Gadgetory

hi I'm David Katz Myer senior editor at C net and next to me is the Panasonic TCP zt6 T this is a 60-inch Plasma TV this series also comes in a 65 and this is hands-down the best TV that panasonic has ever made it's also one of the best TVs we've ever tested the picture quality on this thing is phenomenal but of course all wait till the end to talk about that starting off this TV has really slick design around the front you can see it's all glass one big sheet of glass across the front there's also a really nice metal edge here the stand is not swivel and it's really kind of ugly looking below the belt it's got sort of v-shape all chrome plate and everything but of course unifor this TV you're probably going to wall mount it anyway seen from the side like most mounted plasmas also really thin so it's really not that much thicker than an LED TV this is high-end set so Panasonic did throw in an extra remote it's got a little touchpad on it so it's great for navigating the web this TV does have a built-in browser or just flipping around the menus a lot faster than a standard remote of course the downside is there's not too many buttons on here and it's not really going to replace the standard remote that the TV does come with one nice touch remote extra though is the voice control you can speak into it and do a couple commands on to the TV just by activating your voice you can also perform a couple of searches and activate some apps with voice the remote is also bluetooth so you don't have to have line-of-sight to control the television Panasonic's smart TV suite has some of the best content out there but it doesn't have HBO go that's a Samsung exclusive this year it does have Netflix Amazon Instant Video and pretty much every other app you want however including a healthy selection of audio apps the app store is pretty nice there's even some physical merchandise you can buy with this thing and as we mentioned there's a web browser if you want heavy use you can want to want to plug in a USB keyboard of course this TV does work with standard third-party keyboards that's a nice touch if you're heavy into the web browser unlike some high-end TVs this does not include a built-in camera that's actually reserved for the step-down VT series the set also doesn't have the beefy speakers included on the VT so it's sound quality isn't quite as good another feature Panasonic throws in is two pairs of active 3d glasses so you don't need to buy separate glasses with retail for about 80 bucks you get two in the box for free connectivity isn't quite as good as some of the other high-end TVs out there there's only three HDMI ports instead of two there's also a few us B ports as well as an SD card slot and a component video input picture settings on the ZT 60 are extensive this TV does have the ability to adjust 10 points of grayscale and gamma there's also a full color management system as well as a couple thx modes you can zap this TV right into excellent picture quality with a push of a button so again the picture quality adjustments pretty much as good as we've seen on any TV that brings the picture quality which is the main reason you'd want to pay extra for this television the real benefit of this TV over the step-down VT 60 is not in a dark room they actually have pretty much identical darkened picture quality including those super inky black levels that are good enough to challenge the courage long reigned at the black level champion this TVs advantage is in bright rooms so when you turn up the lights a little bit you'll notice that it preserves black levels just a little bit better than the VT and better than pretty much any other plasm we've seen of course in a bright room it's not going to produce as good of a picture as some of the better LED TVs which can get a lot brighter and won't get as bright as the excellent Samsung f-85 hundred so if you do have a very bright room there are a couple better options out there then again for all-around picture quality ZT 60 is the best we've seen including those super deep black levels it also has excellent color accuracy superb video processing and the excellent off angle and uniformity characteristics we expect from any plasma TV in addition to all that great 2d picture quality TV is also an excellent performer in 3d although not quite as good as some of the brighter TVs out there so of course the ZT 60 is not cheap in fact it's one of the most expensive plasma TVs we've ever seen but for that you do get superb picture quality again the best we've ever tested that's a quick look at Panasonic's ZT 60 plasma TV on David Katz marsinah