Pioneer PDP-4280XD Vs Pioneer PDP-428XD

[admin_exported]

So Im just about to buy this TV and then I find out there are 2 versions???

Why Pioneer have done this to me I dont know so I have come back to the people in the know - thats you guys!!!!!!

Which one is better? Why is it better? Theres about 100 quid difference in their prices, is it worth buying the more expensive one?

Any help would be appreciated guys!!!

 

[Andrew Everard]

Lots of discussion here in the past on this subject. Punt either model number into the search box at the top of this page and you'll turn up the relevant threads.

 

[FuzzyinLondon]

Try here: http://whathifi.com/forums/p/5616/31309.aspx#31309

 

[Anonymous]

Fuzzy do you still have the link to the webpage you bought it from??

Its 1369.99 now with 3 yr warrantly and 30 pounds delivery charge??? WTF

Cheers

 

[FuzzyinLondon]

Hi Purplehead. To get the 5 year Pioneer warranty, I had to buy it in-store. I'm lucky in that I have an Empire Direct branch quite nearby. As far as I know, the Pioneer offer isn't available through the web. It might be worth doing a quick web search to see if you have an ED branch near you. I didn't even know I had one until I drove past it by chance. I wouldn't normally buy from them, but I was eager to get the warranty and I'd been shopping around for a while and it was the best deal I'd found.

It's also worth searching the threads over at another site to see if anyone's posted any good deals.

 

[Anonymous]

Fuzzy it just so happens that I live in London also!!!!

I currently live in Streatham (.. I know, dont ask )

Which store did you go to?

 

[FuzzyinLondon]

I went to the store in Romford and have also discovered that they have a branch in Edmonton, just across the road from Ikea.

 

[Anonymous]

Actually I can't find much of a definitive answer on the forum. The price differential is quite large now as you can pick up the 4280xd for around 1350 but the 428xd is around 1650 once you include a stand (if not wall mounting). As I don't need the extra features, all I need to know is the picture quality the same between the two sets? If there is any difference, is it worth £300?

Grateful for any answers/views as I would like to order one this week

 

[Anonymous]

I am in the same situation. I had a list of about 4/5 makes & models and narrowed it down to the Pansonic pz70 or the Pioneer 428/4280.

The Panasonic can be bought for arounf £1000 with a 5 year warranty and the Pioneer 4280 cheapest price that I have found is £1379 with a 5 year warranty if picked up from a store (1 year if delivered ?? ) while the cheapest 428 is £1497 + stand £103 = £1600 with the same warranty conditions as the 4280.

At a local dealer (which I would prefer to use) who's cheapest price was £1700 for the 428 said that I could not expect to get as good a picture on the 4280 as the 428 because of the extra adjustment features on the 428, whether this was a sales pitch or not I do not know (They do keep both models) I thought that they might price match but they are not interested, their response was I would get personal service ? but once the tv is bought and you have a warranty it is the repairers who would deal with anything if it went wrong. They also said that they have very small margins on tv's, typically 5% which I thought was rubbish, if they only worked on 5% how come these other dealers can sell them for much cheaper.

I would not use the split screen or some of the other features and if I read the specification they are both the same, so to me it looks like it is just the better adjustment feature that would benefit me, but it this extra adjustment worth an extra £220+

I also see that the Pioneer has hdmi 1.3 while the Panasonic has hdmi1.2, is hdmi 1.3 noticably better or not.

The Pioneer is 'only' 720p while the Pansonic is full 1080p but again the delaer said that on a 42" display the Pioneer would still blow the Pansonic away even using blu-ray on my PS3. I would like an honest opinion if this woas the case or if blu ray at full 1080p would be better than 720p on the Pioneer.

There are loads of new models due to be released soon but these will more than likely be full retail price until late in the year so will thse 'older' model drop drastically in price once the new ones are released or at £1000/ £1400 are they still worth the price ?

Decisions, Decisions.

 

[FuzzyinLondon]

Since they share the same panel, then yes, they would give you the same picture if they were configured with identical picture settings for the same source material. The picture quality of the 428XD can be improved by an ISF certified engineer. To do this you'd need to book a visit which costs about £300. The engineer would adjust the picture settings to maximise performance for each source you have hooked up to the tv and account of factors such as the ambient light in the room. It's very cool if you can afford it. Obviously, that's another cost on top of the tv though.

