Panasonic ST60 improves on our favorite 2012 TV
The ST50 was the only TV in 2012 that earned CNET's Editors' Choice award, striking the perfect balance between price and picture quality. The ST60 picks up right where its predecessor left off.
- Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.
LAS VEGAS -- Last year, if someone asked for a recommendation on which TV to buy the discussion usually started and ended with the excellent Panasonic ST50. This year the ST60 again looks like that TV.
Panasonic reps told me that the ST60 has a few picture quality improvements over the ST50, namely a slightly better screen filter, but I took that to mean the two would perform basically the same. That's not a bad thing; the ST50 was one of the best-performing TVs of the year, despite a modest price.
Speaking of price, Panasonic is already taking pre-orders for this and the step-down S60 plasma. The ST60 is still priced to sell, starting at $1300 for the 50-inch model (and I expect that price to fall somewhat), a $100 savings over the initial price of the ST50 last year.The TC-PST60 series is the company's cheapest 3D-capable plasma and new for this year it comes with two pairs of active 3D glasses. It has an Infinite Black Pro panel and might not quite match the motion resolution of the VT and ZT models (it has a "2500 Focused Field Drive" versus their 3000), nor their black-level performance, but should still be pretty great.
The TV features onboard wireless and an upgraded VieraConnect suite with a new home screen. New for this year is a text-to-speech features called Voice Guidance, and compatibility with an optional pen that allows you to mark up documents on the big screen (I can't imagine a feature that would get less use in my house). There's also a new remote app for tablets and smartphones that allows you to flip videos, photos and music (and documents you've marked up) back and forth from the TV, although Panasonic's sets don't have the fancy NFC communication used by some other makers.
Cosmetics have also been upgraded from last year with a new silver stem with stand and a thin bezel making it closer in appearance to the company's LCD line than before.
The TV will come in 50-inch, 55-inch, 60-inch and 65-inch sizes. Panasonic says April on the pre-order on its web site, although we've been told the sizes up to 60 inches might ship as early as March.
