Panasonic Viera TH-42PX8A

9 years on and still good – Sorry to hear about the issues others have had but mine has been faultless. I did all the things they say you shouldn't do on a plasma (because I researched plasmas and didn't buy into the what LCD fanboys were saying) - I used it as a comp screen (only a small amount though), split screen gaming etc. The worst I got was after 6 hours plus playing a game and there was some ghosting around the HUD left on the screen, but that was barely visible and disappeared after a couple days.

Still looks just as good as ever with no issues.

Update a few years down the track – Last reviewed this TV just after buying it in 2010 under former username zen2010. I'm updating the review because my opinion of what I thought was an excellent TV has had to change. In the short space of 4 years, and with only a couple of on-hours per day, this TV has developed a vertical band about 50mm wide which appears down the middle of the screen.

I have read around a bit and it seems that mostly this is caused by a loose connection of one of the ribbon cable to the panel. Apparently this is readily fixable, but it still is very disappointing that it should happen at such a young age for what is an expensive appliance which theoretically should last way longer than this!

Excellent – We shopped around every store and read every review we could find on HD sets and settled on this Panasonic. We purchased the set for a bit over $1100.00 and I know some have done much better than this. The picture quality is outstanding, sound is not bad out of the integrated speakers, the remote is simple and intuitive. The only thing I see wrong with this set is that it is not 50", still it is great. The lack of full HD is not really an issue on a 42 inch set; especially if you set back more than 2 metres from the set. The blacks are black, the colours are true, and for the money it would be difficult to find a better set. Great value, excellent picture quality. Not full HD, SD tuner could be better.