 

[Anonymous]

I personally would not pay anyone £300 to adjust the colour of my tv as good as it may be. If this 'menu' can only be adjusted correctly by an engineer then it is of no use to me so the 4280 would probably do the job.

The pioneer can 'play' 24 fps or so I believe, while the panasonic can not, what is this and does this along with the different hdmi (1.3/1.2) and 720p/1080p make much difference.

They both have their good points, 1080p and a cheaper price for the Panasonic while the Pioneer has hdmi1.3, 24fps, better contrast ?

This is becoming a difficult decision !

 

[Anonymous]

As Fuzzy has mentioned, the panel is the same but the body is (I was told) from the older 427XD. A google search will open up the world of hdmi and it's vaious guises. 1.3 is probably of greater impotance between source and av amp rather than tv, but if its there....

 

[FuzzyinLondon]

Sorry Ian. I'd been on hold with BT whilst typing the above post and hadn't seen your post. The extra picture settings on the 428XD can ONLY be accessed by an ISF engineer using special calibration equipment. In every other way, the picture settings are the same as the 4280XD. I have checked this. I was in the same position as you a month ago about whether to go for the Panasonic or the Pioneer. I had narrowed it down to the same choice. Here's my own findings: I was lucky enough that a local dealer let me demo and compare the two sets. I tweaked the picture slightly on both using setting I had got from another site from owners of both sets. On freeview and SD, there was no comparison. The Pioneer blows the Panasonic away. But then, this is to be expected given that the Pioneer has less scaling to do and has better blacks and contrast ratio.

What surprised me was the Blu-Ray test for which I used the Casino Royale. I expected the Panasonic to win this one given its higher resolution. However, from 9-10ft (my viewing distance), it was clear that the Pioneer was giving me the better picture. The colours were more vibrant and the picture was smoother and seemed just as sharp. When I stood 4ft away, I could see the extra sharpness of the Panasonic but by that point I'd realised that it wasn't an important factor to me anmore and I would never normally sit that close. I bought the Pio 4280XD two weeks ago and haven't regretted it for a second since. I feel like I win both ways - SD looks excellent and HD material is brilliant. I sat watching Sin City on BBC2 the other night in stunned silence. I couldn't believe how good it looked. Obviously these are just my opinions and everyone can feel free to disagree. A lot will depend on your viewing distance. I don't think the HDMI v1.2 or v1.3 debate is that relevant at the moment ,and won't be for a couple of years, by which time we'll probably be on v1.5 anyway. If you can wait a few months, I'd check out the reviews for the new Panasonics. The specs look good and I'm sure they'll be competitively priced. Looks like we'll be waiting another 7-8 months for new Pios.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Fuzzy, nice report.

I think that puts the 428 out of the equation now if an engineer is needed.

I have a Panasonic 42" plasma that I have had for nearly 5 years and my bedroon tv is going into my sons room so I was going to put the 42" plasma on the wall in the bedroom !!!

I was going to go for the Panasonic on price and 1080p, but the reviews etc on the Pioneer even though it is not 1080p are great.

I have a Sky hd box but watch 95% normal sky, a PS3 that my son uses for games but is not fussy about the picture quality and I will use the PS3 for blu ray which I think will utilise the hdmi1.3 through my Onkyo 705 amp.

I could save nearly £300 and go for the Panasonic but something is luring me towards the Pioneer including every dealer that I have spoken to ?

 

[FuzzyinLondon]

The Pioneer is the best. I don't think there's much doubt about that. However, if you're looking for a great value 42", also consider the Panasonic 42PX70 and 42PX700 (better speakers). They'd be great for SD sources but I'm not sure how good they are for Blu-Ray. Might be worth a demo if you can get one. The HDMI v1.3 isn't of great benefit at the moment. It has the potential to support a host of new features, such as Deep Colour, if they ever make it to the market. Also, don't listen to the dealers. Trust your own eyes.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for this fuzzy. As Im not interested in paying an engineer to set up my TV it sounds like I may as well go for the 4280XD - you certainly seem happy. Someone has mentioned the body may be the old one though - can you confirm this? Also, looking at Dixon's website they say it only has two hdmi sockets, but I think this must be a typo as every where else says its three.

