The Panasonic TX-P50V10 marks the arrival of the twelfth generation of the manufacturer's panel technology. In addition to this new hardware, the design has been updated to give a more complete television that we're expecting a lot from.


Hardware

With four HDMI inputs, a DivX-compatible SD card reader and an Ethernet port that can access both DLNA and Viera Cast content, the V10 has just about everything you could expect from a high-end TV. With Viera Cast, you can access online content via the Internet, as well as files from your local network (DLNA). You can watch videos from YouTube or Eurosport, for instance, or look at photos on Picasa. Web connectivity in televisions is one of the big trends for 2009, and Panasonic couldn't miss out on a feature that nearly all of the big manufacturers are now offering.


The settings menus are the same as on previous generations of Panasonic TVs. They're a little too functional and are beginning to look old-fashioned, but they work well. Navigating through the menus is easy, because they are all cyclic: as soon as you get to the bottom of a list of options, scrolling any further will take you back to the top. There are now onscreen indicators to show the level of different settings, which weren't there on earlier models.

The remote control also seems to come from a different era. It's practical and easy to get used to, but its design clashes with the screen's, and it isn't backlit.

Image Quality

When we tested it in our lab, the results produced by the TX-P50V10 were quite simply excellent. Blacks were as dark as 0.05 cd/m² and can therefore easily be called 'very deep'. At the same time, whites varied from 126 to 158 cd/m², depending on the type of scene, giving a very high contrast ratio of between 2400:1 and 3300:1. To manage this, we had to turn the contrast up a little from its default setting, 30, to 45. Doing this doesn't have any negative effects on the gamma curve, so each colour retains its ideal brightness compared to the others.  Colours are also pretty good, if a little pale by default, and this setting can also usefully be increased from 30 to 45.

Of course, the best time to activate these changes is in either Cinema or THX mode, the only two that offer the best way of displaying movies. In Cinema mode, there is also the added bonus of the Intelligent Frame Creation Pro system (IFCP), which makes movies more fluid. This feature isn't available in THX mode, which shows the movie at the same framerate at which it was shot.  Although turning IFCP on can be surprising the first time you use it, we were surprised to find that we got used to it after a few days. After that, films seemed jerky without it. It's up to you whether or not you use it, though. In the end, it's a question of taste.

Either way, the image quality is amazing, in both HD and SD. Upscaling of the latter isn't at all bad, but doesn't mark much of an improvement on what we've seen from the competition or on earlier Panasonic models. We've noticed that almost all of the manufacturers are neck and neck in this area. A Blu-ray reader still does better upscaling of a DVD than any television, and that's the best way to breathe a second life into your DVD collection.


Naturally, the viewing angles, response time and the brightness are all faultless--but that's the case with every plasma screen.

So: does the V10 represent the perfect television? Well, no ... or at least, it's no more perfect than any of the other great televisions we've tested. Although its plasma technology does bring certain advantages (viewing angles, response time, evenness, natural colours, deep blacks, etc.), there are also some disadvantages: the maximum brightness isn't as high as on an LCD, and the risk of screen burn makes using it with a console risky. With a plasma screen, you have to be careful not to display a static image for too long, and the interface on some console games can fall into this category.  Plasmas are entirely unsuitable for use with a PC, unless you only plan to use your computer for playing movies. Finally, the V10's glossy screen makes it susceptible to reflections, so you'll need to avoid placing it opposite a window, a lamp or a light coloured wall.

The V10 isn't entirely without fault, then, but no more so than any other TV. It's certainly amongst the best of today's televisions, and if you consider one particular use--a Home Cinema in a dark room--possibly the very best.

Sound Quality

We have to admit that the sound produced by the speakers puts the V10 at the top of the table. That's not hard given how bad some of the competition is, and flatscreen TVs are very likely to produce a tinny sound. However, given the quality of the image, we think it would be a shame to not add a small Home Cinema Kit to make the sound even better--the V10 definitely deserves it.

Energy Use

The V10 might be reasonably economical on standby, but that's not at all the case when it's in use. Its energy consumption increases from 0.1 W to 301 W when you switch it in. It's certainly a lot, but it's still 25% lower than a plasma of this size from a few years ago.