If you're looking for an excellent budget plasma television and you're willing to settle for a 42-inch screen, the Hitachi P42T501 should be on your short list.

Image quality is excellent with superb off-axis viewing, something you can't get with any LCD. In addition, this set offers deep blacks, superior brightness, and a high degree of color accuracy. The optimized image is close to state of the art. Resolution is 1080p, and delineation of detail is extremely good. As is the norm with plasmas, the image is absolutely consistent across the screen. While viewing is best in a darkened room, image quality is satisfactory even in bright daylight, due to the fact that the screen is largely non-reflective.

No manual controls are present, and video adjustments are non-intuitive, requiring you to consult the owner's manual and sift through a couple layers of menus. The usual brightness and contrast adjustments are present as well as color temperature (a technical term for color balance). Three settings are provided for the latter, one of which allows for a perfect studio monitor calibration. There is an aspect ratio adjustment governing the ratio of height to width of the image with provisions for centering the images from lower resolution material.

Audio quality is mediocre at best, however. The internal audio system lacks both dynamic range and frequency range, and cannot reproduce the slam-bang soundtracks of present-day action movies. An external audio system is highly recommended.

As with all plasma displays, the P42T501 is vulnerable to "pixel burn", or damage to the phosphors that form the image if a static picture is displayed for too long. A screen saver is provided to prevent that eventuality from occurring.

The P42T501 features three HDMI inputs, and really has few obvious shortcomings apart from smaller screen size-- which dictates the very reasonable price. Significantly better plasmas are available within the Pioneer Elite series, the reference standard for the category, but only at a much higher price.


Pros: excellent picture quality, well-planned remote
Cons: mediocre audio, high susceptibility to noise and interference.

Warranty
1 year, parts and labor