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  • Tour & Design

  • Performance Features

  • Connectivity & Media

  • Controls, Menu & Remote

  • Conclusion

  • Tour & Design
  • Performance Features
  • Connectivity & Media
  • Controls, Menu & Remote
  • Conclusion

Tour & Design

The front of the TC-P54G10's screen is surrounded by a glossy black bezel. At the bottom is a gray strip of plastic and the TV's power button. 

*The TC-P54G's facade isn't particularly impressive.
*

**Sides**

The left side of the TC-P54G10 has a few easy access ports: an SD card slot, HDMI port, PC input, and component cables. The right side is where you'll find the on-tv controls, such as volume and channel buttons, the menu button, and the input button. 

The left side of the TV has several inputs;

the right side houses basic controls.

**Stand/Mount**

The TC-P54G10 can either be mounted or you can attach it to a swivel stand. 

 

Aesthetics

Although not quite as thin as some of its bretheren the TC-P54G10 is still an impressive-looking set and should complement your living room nicely.

Performance Features

Display Size & Technology

The TC-P54G10 is a 54-inch plasma TV. The series will also be available in 50, 46 and 42 inch models.

As a plasma TV, the viewing angle is quite god.

Format & Resolution

The TC-P54G10 runs 1080p, which is the highest HD quality on the market. This means it has 1920x1080 resolution and displays pictures in the 16:9 aspect ratio.

Brightness, Blacks & Contrast Ratio

The TC-P54G10 has a manufacturer-stated contrast of 40,000:1. Plasma TVs are often capable of high contrasts, but this number is about 20x larger than what we typically see in testing. When manufacturers measure contrast, they boost settings that might decrease overall picture quality just so they can achieve a high ratio. You'll have to wait for us to get this TV in the lab if you want a standardized value.

Refresh Rate & Motion

The TC-P54G10 has a plasma screen, so it isn't affected by refresh rate like an LCD is. We eyeballed the screen, however, and found motion to be relatively smooth. There wasn't any blurring, artifacting, or jitteriness, of course display TVs like this are tuned to look good. We'll see what happens when we throw some of our test patterns at it in a full review.

Viewing Angle

Like all good plasmas, the TC-P54G10 has a great viewing angle. We didn't notice any significant degredation of color or contrast, just a very subtle darkening as we approached a 90º angle. The one complaint we had looks to be caused by reflection. Any time a bright image was displayed on a dark background, we could see a refleciton that looked like a drop shadow. This wasn't some added affect, as the orientation of the reflection changed as our viewing angle did.

Of course, our standard caveat applies: the unit we looked at could have been a pre-production unit and, regardless, the TV isn't due out until March: the problem could very well be fixed by then.

Color

The TC-P54G10's color representation seemed good. Viewing angle didn't change color quality significantly, although a bit of luster was lost at extreme angles. Bright colors did seem to bleed slightly around their edges, but only very slightly.

Connectivity & Media

Audio & Video Ports

The TV itself has ports on the left side and back. As you probably read earlier, the side has an SD card slot, HDMI port, PC input, and component cables. The back of the device has a digital audio out port, three composite inputs, a component input, two HDMI inputs, and an antenna cable input. There is a LAN port on the back, and can be found just out of frame, in the grated area shown in the first picture below. Due to the way in which the floor model was being displayed we had to take these pictures we actually had to hold our camera around the back of the TV and take pictures blind, we we're not sure if there's some sort of secret hidden ports elsewhere on the back. Also, that's why the pictures looked like we were trying to snap pics of the TV as it fell down a flight of stairs. 

These are the ports on the back of the box, which are numerous.

Media & Other Connectivity

The TC-P54G10 has Panasonic's VIERA Image Viewer.  it can play back digital stills and AVCHD videos stored on an SD card. We didn't see an SD card on the back of the TV, but most of the back was covered up by the mounting bracket. The device also has internet connectivity and can stream via Amazon Video and On Demand.

Placement

It was a bit hard to tell how well the port placement was on the TC-P54G10, since the back of the TV was monopolized by giant mounting brackets, but it seemed as though the TC-P54G10 had reasonable port placement. We definitely liked the side ports, which provide easy access to an HDMI slot and set of component cables, but all the composite cables are hidden around back in a giant cluster. Also, the LAN port is all by itself, away from the button cluster. While it's not the best configuration we've come across, it also wasn't all that bad, either.

Audio

The device has two speakers, which are located on the left and right side of the screen, facing backwards slightly. Their wattage is currently not public information. 

Controls, Menu & Remote

Remote

Unfortunately, the remote was not available to the rabble populating CES.

Controls

The on-TV controls available are channel/volume up/down, menu, input, and power. The power button is on the front of the device; the other buttons are on the right side.

Menu

We weren't allowed to access the menu.

Conclusion

Overall, the Panasonic TC-P54G10 seems like a solid set, although we do have some concerns, namely with that screen reflection we saw. Of course this is a pre-production model, we'll be sure to take a closer look at that issue when we get a final production version into our labs. The signature feature here is the support for streaming from Amazon's online video on demand service, and we also like the support for AVCHD video playback from SD cards. Those two offer a lot of flexibility for playing back content. Pricing isn't available at the moment.

Meet the tester

Mark Brezinski

Mark Brezinski

Senior Writer

@markbrezinski

Mark Brezinski works on the Home Team, reviewing refrigerators, minifridges, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, air conditioners, air purifiers, and fans.

See all of Mark Brezinski's reviews

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