Plasma-TV Reviews

I hooked this TV up to my Clapper and had trouble right away. On my first clap-on, the TV made a small popping noise, then a few seconds later, it came on, but went directly to Lifetime. Now, the TV won't go off (with or without the Clapper) and I can't change the channel. The only solution I've found is to unplug it.

These babies are gonna get cut to half the cost by the end of the year. Save your money and have Santa get you one for Xmas.

This television produces undoubtedly the clearest, sharpest, and most refined picture on the market today. While the 42'' size may seem "small" by today's standards, the superb clarity of the picture cannot be found on any other type or brand of television. This television is not the best choice for video games, because of the risk of phosphor burning after prolonged use. If you are interested in a good "gaming" tv, I would suggest a Sony LCD rear-projection display, which I own and am extremely satisfied with. However, if picture quality is all you're after, look no further than this tv. Hands-down, the greatest!

We bought a 42" Toshiba plasma tv. It worked for one month. Toshiba has sent a repair crew to our home three times and they can't fix it. we're out $5000. Toshiba promised to fix it or replace it, but, three months later, it's still broken and we're still waiting for our new tv. Since Amazon has a no-return policy for big-screen tv's, we're at the mercy of Toshiba and their terrible customer service. Before shelling out this much money for a plasma, I strongly recommend doing research on the web about manufacturer's customer service. If I had done so, I would have never bought a plasma from Toshiba.

The guy in Atlanta makes some good points, but two caveats: 1) Fujitsu's plasma offerings are actually better than Toshiba, not by much, but you can tell the difference (if you are in New York, go to Harvey Electronics at ABC Carpet to see for yourself), 2) the Samsung receiver is cheap and works cheap; get a better receiver from Sony or JVC.

WOW! I am sooo glad i bought this tv; the picture quality is amazing...it's even better than theater viewing! There are not enough adjectives to describe how awesome this tv is. Because this tv is a flat panel, you can put it almost anywhere. The sound quality as well is great! To really appreciate this tv, go get your favorite movie in dvd/widescreen format, sit down and enjoy the show. You will never be sorry you bought this tv.

This tv is [worth what you pay for it], and amazon.com is a terrific place to get this television from. This tv is first rate!

We bought a 42" Toshiba plasma tv. It worked for one month. Toshiba has sent a repair crew to our home three times and they can't fix it. we're out $5000. Toshiba promised to fix it or replace it, but, three months later, it's still broken and we're still waiting for our new tv. Since Amazon has a no-return policy for big-screen tv's, we're at the mercy of Toshiba and their terrible customer service. Before shelling out this much money for a plasma, I strongly recommend doing research on the web about manufacturer's customer service. If I had done so, I would have never bought a plasma from Toshiba.

The guy in Atlanta makes some good points, but two caveats: 1) Fujitsu's plasma offerings are actually better than Toshiba, not by much, but you can tell the difference (if you are in New York, go to Harvey Electronics at ABC Carpet to see for yourself), 2) the Samsung receiver is cheap and works cheap; get a better receiver from Sony or JVC.

WOW! I am sooo glad i bought this tv; the picture quality is amazing...it's even better than theater viewing! There are not enough adjectives to describe how awesome this tv is. Because this tv is a flat panel, you can put it almost anywhere. The sound quality as well is great! To really appreciate this tv, go get your favorite movie in dvd/widescreen format, sit down and enjoy the show. You will never be sorry you bought this tv.

This tv is [worth what you pay for it], and amazon.com is a terrific place to get this television from. This tv is first rate!

great picture, but broken comes out of the box. only hdmi works, the rest of videos and components do not work. tv is going back to Panasonic for service.

After researching and looking at plasma, lcd, lcd projection tv's for couple of months, I finally bought this TV from amazon.com. Had it for couple of weeks now, and am amazed at the quality of the display. Got HDTV from comcast cable and the HDTV channels look and sound great. Of course I wish there were more HDTV channels. I recommend using the Monster DVI-HDMI cable. This TV has a HDMI port. I also recommend Samsung DVD player HD-931 that generates HD outputs via DVI for your DVDs. The resultant image quality is excellent, even though it is not "TRUE HD".

After a large amount of research, we finally bought this tv and are very happy about it. We don't yet actually have HD but the picture is still great...I can't imagine what it'll be like with HD.

The only problem on the previous model was that the remote was cheap-looking and made badly. This remote looks very nice, with a metal cover and many nice features.

