Panasonic TC-L42U22 Reviews

Recommend
by R. Newel , 2010-08-19

I replaced a 6 year old plasma TV that went out. My TV screen faces multiple windows. With the plasma I had to cover the windows with towels during the day to avoid glare. With this TV any glare is barely noticeable and only when the screen is dark. I'm watching it right now (day time) with the windows uncovered.

I live at 5000 feet which caused the plasma to generate a lot of heat. That thing was hot! I could feel the heat radiating from it when I walked by. It did help heat my house in the winter, but probably caused the TV to give up the ghost. This Panasonic generates very little heat and is hardly even warm to the touch.

The only issue is one I discovered after installing this TV and apparently many LCD TV's have this issue. With the TV powered on my dish network remote would not operate the dish network receiver. After entering the proper code it did operate the TV fine but not the dish network receiver. I had to put the remote withing 2 inches of the dish IR port to get it to function. I had a couple of very frustrating days fighting this thinking it was the dish receiver flaking out. Then I did some research and discovered the interference issue with the LCD TV and various receivers. Different LCD TV's have different fixes. Some fixes I found are: turn CATS on or off on the TV, turn energy savings on or off or adjust back lighting. On this TV you adjust the back light on the TV. This TV adjust from 1 to 100. I found that adjusting it below 45 the dish remote inconsistently operated the dish receiver. At 42 or lower the dish remote refused to operate the dish receiver at all. I set the TV back light at 78 and the problem was solved. My research showed that this issue is not limited to any one manufacturer and indicates manufactures are aware of the issue. The possible resolutions to this issue should be included in the manual.

I ordered an HDMI cable with this TV, but it was shipped separately and am still waiting on it and am only viewing 480i. Even with an analog signal the picture is much clearer than my old plasma. However, with the analog signal I notice some fuzziness with quick moves on the screen. Most notably when using the dish TV guide. As I move around the guide it turns fuzzy for a fraction of a second, but it immediately clears up and becomes sharp. I suspect this will be resolved once I receive the HDMI cable and boost the resolution to 1080 since it's a fairly well known fact that an HD TV picture is less than perfect with an analog signal.

I use the dish remote to operate the TV, but I will note that the TV remote buttons are large and well labeled. The exception is the keys labeled R, G, B and Y. They apparently have nothing to do with the RGBY connection. One wonders why they are labeled this way. On page 11 of the manual it notes the colored buttons are used for various functions and refers to pages 14, 18 and 31 for examples. I could find no reference to these buttons on pages 14 or 18. Page 31 simply says that these buttons are available when their purpose is displayed on the screen. I guess I'll find out what they're for when I need them. I don't consider this a negative because it doesn't concern me. It's just a little confusing.

So far I am really happy with the TV. This is a good looking TV. The bezel isn't huge and the speakers are in back which I like. I had it up and running without ever cracking the manual. I look forward to when the HDMI cable arrives. Though I haven't used all the features I certainly recommend this TV. Just be aware of the IR interference issue and how to resolve it and you will be happy with it.

GREAT PANASONIC LCD TV
by Russell Jay from usa, 2010-08-16

Great LCD. Far better than the cheaper plasma versions of the same TV. How anyone could give this ONLY 4 stars... is amazing.
Apparently he thought 623 dollars should buy both a 42 inch huge
screen TV with 1080 resolution AND have Bose Speakers with surround sound. Sorry, it doesn't come with Bose Speakers.
4 star rating was inaccurate... speakers are fine and maybe the guy has a hearing aid who gave it the 4 star rating.
Easily a 5 star item... crystal clear reception, easy to use and a great LCD HDTV. I see almost no difference between this $623 Panasonic and other brands which cost much more money. This should be all you need, unless you are very very fussy... which may be in your cable line or dish... and have nothing to do with your TV anyways. You will like the reception. If money doesn't make any difference, why not buy 20 models... and throw out the 19 TV sets that don't please you... (and hope the one you kept doesn't crap out the next day) Panasonic vs LG is like Mercedes to Yugo. (Yugo was the cheapest car ever made) Ask anyone who works at Walmart how many LG TV sets are returned in a month. You can see PANASONIC TRIED VERY HARD to put QUALITY in this product... IT IS OBVIOUS IN EVERY WAY.

