect. The G10 uses the brand new Vreal 4 processing and NeoPDP panel but, contrary to the above comment, it isn't thinner (the V10 is!) and, according to the Panasonic website the G10 actually uses more power, I would expect that to be due to the freesat tuner (?). It deffinitely does have better contrast/blacks but this isn't as noticeable in regular TV, more in dark scenes on movies.

The G10 also offers a claimed (and tested by some reviewers) motion resolution of 1080 lines, which is very impressive. I'd say get the G10 at Richer Sounds for £920, it's the 50" version which is more money
 
Thanks for the replies, guys. As is often the case, it's not totally clearcut.

@Monarch08 cheers for your comments too but this is a replacement set - I'm not purchasing it outright - so it's either an S for nowt or a G for £200.
 
I suppose price matching wouldn't work because you're not going to buy from Richer Sounds. I think it's a difficult one to justify, if you're watching SD TV on it then the S10, deffinitely, but if you're watching a lot of movies, or are gaming, then the G10 may well be worth it, but you say you're planning on getting a projector for movie use. I would probably say that you're better off getting the S10 and putting that £200 to a slightly better projector or towards a sound system of some sort. Or, if you like the idea of freesat, you can pick up a freesat box for £150, maybe even less
 
After speaking to the other half, we decided to opt for the TX-P42G10 on the basis that it had the freesat tuner built in. Just got to wait for a week for it to be delivered.

I'm unsure how much of a difference it will make going up to 1080p on a set of this size, but the fact that it will allow a 24p input is a bonus and I'll be interested to see what that's like with Blu-ray discs. It will also be nice to actually see some HDTV albeit limited to BBC/ITV.

Thanks for your input :thumbsup:
 
The improvement in resolution wont necessarily be noticeable, unless you sit very close, but you should see a decent improvement in black levels/contrast etc...I'm sure that as soon as you get a blu-ray going through it you will be positive you made the right choice
 

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