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Panasonic E50 series LCD (pictures)

The Panasonic E50 series is a budget LCD that has its share of features, but its picture quality isn't up to the standards of its competitors.

Ty Pendlebury
Ty Pendlebury is a journalism graduate of RMIT Melbourne, and has worked at CNET since 2006. He lives in New York City where he writes about streaming and home audio.
Ty Pendlebury
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1 of 10 Sarah Tew/CNET

Overview

For the past couple of years Panasonic's higher-end plasma TVs have been known for excellent picture quality, and 2012 is no exception. In contrast, its LCD range, with more models and larger sizes this year than ever before, still poses threat to the Samsungs of the world. The TC-LE50 series is one of Panasonic's least expensive models available in larger (47- and 55-inch) sizes and while it performs better than the DT50 at twice the price, it's still not a great deal.

Picture quality is mediocre, with gray blacks, a fairly mean serving of shadow detail, and colors that look a little "off." I liked its styling, however, and the E50 offers a better feature set -- Smart TV and a large serving of connections -- than the otherwise superior and less expensive Toshiba L5200. But the trade-off here is in picture quality, and I believe you should always pay for the best picture your money can buy, and not the most number of widgets and doohickeys.

Read the full review of the Panasonic E50 series

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2 of 10 Sarah Tew/CNET

Design

The TV includes a piano-black bezel and doesn't look like a budget TV.
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3 of 10 Sarah Tew/CNET

Profile

Like most LCDs released these days, the E50 is quite slim.
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4 of 10 Sarah Tew/CNET

Connectivity

Unusually for a sub-$1000 TV, the Panasonic includes four HDMI ports, but you'll need to pay extra for a wireless Internet adapter.
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5 of 10 Sarah Tew/CNET

Controls

The TV includes back-mounted onscreen controls.
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6 of 10 Sarah Tew/CNET
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7 of 10 Sarah Tew/CNET

Remote control

The remote is basic and not particularly ergonomic, as some buttons are easily pressed by accident.
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8 of 10 Sarah Tew/CNET

Smart TV

The Panasonic includes a full Smart Viera suite with easy access to Netflix and the like.
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9 of 10 Sarah Tew/CNET

Menu

The menu is fairly straightforward.
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10 of 10 Sarah Tew/CNET

Picture quality

In comparison with the picture quality presented by rivals like the Toshiba L5200, the Panasonic E50 is unimpressive at the price. It doesn't do anything particularly well, with fairly inaccurate colors and grayish blacks. It's better than a bargain-basement TV like the catchily named TCL L40FHDF12TA but not much.

The E50's biggest problem is that black areas of the picture are subject to backlight bleeding, which further obscures the TV's average handling of shadow detail. Side-by-side with the Toshiba, the Panasonic's images lack the solidity of the L5200's. Even a decent way with 24p sources doesn't do much to propel the picture of this Panasonic TV past shoulder shrug territory.

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