Great value but not legacy friendly
by J. Lee from San Jose, CA, 2010-07-25

Overall:
I've had this set for a few months now. Despite the little criticisms I have, I think this set is an excellent value and the picture is breathtaking with a 1080p source or even 1080i over-the-air.

Picture:
It's a great display and I have no complaint at all with the picture. It has presets for adjusting the picture and that is a nice feature; I use 'cinema' most of the time.

Chassis:
The chassis is a very elegant piano black and looks nice when it is off. This is actually kind of important when you get a TV this large!

Sound:
The speakers are not great, but they are adequate. They are in the back so you (at least I) need to turn them up more than you would for front facing ones.

Inputs / Outputs:
This is where the 'not legacy friendly' gripe I have shows up, and costs Panasonic a star. The only audio _output_ is a digital optical output. If you have a stereo with a corresponding digital optical input, you're all set. However, I'm willing to bet many if not most homes don't have such an input. This means that you must use the so-so speakers when you use the antenna or an HDMI source that doesn't have an analog audio output (including perhaps some digital cable boxes). It isn't too big a deal for me since movie watching is usually via a DVD player and I run its (analog) audio output through my stereo and it sounds great. However, it would have been EASY for Panasonic to have a legacy analog audio output. On the input side, there is no S-video input. I get why they didn't put this in; S-video is on its way out. However, I have a legacy video camera with S-video output and it would've been nice to use it.

I've used the SD card input and it is slick. They have a way to let you quickly start a slide show of all the pictures in the camera and even navigate around on the SD card directory. It was nicely done and when you see pictures from an SLR camera brought out to a 42" display the 'WOW' factor is pretty high.

I've also used the DB15 connector for the laptop and it worked fine. Be aware, if you want to use your laptop to stream video to this set, you will need a long VGA cable AND a long audio cable. I found a combo cable on Amazon (both the video and the male-male audio cable on one 15' cable) that worked great.

Remote:
The remote is okay, but the buttons are quite close together so it is actually easy to press the wrong button when you do certain tasks. The one I hit most often is VIERA TOOLS when I meant to hit INPUT. I don't have anything that supports the VIERA standard (other than the tv) so I never want the VIERA TOOLS, but I do want to change the input fairly often. The two buttons are right on top of one another and the VIERA TOOLS button is like 3x the size of the INPUT button.

One thing I liked about the remote was a special "sub menu" button that lets you quickly get to things like the signal strength meter. I get my HDTV signals off an antenna so I use the meter a good bit and it is nice not to have it buried under sub-menus. Another cute feature on the remote is the favorite button. You can program several favorite channels and get to them via this short cut.

There are R G B Y buttons on the remote but get this: THEY DON'T TWEAK THE PICTURE. They are used for special functions. Uh, how about using F1 F2 F3 F4 for labels and color code those? Otherwise everyone in the world will think these buttons are for picture adjustment.

I really liked the INFO button; it shows you whether you're looking at 720p or 1080i or whatever and if the show is a digital source the name of the show, etc. The FORMAT button lets you force 4:3 and has a few different 16:9 flavors that are nice to have.

GREAT LCD HDTV!! I LOVE IT!
by XUEHAIQIAN from USA, 2010-07-09

I just got this TV for 2 weeks. Works great for gaming, Laptop/PC and HDTV. Great picture quality and sound. Very easy to set up! Sometimes, i use an HDMI cable to connect my laptop with the TV, it did a great job as a big size monitor!!!! I am very satisfied! Love it!!!