Panasonic Viera TC-L42U30

Value Comparison

While the Panasonic TC-L42U30 and the Panasonic L42U25 are relatively similar television sets, in terms of value, it depends on what you, the consumer value in your TV set. While the Panasonic TC-L42U25 costs more to operate and has a poorer picture performance, it has more legacy analog input ports where the Panasonic TC-L42U30 has only 1 analog video in. Though the Panasonic TC-L42U25’s MSRP is $100 higher, at this point in its life cycle you could probably easily find it for less.

Core Attributes Comparison
	Panasonic Viera TC-L42U30	Panasonic Viera TC-L42U25
Size	42 in.	42 in.
General Type	LED	LCD
Format	1080p	1080p

Blacks & Whites

Though the overall performance of each television set in this area was unimpressive, the Panasonic TC-L42U30 has a much better peak brightness than the Panasonic TC-L42U25, as well as a better contrast ratio.

Color Accuracy

While the color temperature error of the Panasonic TC-L42U30 is not as consistent as that of the Panasonic TC-L42U25, it does manage to stay below the threshold of perceptibility to the human eye for a greater range of signal intensity than the Panasonic TC-L42U25. Consequently, the Panasonic TC-L42U30 scored much higher marks in this category. However, the Panasonic TC-L42U30 did a very poor job with the RGB curves, where the Panasonic TC-L42U25 did not have this difficulty. Note the color banding in the Panasonic TC-L42U30’s red and blue strips, where the Panasonic TC-L42U25 does not have them in any strip.

Color Temperature Comparison
Panasonic Viera TC-L42U30 (Score: 7.47)
Panasonic Viera TC-L42U25 (Score: 5.21)

RGB Comparison
Panasonic Viera TC-L42U30 (Score: 6.56)
Panasonic Viera TC-L42U25 (Score: 8.06)

Motion

It’s a bit surprising that a newer television from the same company would have slipped in its motion performance, but alas, the Panasonic TC-L42U30 has suffered some in this category. Its bad score is quite the step back from the older TC-L42U25’s mediocre one, and even the motion enhancement setting Motion Picture Pro 4 seemed to help the blurriness, but generate artifacting that previously wasn’t there.

Motion Scores
	Panasonic Viera TC-L42U30	Panasonic Viera TC-L42U25
Motion Score

Viewing Effects

The Panasonic TC-L42U30 shows a dramatic improvement in viewing angle over the Panasonic TC-L42U25. Though the latter television has about an average viewing angle for an LCD TV, the Panasonic TC-L42U30 has an impressive one, offering 11 degrees more on either side (total angle is about 69 degrees).

Viewing Angle Comparison
Panasonic Viera TC-L42U30: 7.10	Panasonic Viera TC-L42U25: 4.62

Connectivity

Panasonic decided to do away with the 2 composite video inputs in favor of a shared component/composite one for the TC-L42U30. Beyond that, the Panasonic TC-L42U30 and the Panasonic TC-L42U25 are virtually identical in their connectivity options. Keep in mind, though, that the Panasonic TC-L42U30 has less analog video input, so if you use more than one external media player that requires an analog input cable, you will run into problems that don’t exist on the Panasonic TC-L42U25.

Connectivity Comparison
	Panasonic TC-L42U30	Panasonic TC-L42U25	Sony KDL-40EX400	Sharp LC-42SB48UT
HDMI	3	3	4	4
Component	1	1	2	2
Composite	1	2	1	1
S-Video	0	0	0	0
VGA	0	1	1	1
Analog Audio In	0	2	3	4
Digital Audio Out	1	1	1	1
Analog Audio Out	0	0	1	1
Ethernet	No	No	No	No
Wi-Fi	None	No	No	No
USB	None	No	Yes	Yes
Memory Card Types	SD/SDHC	SD/SDHC	None	None
DLNA	None	No	No	No