It's always a pleasure to open up something fresh from the box, isn't it? When the
Panasonic Viera TX-L42D25B 42” LED LCD TV arrived one fine morning at our work table, we jumped right in. Our initial reactions were far from the oohs and aahs, so to speak. This
LED LCD TV is definitely not drop-dead gorgeous as that of Samsung's and LG's latest line-ups. There are no gleaming facades, no transparent edges. Panasonic has gone in for a simple smooth black finish with no fancy works. But the truth is, a few minutes of sizing up, you tend to feel that it's not bad – it's presentable enough, so lets not make a big fuss about the design.
The TX-L42D25B is one from Panasonic's latest line-ups that created quite a stir when they were announced. Going straight away in to the actual performance of this TV, we have to say that Panasonic
has done very well with the backlighting. The IPS LED LCD panel succeeds in rendering the deepest of deep blacks – it was indeed a sweet surprise to see one of Panasonic's tellies rendering such exceptional black levels. We tried out our The Dark Knight disc and were at once treated with some fluid action – Batman's deep eyes from within the kevlar headpiece and the ruthlessness in the Joker's eyes were rendered brilliantly in the 42” screens of this
cheap LCD.
We've tried out the same movie in several of our test TVs and to be honest, the
Panasonic Viera TX-L42D25B LED TV beat them all. Furthermore, the TV comes equipped with built-in tuners for Freesat HD as well as Freeview HD, so you're assured of the best of HD content. The TX-L42D25B has a 1,920 x 1,080p resolution and a quoted dynamic contrast ratio of 2,000,000:1. It's well-equipped in the connectivity front, with 4 HDMIs, 2 USB ports (yes, two!) and a PC input apart from the usual lot.
If motion handling elicits an 8, the TX-L42D25B can be given a full 10 for colours. The TV effectively manages to render even the subtler shades with a rare magic that adds more life to them. There was no sense of artificiality about anything overtly bright as we feared and the TX-L42D25B breezed through SD content as well. It could do with some improvement in audio rendition, though. Batman's gruff voice and the Joker's teasing tone sounded a wee bit dull, dampening the experience to a certain extent.
Verdict:
Given the rich feature set and effective picture performance, the Panasonic Viera TX-L42D25B could definitely make for an efficient home-theater centerpiece.
