Hi First time buyer, hence very cautious. How does Panasonic TH-50PX500U and Pioneer PDP-5051HD compare? They are in the same range $ wise after Pioneer's Mir. (btw, panasonic's website is BAD.)
Particularly how do these compare - are burn ins significant? (ppl on this forum have said they saw it after leaving the TV on for a night!) - how do the compare in reproduction of color? - how is their after-sales service? Would you recommend buying extended warranty? - is the company warranty valid if you purchase the tv online? - is one hdmi input on Panasonic a restriction-if u want to hook dvd and cable? - Any other glaring differences?
I would really appreciate if knowledgeable Sr members would comment and provide recommendations. This is a big investment for me - really stretching my budget, and I want to play safe.
Thanks in advance for your resp, and help, G
Perrey Z.
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Both of these units display gorgeous colors and very acurate Blacks, but the Panasonic is better on this {better Blacks} than the Pioneer or any other brand., however the limitations with the Panasonic is it doesn't have any type of burn-in prevention mode. The HDMI will not accept Anything other than Panasonic branded devices. {This is not mention anywhere, you'll only find out when the TV rejects the devices.}
The Pioneer have several notable advantages over the Panasonic., for example Pioneer's burn-in prevention mode will shift 3-pixels at random to prevent image retention {burn-in}. The display itself has no built-in fans, the fan {only one} is located in the media receiver and will only turn when it's necessary.
pre-sale and aftersale with Pioneer is wonderful, you can count on them to help you out. Give them a call and ask for their brochure, that will help you in making a wise decision. But have in mind Pioneer WILL NOT honor their warranty if you bought it online from a non-authorized reseller.
Online dealers like http://www.avdeals.com/ and a few others are ONLY authorized to sell commercial Pioneers. If you see any of them {and you will} selling the new consumer PDP-4350HD and PDP-5050HD and they claim to be authorized to sell consumer Pioneers, call Pioneer before making the purchase to authenticate their current reseller status.
Panasonic in the other hand will tell you one thing before buying it, then when you discovered a few lacking features and give them a call back they'll tell you a totally different story. They rely on misleading printed and verbal information in order to bring sales., sadly with Panasonic what now counts is quantity, not quality.
Extended warranties are worthless with these., the most popular one which is Warrantech doesn't cover power surges, burn-in and they aren't extended, these warranties are "running" along with the manufacture's warranty. So when you purchase a 3-years warranty what you're actually getting is only 2-years.
A note about the Pioneer., The PDP-5051HD does not exist, that's Best Buy idea to prevent price matches with Circuit City who also carries that model. The real model number is: PDP-5050HD.