Football season is upon us once again, and I just purchased a new TV (from Amazon, so it won't be in until next week).
I figure we should start a thread on who's got what, their experiences with retailers and with the set itself. If you want to include sound systems or any other peripherals be my guest.
I'll use my current TV to get us started. I still haven't invested in a sound system since I'm in an apartment and I don't want to be a dick bag to my neighbors.
Model: Panasonic TC-P50S2
Retailer: Best Buy
I know anyone that talks to me on here is going to be surprised as hell that I bought a TV from Best Buy, and if best buy carried the TV I just ordered, I would have bought from them again. Here's why: Their online price match. I wanted a new TV and I wanted it that day. I walked into the store, told them the exact model I wanted, my wife got to see it and approve, and then told them B&H Photo had it for $300 cheaper. No hassle, no nothing, got it at the same price (before tax of course) and went home with it that day. My brand new tv was so big it wouldn't fit in the back seat of the accord while it was still in the box, so two guys came out to my car, help me unbox it, and get it securely into my car, and then they kept the box in the store room for 2 weeks and called me to make sure it was working alright so they could ditch the box.
After that wall of text let me just say quickly I had an awesome experience at best buy...and I'm as surprised as anyone.
Now for the TV itself, this was our first HDTV and in our little living room the thing was absolutely massive. Since we'd been watching on a 27" tube for the last forever, it was kind of strange watching a 50" Plasma. While the phosphors break in you can see rainbows in motion scenes, but that only lasted a few weeks, it eventually was just as I imagined it would be. Awesome contrast levels, movies looked amazing, everything was going perfectly...until...the dreaded mother in law.
So, we had an MediaCenter PC, and an XBOX plugged in, and I told her while we were out of town to make her self comfortable. Try to turn off the TV when she went to bed, but if she forgot it shouldn't be too big of a deal since...or so I thought.
For those of you that read that burn-in is a thing of the past on Plasmas think again. To this day the netflix logo still lingers (but eventually goes away) when I use it on the xbox, but the thing that really killed it was the default screen saver for windows media center. It has a white boarder around each picture it displays on the screen, and every picture is in the exact same spot. Well after my mother in law left the TV on the screen saver for 3 straight days, that white border was burned in permanently. I tried running an app to invert the colors on the screen and leaving the screen saver on for another 3 days, but it did not fix the issue, if anything the bars are more pronounced now than before.
It's been 2 years and the burn-in is still there, but unless it's a solid color background you really have to try to see it. Overall the S2 is decent, but the burn-in has made me much more cautious. Games are still great, movies look good, and sports were perfect. I just watched Peyton throw 7 touchdowns on that thing and I'll be honest, I didn't even notice the burn-in.
I loved my old TV, but I just let my wife have it because my new ST60 should be in by next monday. I'll spend this weekend at Buffalo Wild Wings, and then next weekend, it's on like donkey kong. Review on that to follow (and yes I know it's not a good TV for gaming, I'm a PC gamer, with very few console games).
I figure we should start a thread on who's got what, their experiences with retailers and with the set itself. If you want to include sound systems or any other peripherals be my guest.
I'll use my current TV to get us started. I still haven't invested in a sound system since I'm in an apartment and I don't want to be a dick bag to my neighbors.
Model: Panasonic TC-P50S2
Retailer: Best Buy
I know anyone that talks to me on here is going to be surprised as hell that I bought a TV from Best Buy, and if best buy carried the TV I just ordered, I would have bought from them again. Here's why: Their online price match. I wanted a new TV and I wanted it that day. I walked into the store, told them the exact model I wanted, my wife got to see it and approve, and then told them B&H Photo had it for $300 cheaper. No hassle, no nothing, got it at the same price (before tax of course) and went home with it that day. My brand new tv was so big it wouldn't fit in the back seat of the accord while it was still in the box, so two guys came out to my car, help me unbox it, and get it securely into my car, and then they kept the box in the store room for 2 weeks and called me to make sure it was working alright so they could ditch the box.
After that wall of text let me just say quickly I had an awesome experience at best buy...and I'm as surprised as anyone.
Now for the TV itself, this was our first HDTV and in our little living room the thing was absolutely massive. Since we'd been watching on a 27" tube for the last forever, it was kind of strange watching a 50" Plasma. While the phosphors break in you can see rainbows in motion scenes, but that only lasted a few weeks, it eventually was just as I imagined it would be. Awesome contrast levels, movies looked amazing, everything was going perfectly...until...the dreaded mother in law.
So, we had an MediaCenter PC, and an XBOX plugged in, and I told her while we were out of town to make her self comfortable. Try to turn off the TV when she went to bed, but if she forgot it shouldn't be too big of a deal since...or so I thought.
For those of you that read that burn-in is a thing of the past on Plasmas think again. To this day the netflix logo still lingers (but eventually goes away) when I use it on the xbox, but the thing that really killed it was the default screen saver for windows media center. It has a white boarder around each picture it displays on the screen, and every picture is in the exact same spot. Well after my mother in law left the TV on the screen saver for 3 straight days, that white border was burned in permanently. I tried running an app to invert the colors on the screen and leaving the screen saver on for another 3 days, but it did not fix the issue, if anything the bars are more pronounced now than before.
It's been 2 years and the burn-in is still there, but unless it's a solid color background you really have to try to see it. Overall the S2 is decent, but the burn-in has made me much more cautious. Games are still great, movies look good, and sports were perfect. I just watched Peyton throw 7 touchdowns on that thing and I'll be honest, I didn't even notice the burn-in.
I loved my old TV, but I just let my wife have it because my new ST60 should be in by next monday. I'll spend this weekend at Buffalo Wild Wings, and then next weekend, it's on like donkey kong. Review on that to follow (and yes I know it's not a good TV for gaming, I'm a PC gamer, with very few console games).