Thanks for the feedback

Ian

 

[FuzzyinLondon]

The body's similar to the old one, that much is true. But if you look at Pioneer's designs, they haven't changed that much over the last few years. Instead of the silver trim of the 427XD, the body is now completely black. The thing that differentiates the 4280 from the 428 is that it has slightly rounded corners rather than sharp ones. Other than that, the two sets are pretty much identical. The build quality is superb. The back of the set is metal rather than cheap plastic. Another good thing, for me especially, was that it comes assembled in the box with the stand attached so it was easy for me to set up on my own. It DOES have 3 HDMI socket, all of which can accept a 1080p24 input. The only downside I found is that it isn't set up brilliantly out of the box by Pioneer. Two of the HDMI inputs need to be enabled through the menu (only INPUT 4 is enabled by default). There a whole host of settings which can be set for each input, which is a dream for tweakers like me, but could be quite daunting for newcomers, so be prepared to spend some time figuring out what everything does as the manual isn't great. There's lots of great info out on the web if you know where to look. It's definitely worth the time.

 

[Anonymous]

I have searched the internet looking for shops that have the 4280 at a good price, the nearest to me is Bolton (I live in Northumberland ! ) This is so I can take advantage of the 5 year warranty, they will deliver but would not give the 5 year warranty which I find weird, I am still buying the same tv from them. Two shops said that I could do all the paperwork online but had to call into the shops to pick the item up to qualify for the 5 year warranty.

When I emailed John Lewis who are 'meant' to price match shops but not internet prices they just sent me a standard price match policy reply saying they do not price match internet companys, I replied stating that they are in fact shops but I got the same reply, so much for the price match.

Richer Sounds have a branch in Newcastle but they want to sell the warranty, John Lewis is over £400 more. There are other good tv shops in Newcastle but none will price match.

Looks like to get the best deal I will have to travel to buy one. (Unless anyone knows different ? )

Any Newcastle dealers read this forum ?

 

[Anonymous]

Fuzzy - I've also bought a Pioneer 4280XD and must say the Blu-ray pics look stunning through HDMI. I'm having trouble with the SD Sky and DVD pics, can you recommend or share your settings? Cheers.

 

[Anonymous]

How are you connecting the Sky SD and DVD to the TV?

I'm using the V+ service connected via HDMI and the SD DVD with a good quality SCART and the picture is stunning.

Mind you I have tweaked my settings a little. Check out www.another site and search for a thread with "Pioneer 8G" in the title. If you find the right thread, there are some settings for 4280XD.

I'd post the link myself but can't seem to get to the another site at the moment.

Sorry, can't give you the name of the forum, the WHFSV forum is stripping out what I type, hence it says "Another".

So here it is A V Forums dot com

 

[FuzzyinLondon]

jfh - it's a bit hard to post all the settings here but I can point you in the direction of where I got my settings. Do a Google search for 'Pioneer 8G owners thread' and 'bumtious' and the results should point you to a thread on another forum. Go to the very first post on that thread and you will see that the aforementioned bumtious has kindly, after a lot of hard work no doubt, posted a range of settings for different sources as text files. Print these off and then follow his instructions. They should provide you with a very good starting point. Enjoy

 

[FuzzyinLondon]

You beat me to it Ian. Great minds, eh?

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the help guys. Just tried the Sky SD settings from bumtious but the picture looks cold and dull. Is it right to use -15 for sharpness? Which settings do you recommend for sky+ connected using scart?

The Sky+ box is connected to the 428xd using ixos gold scart and same with the DVD player. No HDMI at the moment.

 

[FuzzyinLondon]

Try setting the the Skybox to output RGB in the picture settings. I think that definitely improved things for me. I'll try and have a look at my settings when I get home from work and report back. Also, I think I definitely set my sharpness higher - just get it to a level that you are comfortable with. I'm also going via Scart from a Sky+ box into input 1. So far I've found the picture quality from Freeview to be better.

 

[FuzzyinLondon]

Ok, I had a quick look at my settings last night. Ignore what I said about the Sky output in the picture settings - RGB and PAL do the same thing. I have my sharpness set much higher than bumtious - it's at +5 at the moment. My settings are very close to his. I have my colour temp set at mid-low which is what may be giving me a slightly warmer picture. Have a play with this setting, it might help. Make sure you are in colour space 1. If that's still not helping, try a different AV selection such as Movie, as it might give you warmer colours. Right now I've got my brightness and contrast turned down while I run the set in for the first couple of hundred hours. Hope all that helps a bit.