CNet’s David Katzmaier eats, breathes and shits Giant Plasmas, so when he reviewed Panasonic’s 85 series plasmas, their best until the 800 and 850s come out, I noticed. In a nutshell, the 46-inch (yes, 46-inch) 1080p set’s 30,000:1 contrast ratio gives it some of the blackest blacks he’s ever seen…but unfortunately, still not as black as a Pioneer Kuro, although close.
Shadow detail was not as good, however, appearing too bright, and the sets pushed reds a bit. The set scored below average in standard def upscaling, noise reduction and to top it off the power consumption was conspicuously high for its size. It does have 3 HDMI ports. This set, for all the reasons listed above, scored a 7.7. (That’s low on CNet’s relatively stubby scale.) UPDATE: David writes in to say he expected more from this set, but it is still fifth best, overall. [Panasonic, CNet]