Of course, the signal on regular tv is not top-notch, but that is true on every tv.

Has anyone purchased this amazing 63" Plasma at unbelieveable low low and extremely low price !!
C'mon how can it be 10 times cheaper than the original value.
And besided the seller has not yet been rated :-(
Best of Luck to those who buy this and dont forget to write me a few lines....:-)

this plasma is good-ish. Not-ish because it is big and flat, whcih causes owie-zowie headaches. happy AND not-ish plasma consumer..by the way, consumer sounds like you're eating dairy products or something. But plasma is a good TV source but a little bit pricy.

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone else has seen frequent postings for used models for unbelievably low prices? Has anyone successfully purchased one from these sellers? I am in the market for a plasma and found the deal to good to be true...

Thanks,

RB
rxb2138@hotmail.com

The price obviously was fairly convincing, however, upon receipt, the display surface looked as though it were a very used product. It lead us to be believe that maybe we had received a refurbished unit. Additionally, the picture was distorted over half of the viewing area to the point where once you try to adust it, it equally distorts the other half of the picture. I also expected a much brighter picture with Plasma as I've seen with other units I've seen in stores, however, even with it brightness maxed out, it was only 50% as bright as those on display in stores. Tech support was of very little help to us to solve any of the problems we exprienced. However, the begged and pleaded with us not to return it as it that's all they've been dealing with-obviously a trend with this company. There was just too many serious issues with this product to accept and it has since been returned. We purchased a 30inch LCD-TV which draws a lot less power and has a much brighter picture.

I'm not an expert so I'll just say it how it is. This TV was 1600$ off for a Boxing Day sale and cost me 2999$ CAD. When I got home with it and plugged it in, it had a hard time recognizing the component hookup. But I believe it to by my “monster cable” cables. The picture as some other said was a bit dark but I have brightness and contrast set to about 90% and it's perfect. One thing to keep in mind I found that when I plugged in the s-video cable for some reason it would make the screen darker...not sure why myself. I have it on component and then plug in S-Video...goes darker. Anywho I don’t use S-Video because I feel its garbage:) What I also love about the TV is the remote. The setup is nice and the lighting on it is great! It's a VERY bright red and you can easily see what buttons are what when watching your movies in the dark. What don’t I like about the TV? I think the quality could be a bit better but when I was looking at them in the store I ranked it higher than the Sony one sitting beside it. The colors are very nice but slightly more pixilated than some of the other brands. The hookups in the back are nice and well labeled. Also the stand it comes with and the look of the plasma screen itself are very nice. I feel that if you slapped a Sony label on this and jacked up the price 2000+ people would still buy it. (Maybe not the experts, but the avg Joe would just dive for the name) To summaries it all off, I saved myself an easy few 1000 dollars by buying the Norcent, and very happy about it. If you want plasma and want really good quality TV viewing, this is the one that let you do that without taking out a second mortgage:) Plasma screen = Cosmetically nice and visually VERY good as well Connectors = nicely placed connectors Options/remote = Got all your esencial options but not as many if you pay 3000$ more. Remote very nice in the hand well placed button and wonderful bright red light that light up all buttons. 4 stars just because the picture could be more solid and could have more options. But if you want to rank it based on its cost it gets a definite 5/5 if not more. I paid 2300 USD for it and when you sit back and relax...it's picture perfect.

Along with the Norcent Home Theater, it's an awsome addition to our game room.

Native resolution of this display does not reach HD so that means that any source you think is 720p actually is downscaled to 480p. If EDTV is what you want then this might be a good buy but don't buy it thinking you're getting HDTV.

I recently bought this tv acouple days ago. I had been wanting a plasma screen television for quite some time, and when I seen the price of this for alittle bit under $2,000 in a local advertisement I had to take a look at it.

When I went there I was quite impressed with it, visually it looked great, the design of the case and the picture quality itself. I asked the sales person alot of question but he didn't really know too much about it so it made me question the integrity of SVA, a brand which I had never heard of at the time.

I went online to try and find some reviews and information about it, but could only find these same reviews below on abunch of other websites, which didn't really help at all since you have 2 people saying they like it, and 1 person that posted twice about how it sucks and not explaining a reason why. After abit more research I read that the picture tube is made from a Samsung picture tube. I heard of this before where other companies like Dell import pieces of plasma screen tvs and construct them in one of their factories to keep the price down.

