Plasma-TV Reviews

Hello. I bought a Sampo 42" plasma at Costco.com a little over a year ago for $2999.00. I know they have gone down a little but this is whhy I write this. Get this, after a year and one month, the television had no more picture. I called Sampo USA and spoke with Ricky (the technological support representative) and he said that this happens quite a bit with Sampo and that it was a board that went out of whack. He also stated that it would cost about $300 to $500 for the part plus a few hundred in labor costs. Remember folks, this television was only out of warranty for about two months.
After much argument I hired a couple of movers and took it to Costco (locally). They were well aware that this television had many problems and took it back immediately. I was able to get a new Akai and I had to order the wall mount for it. I have not received it yet but I certainly hope and have faith that this television will last me over a year! Anyway, DO NOT BUY A SAMPO or you will be sorry. Good luck with all your plasmas! =)

This tv is truly awesome for the price. The picture is very
clear and vibrant. The only problems I have with it is
that their is alot of artifacts in dark scenes and the black is
not quite right. In light colored scenes the colors seem to jump
out at you. I think Gateway did a good job with this one.
ps ;; Made by Sampo taiwans biggest manufacturer of electronics

Go to this site and get everything you need for SAMPO :

http://www.area450.com/

A six stars website for SAMPO.

Rate this company very low, sent wrong product will not send proper product and will not respond to attemps to contact. Amazon should re-think using companies that reflect on Amazons reputation.

Very thin, but it does not weight 1lb. The price will go down in the future, but if you want to be the first one in town to get it, you will have to pay. You get a great pic from any angle in the room. Great sound!!

This monitor is not HDCP compliant -- that means you soon won't be able to watch HD content on it, it's really already obsolete.

Other than that: limited jack pack (inputs), fantastic picture.

This plasma TV sold under the little-known Akai name is actually a rebranded, old-generation plasma screen made by south korea's Samsumg, which still has a reputation for questionable quality control. The buttons on the display unit I played with felt loose and unresponsive, and the picture quality was very disappointing. Anything darker than 50% gray became indistinuishable, and colors are washed out and unpleasant. To me it's incredible this unit costs so much more than superior offerings from Gateway and Viewsonic.

I purchased the Akai from a local B&M store and just love it. It had all of the features I was looking for: built in speakers, table stand, PIP, Split screen, lots of input connections and a very nice picture. PQ using DVD's and HD or Digital cable box is breathtaking. SD PQ is fine, sure blacks could be blacker and there is some pixalation but the plasma is just showing what it is getting; poor transmition. I watch this tv from 3-4 feet away and love it. Screen door effect does not seem to be a problem and there is no buzzing sound due to a fanless system. For the price, this set can not be beat!

First the good:
-the picture quality is good, the colors are rich.

Now the bad:
-the speakers produce distortion
-you cannot save settings associated with different inputs. This means every time you switch from one type of feed to another (watching a movie on DVD to watching regular TV via the satellite), you have to change the relevant settings. This gets to be time consuming and tiresome.

Now the unacceptable:
From the day I purchased this TV I have had sound synching problems. Sometimes the sound is off by as much as a second. My experience with Toshiba Customer support is very similar to the experience other reviewers have had: Toshiba tech support arranged for a local shop to examine the TV. They reported the problem to Toshiba and nothing has happened. I have had the TV almost two months now. Worse is, every time I call Toshiba to check the status, they cannot tell me anything, not even when they expect to repair or replace the TV.

My hoped for outcome from this will be that I will be able to return the TV and I will then purchase another brand, probably the highly rated Panasonic TH-42PA20U

We loved this TV for one month. Then a bright red line appeared from the top of the screen to the middle. Toshiba tech support arranged for a local shop to examine the tv. The repairmen determined that the line was from a failed circuit board. They said this "happens all the time" on Toshiba plasmas, something I never noticed in doing my due diligence on this product before I bought it. So here is a warning for anyone thinking about buying this or any other Toshiba plasma. Try another brand! By the way, since Amazon refuses to accept returns on any large tv, if you buy a lemon (like I did), you could lose thousands of dollars. You should not even consider ordering a large tv from Amazon. JUNE 11 UPDATE: after waiting 2 weeks for a service call and another 6 weeks for Toshiba to get the parts to the repair shop, the repair crew was unable to fix the problem. Toshiba now says it will send me a new set, but they can't say when this will happen. JUNE 16 UPDATE: Although Toshiba promised on June 11 to promptly replace my defective tv, today it said it had no idea when this might happen. Meanwhile, we have an unwatchable tv. For $5000, I expected customer service to be considerably better than this! Don't make the same mistake, buy any plasma tv other than a Toshiba. JULY 7 UPDATE: Finally, we have a new plasma tv and are rid of the old one. We should be glad, but we're terrified about having to deal with Toshiba's terrible customer service if the new one is defective, too.

