Panny P42V20D or Sony 40EX710 ??

[sandy_d]

Dear Members of HifiVision,
I have zeroed in on the following 2 products and want you feedback on which is a better TV out of the Panny P42V20D and Sony 40EX710. I was equally impressed by the in store comparison of picture quality of these 2 sets.
Please sugggest me the best set out of the above 2.
Key things I am looking in a TV are :

1. Top Notch Picture Quality (For all types of sources)
2. Wireless streaming support
3. Preferably Inbuilt surge protection

-BR
Sandy

 

[shredder]

42V20 anyday.......
It has 2 inches more of real screen estate than the Sony. It is probably cheaper too.

1. V20 will give you better picture quality. You yourself implied that you could not make out a difference in PQ even in the store. Which means that the Sony is not able to beat the V20 even in an area where it has a marked advantage i.e. in brightly lit conditions. I can assure you that if all the lights were to be turned off, you would not be looking at anything other than the V20.

2. Get a media player.

3. In-built surge protection???? Is there such a thing??? Better to invest about 2000 bucks more and get a Belkin Gold Series spike buster which offers compensation up to 1 lakh in case appliances connected to this strip get damaged due to surge (whether you will be able to claim it is another issue, but the fact that the manufacturer is ready to give that kind of assurance should give you peace of mind).

 

[Kittu]

+1 to the above , panny V20 .

Did u mean stabilizer free operation? I dont think TVs come with this option even thou most dealers say TV has inbuilt stabilizer ...

 

[shredder]

Yes all modern TV's come with inbuilt stabilizers that can handle small voltage fluctuations but nothing of the magnitude of a major surge.

 

[longshanks]

No comparison between the two, Sony 40EX710 is not even half as good as v20 IMO.

 

[abhi_jollyguy]

No comparison between the two, Sony 40EX710 is not even half as good as v20 IMO.

Panny V20D is really gud no doubt, but u can't say EX710 is not half as gud as V20. Sony EX710 has also very gud black levels, there is a black corrector given in this TV and as far as picture quality is concern, EX710 is excellent. EX710 series has advanced calibration picture mode which panny lacks and in my point of view, advanced calibration is the most important term in setting picture quality to set it at 2.2 gamma. I have seen V20D in the showroom for about an hour and seen all the picture settings.

As far as I know 40 inches of EX710 series has S-PVA panel which is known for it's picture quality especially deep black levels.

 

[longshanks]

Panny V20D is really gud no doubt, but u can't say EX710 is not half as gud as V20. Sony EX710 has also very gud black levels, there is a black corrector given in this TV and as far as picture quality is concern, EX710 is excellent. EX710 series has advanced calibration picture mode which panny lacks and in my point of view, advanced calibration is the most important term in setting picture quality to set it at 2.2 gamma. I have seen V20D in the showroom for about an hour and seen all the picture settings.

As far as I know 40 inches of EX710 series has S-PVA panel which is known for it's picture quality especially deep black levels.

My post was not intended to offend any EX710 or HX800 owners, so no offence

But, from what i saw in my nearest Sony world after playing around with both these for a while is that the pic quality is OKish but not good for the price what they demand, i mostly found the HD pic to be grainy and kind of noisy (no matter what setting i tried this don't seem to go away). The screen was black when it was blank (because of the EDGE LED back-lighting) but in real world usage we dont have our screens always blank and this seem to reduce drastically when dark scenes with lot of details are displayed also if i tried to adjust contrast and brightness to get it darkened then details get lost.one of the most important thing for me is image depth and not just Sony but all LCD's lack that (including my ultra-sharp Dell monitor). Also Panasonic does not lack any advance calibrations and it has mostly what it is needed and some manufacturers might provide additional setting but that don't make much difference.

I suggest you watch a v20 50" in a dark room playing dark scenes or bright scenes or what not and then tell me how much better the tv is in comparison.

I have a few 50" plasma's(Samsung, Panasonic) as well as 42",40" LCD's(Phillips ,Sony) at my home so i do know a little bit abt picture quality although it is subjective.

In-fact i will be buying a 40"EX series Sony LCD for my sister in a few days since LCD suits her usage and room conditions better.

 

[abhi_jollyguy]

My post was not intended to offend any EX710 or HX800 owners, so no offence

But, from what i saw in my nearest Sony world after playing around with both these for a while is that the pic quality is OKish but not good for the price what they demand, i mostly found the HD pic to be grainy and kind of noisy (no matter what setting i tried this don't seem to go away). The screen was black when it was blank (because of the EDGE LED back-lighting) but in real world usage we dont have our screens always blank and this seem to reduce drastically when dark scenes with lot of details are displayed also if i tried to adjust contrast and brightness to get it darkened then details get lost.one of the most important thing for me is image depth and not just Sony but all LCD's lack that (including my ultra-sharp Dell monitor). Also Panasonic does not lack any advance calibrations and it has mostly what it is needed and some manufacturers might provide additional setting but that don't make much difference.

I suggest you watch a v20 50" in a dark room playing dark scenes or bright scenes or what not and then tell me how much better the tv is in comparison.

I have a few 50" plasma's(Samsung, Panasonic) as well as 42" LCD's(Phillips ,Sony) at my home so i do know a little bit abt picture quality although it is subjective.

In-fact i will be buying a 42"EX series Sony LCD for my sister in a few days since LCD suits her usage and room conditions better.

