Panasonic TC-LWT50 series (pictures)

As the third and most expensive Panasonic LED TV CNET has reviewed this year, the TC-L47WT50 faced high expectations. They went mostly unfulfilled. Like its brethren, this television delivered picture quality a notch or three below what competing LED TVs can muster, and so far behind Panasonic's plasmas that it's almost a joke.

The WT50 does have one plasmalike saving grace -- superb fidelity when seen from positions outside the sweet spot directly in front of the TV -- but that isn't enough to overcome its flaws. When you consider its high price, Panasonic's WT50 joins the ranks of flagship LED TVs that simply aren't worth the money.

The Web browser is almost as good as the ones on Samsung and LG TVs as long as you use the touch-pad remote, but that's not saying much since no TV browser can hold a candle to any phone, tablet, or laptop browser. Clicking over to CNET.com, I found I couldn't navigate down the page until it finished loading, which took forever (about a minute). I tried to scroll down by moving the cursor to the bottom of the page but it wouldn't respond. Instead I had to use the scroll bar on the far right.

Entering text via the onscreen keyboard, a painful necessity, was actually much easier via the standard remote since the touch clicker has a tendency to overshoot, and the lack of autofill is incredibly annoying. Load times were hit or miss -- mostly miss.

Panasonic's menus remain unchanged: an all-business yellow-on-blue that still seems a bit dated compared with Samsung's and Sony's user interfaces, but gets the job done.

Unlike Panasonic's high-end plasmas the WT50 doesn't have a THX mode, but otherwise it does have most of the picture adjustments offered on the flagship VT50. Unfortunately, they don't work as well.