I have looked at all the HDTV Plasma in 42". This is the best model out there. The picture looks crystal clear, the colors look natural, and the image is very bright. J&R has this model next to the more expensive Sony Wega Plasma. If you have seen those two TV's side-by-side, you wouldn't pay $1000 more for the Sony Wega model.

Simply put, Exactly as the other say, zero support, complete lie in specification. even in this page it say once 650 brightness level, then you click to see complete specs and it say 750.
You figure it out...

If this is soo Bad then WHy is this screen one of the best selling screen in Amazon?

After reading the two negative reviews I felt that I had to respond in defense of the 42 inch Zenith Plasma Display. I have had mine almost a year and I am very pleased with it. Our decision to purchase a Plasma display was to remove the huge bulky tube TV (35" Toshiba Cinema Series) from the living room although we were satisfied with the picture quality and features. I chose the Zenith after viewing the competition in various stores and settled on it for the price vs. performance and features. Mine is set up with Directv, VHS, and DVD inputs and output the audio to a Denon sound system. I have not had a single problem with it so I can't comment about the service issue. The picture quality is very good for the specifications but depends on the input signal. Low bandwidth input will show some pixelization in the dark areas but a digital signal or even better DVD, is crisp and vibrant. While not true HDTV, it is EDTV but we didnt have HD available at the time. The glass has an anti reflective coating and you can view the picture from almost sideways as opposed to straight on. In summary I find the P42W22 to be a stylish, well performing plasma display at a very modest price. We enjoy it thouroughly just be sure to use the best quality signal source for the best display.

I have had the television for 2 weeks and i am now returning it due to the poor picture quality. Contrast is not good on DVDs, i even tried S-Vid and Component but both did not change the problems.I used Schindler's List, Lord Of The Rings, and Finding Nemo to try and calibrate the color and contrast.
The opening menu for Schindler's list looked horrible in contrast. You could clearly see three different shades of black and white, which should have blended together. In LOTR during the council of elrond the picture was either too grainy or fleshtone colors on the characters faces were too bright. Finally on Finding Nemo the television had problems finding a medium between making the bright colors too brite or too bland, again no easy medium.
The television would also not turn on if i did not turn it off from the rear power switch each time. And after playing Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow for all of 30 minutes there was already burn in on the lower right of the screen.

I got the television for 3000, it might be cheaper than an HDTV but in my opinion its not worth it.

When you spend 5 figures you expect good quality and good support. Oops, no, not from Zenith, which was bought out by LG of south korea a few years ago. The picture is bright, which is good, but there's distortion along the edges, and color reproduction is poor even after extensive adjustments using two leading adjustment software programs. Many people who watched mine commented on how "fuzzy" the picture looked. It's stylish, but falls flat in picture quality. I highly recommend against this poor product from a company with a poor reputation for poor customer support. Check out Cnet's rankings; get a Fujitsu or Panasonic or Sampo/Gateway if you are short on cash.

The picture on the 50" plasma is good, the company support is awful. I purchased the set and it had a white powder between the screens. I have made numerous phone calls and have gotten no response from either the seller or Zenith. I purchased a Zenith dvd/vcr combo player at the same time and the dvd quit working 60 days after purchase.

The Plasma runs very hot, the color and brightness are both good. If I were to buy today I would go with the LCD tv's and would not even consider a Zenith product.

Stopped working after just one month.

Called Hitachi and they told me to call an authorized repair center. I called the repair center and the repair center referred me to another repair center... I called that repair center who made an appointment to see the TV... Took a week for them to come out to see it. After inspecting it told me they have to order a replacement power supply from Hitachi... That took almost two weeks... Once they got it in, it took them couple of days to come to my house to replace the power supply. It still didn't work after that... So they decided to replace another part, the logic board, which they have to order from Hitachi again...

It's been almost two weeks again. And I have been with out TV for over a month... Paying almost $6k for a TV that works for a month made me really upset as you can imagine. I would have been happy if Hitachi fixed it in a reasonable time, but over a month is not reasonable. I have called Hitachi and asked for a refund or replacement to which they just flat out said no. Of course during this time I am also paying for Satellite service which I can't use. I would highly recommend staying away from ALL Hitachi products.

Set was out of box failure. Norcent US Support is terrible. They did not address my concern in a timely manner. In short, they tied up my money for 15 days, and strung me along wasting my time. - Do yourself a favor and shop a major brand with established support!