Pioneer 428XD vs. Panasonic 42PZ700

[admin_exported]

Ok, I know this may have been covered before, and I know that both the Pioneer and the Panny are either soon to be replaced or have already been replaced, but having recently seen these two sets side by side in a local shop, I must say that I don't agree with the majority of people who say that the Pioneer is superior. Ok, in terms of black levels and contrast ratio, the Pioneer reigns supreme, however, in terms of sharpness and line definition the Pioneer is put to shame. The Pioneer's images seem so blocky, even from the proper distance, while the Panny's images are super-sharp and so clean!

The sets were both being fed the same signal from a Samsung Blu-ray player, which was playing the Disney animation Cars. Also I must say that I do not know how well the two sets had been calibrated. The thing that suprises me is that, although in the Pioneer's many praising reviews it was nearly always mentioned that the Pioneer lost out on some level of detail compared to it's full HD rivals, they all seemed to make out that it was a really minimal amount, barely perceivable. However, I truly found the Pioneer to be really lacking, with blocky, soft pictures. The Panny on the other hand, displayed super smooth and sharp images that were easy on the eye.

To finish, I have found the Panasonic 42PZ700 to be superior to the Pioneer 428XD in terms of picture quality. Am I mental or something?!

 

[Anonymous]

i own a 42PZ700 and i do prefer it to the pioneer...

 

[FuzzyinLondon]

I wasn't that impressed with the Pioneer when I first had look at it alongside the Panasonic 42PZ70 (I believe they share the same panel and processing). I thought the Panasonic looked a lot sharper than the Pioneer, especially up close, and I couldn't understand why it was so much cheaper. I went in again a couple of weeks later with a bunch of recommended settings for each set, which I had downloaded, and the sales assistant let me have the remote controls to let me have a play. The difference after I'd calibrated them was dramatic. The picture on the Pioneer was comparable to the professionally calibrated CRTs that I work with. The Pioneer's out of box settings are a world away from what they should be it takes a bit of time to set it up properly. Pioneer have shot themselves it the foot sending them out the way they do. The Panasonic looks fairly good out of the box and only took a bit of tweaking (I have to admit that I'm constantly disappointed with the lack of options on the Panasonics) but I couldn't quite get the colours to look natural. The colours skew towards green which is fairly well known fault on the older Panasonic plasmas but seems to have been improved on the 2008 range. Even after calibration, I can't argue that the Panasonic was sharper when viewed up close with HD material via HDMI, but from 8feet there wasn't really anything in it and I'm not even making a point of the two sets respective abilities to handle 1080p24 - I didn't notice any noticeable judder on the PZ70 so it was never a factor. Once you disable a lot of the unnecessary processing on the Pioneer, the picture really does improve. On Standard Definition there's no comparison. I was all set to buy the Panasonic but I changed my mind and haven't regretted it for a moment.

I'm not saying you're wrong or even mental. It's just a personal preference. Without the chance to actually have a play with the sets, I would've bought the Panasonic and probably would've saved myself a few hundred quid. But it was important for me to have set set that was capable of producing the most accurate image across all sources, and only the Pioneer really allowed me to do this. I really like the new Panasonic 2008 range. I think it's a good improvement, especially with black levels and colour reproduction, and really good value for money so I'm not Panasonic bashing. I just wish Pioneer sent their sets out to shops set up realising what kind of feeds will be displayed on them. At lest then people would have a chance to do a proper comparison so they can make the most informed choice. It won't matter soon as there won't be a plasma successor to the 428XD and Pioneer have stopped manufacturing them. If you want a sub-50" plasma, your choices will be Panasonic, LG or Samsung.