Sorry to say, but panny doesn't have advanced picture calibration setting.

 

[AMITNOIDA]

I am looking for a 40-42" TV for my bedroom for use exclusively with Blu ray player. For normal Tata Sky I have one 26" HD ready TV in my Living room. Yesterday, I have visited GIP mall at Noida and checked both Sony EX-710, EX-500 and also Pana V20D.

To me EX-500 and Ex-710 both PQ were almost same. Ex-710 black (black coats put on by characters in '2012' BR title) was slightly greenish tinged compared to Ex-500. The salesman said that the same can be corrected by proper setting. Ex-710 is edge lit LED TV with slimmer panel and wifi connectivity and Rs. 10k costlier than Ex-500. The PQ in both Ex-500 and Ex-710 were slightly grainy compared to V20D in BR play.

I have checked the same '2012' BR disc in V20D. The picture has no grains but didn't have that extra brightness and colour line Sony Ex series. But the clarity and naturalness of colour in D20D was unparallel. The faces of the characters in D20D was showing all the details of sweat etc, which I didn't appreciate in Ex-710. Yes, V20D consumes lot of power approx. 350 W as per the company data and heats up pretty high. But as my use will be only for BR play and may be 8-10 hours a week, the power consumption may not be an issue for me.

Price-wise 42V20D is approx. 15 K cheaper than Ex-710 and 5K cheaper than Ex-500.

The V20D comes with 3 years warranty (the Diwali offer is still available), whereas Ex-xxx has one year warranty.

Seeing all the pros and cons, my vote goes to V20D. The price quoted by the Pana dealer in GIP is 65k last price.

But one basic question remains in my mind - the longivity of the plasma panel and retention of picture clarity and colour after long use. Any opinion on this?

 

[sandy_d]

Thanks a lot to all of you for your valuable comments.

@kittu1977: I saw on the Sony set they have marked it as Inbuilt-Over Voltage Protection.
So thought it would be a nice feature to protect a TV which would cost around 80k.

@Shredder: Price wise without bargain I was quoted 65k for the panny p42v20 and 79.9k for the sony 40ex710. So if the belkins @ 2k more can provide me the surge protection then I would definitely go for it. Thanks a lot for this info.

@AMITNOIDA: Can't agree more with you on the points. I am also in the same boat, Price is not a concern as I have a budget of 80k for the TV, but keeping in view the excellent feedback from the V20D owners in this forum I am now inclined towards it. Would like to hear from the owners about the points raised by you though.

 

[sud98]

Sandy, If you have a budget of 80k, why dont you go for a bigger size panasonic rather than settling for 42 inch?

 

[sandy_d]

@Sud98: I checked the price of 50 inch V20D and it costs 105K. And other 50 inch plasmas like the X/A/U series doesn't have the required features that I want. So have zeroed in on the P42V20D.Also my viewing distance is around 12 feet. Your feed back on this most welcome.

 

[Kittu]

@Sud98: I checked the price of 50 inch V20D and it costs 105K. And other 50 inch plasmas like the X/A/U series doesn't have the required features that I want. So have zeroed in on the P42V20D.Also my viewing distance is around 12 feet. Your feed back on this most welcome.

Sandy,

Why dont you check that Samsung PS50C6500 group buy program for 67.5k ?

Almost all features available except the black levels are lil low compared to Panny.(members can deffer here but its just my eyes )

But for a 10 ft viewing distance 40 or 42 incher will be perfect ...Do not pay a penny more than 62k for 42V20D.

HTH
Kittu

 

[iaudio]

Thanks to Kittus help, I or rather my friend was able to get a 42v20d from modern world, bangalore for 63k. We couldnt source the plasma here in Cochin, so we drove over to B'lore to pick it up and I have gotta say it was worth it. Excellent PQ!

 

[sandy_d]

Thanks guys I will check it out this weekend @ Modern World, Blore.

 

[kumararvind]

Sorry to say, but panny doesn't have advanced picture calibration setting.

Panasonic v20D does have advanced ifccc setting, also it has two for night and day or BR playback and SD Playback. You have to go deep in the menu, enable ifccc first to get these settings. ....a Also you can set the gamma upto 2.6...which is the setting at which most of us watch for complete black level performance...Check the v20d owners thread...Please don't berate the tV if you don't have one...Check the website instead

Cheers

 

[abhi_jollyguy]

Panasonic v20D does have advanced ifccc setting, also it has two for night and day or BR playback and SD Playback. You have to go deep in the menu, enable ifccc first to get these settings. ....a Also you can set the gamma upto 2.6...which is the setting at which most of us watch for complete black level performance...Check the v20d owners thread...Please don't berate the tV if you don't have one...Check the website instead

Cheers

Could u plz tell me in detail about the settings u are talking about?

 

[manu79]

Get the v20 for natural color tones and picture quality, especially if you watch a lot of movies. However if its lot of regular cable\dish viewing you r gonna be doing then the ex710 will look better thanks to its bravia engine which tries to mask the picture quality artificially.

My personal vote will go to the v20 as i was in the exact dilemma with these two models and the ex-500...

 

[sandy_d]

@Manu79: I will be doing 90% cable viewing (SD as of now....planning for HD later on) and 10% movies. So you finally bought the v20 ?

 

[manu79]

Yes , i sealed the deal with the Panny V20

Since HD boxes are not available from Tata Sky as of now i am using the TV only for watching movies and some gaming on ps3 ....