Panasonic TH-42PX77U - $1047-$1800 With its antiglare screen, the good-performing Panasonic TH-42PX77U plasma is as at home in brightly lit rooms as any LCD.
Editors' Note 04/17/2008: The rating on this review has been modified from 7.6 to 7.3 due to changes in the competitive marketplace.
At CNET, we've usually found that the best plasmas produce more pleasing images than the best flat-panel LCDs, but LCDs are often a better choice in a room where you can't control ambient light. That's because plasma screens are essentially big pieces of glass, which gather in a lot more reflections than the typical plastic LCD screen. The 42-inch screen on Panasonic's TH-42PX77U plasma, however, is coated with an antiglare compound that really helps attenuate ambient light, giving it similar reflective properties to an LCD. The TH-42PX77U also performs well in most other aspects of picture quality. Although it lacks a PC input and a few picture adjustments, the rest of the TH-42PX77U's package is appealing, especially if you have lots of light in the room.