After visiting the store again, this time with my brother to decide on final purchase, me and him went over all of their plasma tvs and gave them our own bare eye inspection. Both of us thought that the SVA had a great picture quality compared to all of the other plasma screen tvs they had on display, and in alot of cases it looked even better than alot of the tvs on display.

When I bought it, the only thing that was bad was the stand was broken on it (which we recieved another stand) and for being a plasma screen tv and how thin it is, it is very heavy. The other thing is that it has no controls on the tv itself, there is no volume, channel, video select or even a television power on! (Although there is a main power turn on/off) So if your remote control breaks (and you don't have a universal remote programmed for it) it sounds like you'll have to order a new remote.

I read from a different review that someone was having problems with the remote control and that it had a "mind of its own". I haven't came across this problem at all, either that person had a faulty remote control, or was talking nonsense.

But still, like I mentioned before, I have recently bought this plasma tv, I haven't had any problems with it yet, and I had been looking up information about preventing burn-ins since I hear it plagues plasma tv's and I play alot of video games and intend to use it as a pc monitor as well.

Also another nice addition was that included ALL the hook ups you need. I am not sure about the exact amount of cords, but it include acouple of the same ones like 2 a/v cords, 2 normal left/right audio cords, 1 component, 1 s-video, 1 pc cord, 1 pc to component (which is really cool), 1 analog(?) cable, and 1 audio (you know like a head phone jack) to left/right audio cord. I thought that this was very cool since alot of tvs I had bought and other people bought didn't include, or only included maybe 1 or 2 cords.

I gave this a rating of 4 because like I said, I had just recently purchased this tv and still am testing it out. I wrote this review to help people get alittle bit more knowledge about this tv since I couldn't find much help about it online either. My biggest suggestion for anyone interested in this tv is to go to a store and take a look at it and compare it to other plasma tv's, make sure to check for burn ins and everything. When I was checking it out at the store they did not have the audio set up, only the picture cables were hooked up, when I got it home and tested out the audio, I was quite surprised at the quality of it since I heard alot of plasma screens with speakers didn't give good quality. But still I run all my audio through my reciever for surround sound, which the majority of people that purchase plasma tv's do as well, so you wont be worrying much about the audio on this... which I believe by looking at it, it has 4 sets of speakers, I could be wrong... but it did give off some nice sound for when I was testing it out.

I bought the SVA Plasma 2 month ago from buy.com and so far I have not complain at all about this unit. First of all, the picture quality is sharp and nice unlike some of those reviews saying it has bad picture quality. You can easily spend $1000 more for the same picture quality for big brand names. Second, it comes with everything, you don't need to spend extra money buying necessary part.

I use it a lot as my PC monitor with the PC comes with wireless keyboard and mouse. The Picutre on PC is excellent and exceeding my expectations. 42 inch monitor for my PC, it is cool.

The unit also has nice design. You can't go wrong with the product.

BUYING USED

Think about it, There is no way in your lifetime people are going to give away a 15K Plasma for 2k.
IF the seller asks to use an ESCROW service, ditch it.
I was interesed in buying a nice new plasma for $2,100 but realized that the whole escrow website was a scam

http://pub135.ezboard.com/fauctionnewsallfrm2.showMessage?topicID=95.topic
I got the same letters as posted on this message board

I've seen this monitor on display at a retail outlet and wish I could afford to buy one. The picture is bright, crisp, detailed. Colors are vivid. It's presence is rivaled only by the Toshiba 50HP82 and the Panasonic TH-50PHD5UY, both 50" screens. The Zenith has PIP (like the Toshiba), many other plasma sets do not. You need an external tuner, like the Sony SAT-HD200 (if you have Directv) and speakers are extra. If you have no budget and you really need 60", the Zenith is the one. Make sure you search online retailers for the best price.

The tv is one of the best i have gotten so far. It was given to me as a present from CRORY but when I turned it on, it was the best. The Picture is clear,and very lifelike, I say on of the best tv's out there, there is no flaw in it, I think the price is right for a TV this good

Im sure the other guys were impressed with this unit .Im not.If you can manage to get the picture bright enough be prepared to hear a nice loud humming sound!!Ive used it with all connections tried.Even with the 17 pin connect to my comp it was dissapointing and the sound from any white background is disgraceful!Forget about burn in as well.Its going to happen..Youd better spend the extra money and not cheap out as I did..I kept Myself to spending under 10 thousand bucks to redo my room ,this is just for electronics.I use it for my bedroom cause of lack o space.My SONY bigscreen is best pic Ive seen so far.Ill save my cash and get a sony plasma next..Oh and the heat is insane,No one mantioned this so I doubt if they truly even bought one.I wish I wasnt first to get this TV no reviews were out back then...

misarable? ha. a fuzzy plasma t.v.??????? Maybe you should have got grandma to help. that way you wouldn't have dropped it. maybe that's why it's fuzzy

O.K.----I think our man Steve from CA. might have been better served if he had read the owner's manual first, and then had professional installation. THIS IS NOT A HDTV! It will take the signal, but will have to "dumb it down" to display. But that display is absolutely gorgeous: sharp colors, wide viewing angle and NO artifacts.
As for using the display as a computer monitor, I would be hard pressed to recommend it any higher. As with all viewsonic monitors I have owned in the past, apps from word processing to the newest games are just perfect. I connected my cable to a media center computer I built, and now use a nifty program called Snapstream that puts the old TIVO to shame! Now my wife can tape her soaps, easily burn her favorites to DVD, check her E-Mail, surf the web, video chat with her mom, play Tetris (O.K.---she's a little behind the times in her gaming!), find that song she has been looking for, etc----all from the comfort of our bed. She's now happy as a clam, which any guy will tell you pays the ol' hubby dividends far greater than the sub 3K cost of the unit. And I must admit, I can't wait for Halflife II on a big monitor with the display settings jacked to the max!
Two caveats: Again, no HDTV. Perhaps more importantly, if you are going to set this unit up yourself, you ought be an enthusiast. Trying the many input choices enabled me to decide on the best option for myself, which proved to be the DVI for the computer, and the S-Video for all TV functionality except for DVD playback, which benefits with progressive scan connections (you know, that red blue yellow thingy). If you rely on the manual alone, you are apt to be left confused, as it is far too brief and poorly written.
If you feel, as I do, that the PC is the future engine to drive home entertainment, this unit is an excellent partner!

Im sure the other guys were impressed with this unit .Im not.If you can manage to get the picture bright enough be prepared to hear a nice loud humming sound!!Ive used it with all connections tried.Even with the 17 pin connect to my comp it was dissapointing and the sound from any white background is disgraceful!Forget about burn in as well.Its going to happen..Youd better spend the extra money and not cheap out as I did..I kept Myself to spending under 10 thousand bucks to redo my room ,this is just for electronics.I use it for my bedroom cause of lack o space.My SONY bigscreen is best pic Ive seen so far.Ill save my cash and get a sony plasma next..Oh and the heat is insane,No one mantioned this so I doubt if they truly even bought one.I wish I wasnt first to get this TV no reviews were out back then...

misarable? ha. a fuzzy plasma t.v.??????? Maybe you should have got grandma to help. that way you wouldn't have dropped it. maybe that's why it's fuzzy

O.K.----I think our man Steve from CA. might have been better served if he had read the owner's manual first, and then had professional installation. THIS IS NOT A HDTV! It will take the signal, but will have to "dumb it down" to display. But that display is absolutely gorgeous: sharp colors, wide viewing angle and NO artifacts.
As for using the display as a computer monitor, I would be hard pressed to recommend it any higher. As with all viewsonic monitors I have owned in the past, apps from word processing to the newest games are just perfect. I connected my cable to a media center computer I built, and now use a nifty program called Snapstream that puts the old TIVO to shame! Now my wife can tape her soaps, easily burn her favorites to DVD, check her E-Mail, surf the web, video chat with her mom, play Tetris (O.K.---she's a little behind the times in her gaming!), find that song she has been looking for, etc----all from the comfort of our bed. She's now happy as a clam, which any guy will tell you pays the ol' hubby dividends far greater than the sub 3K cost of the unit. And I must admit, I can't wait for Halflife II on a big monitor with the display settings jacked to the max!
Two caveats: Again, no HDTV. Perhaps more importantly, if you are going to set this unit up yourself, you ought be an enthusiast. Trying the many input choices enabled me to decide on the best option for myself, which proved to be the DVI for the computer, and the S-Video for all TV functionality except for DVD playback, which benefits with progressive scan connections (you know, that red blue yellow thingy). If you rely on the manual alone, you are apt to be left confused, as it is far too brief and poorly written.
If you feel, as I do, that the PC is the future engine to drive home entertainment, this unit is an excellent partner!