Panasonic TH-103PX600 review

Let’s be frank, you’re not going to be popping down to your local Comet to pick up one of these babies for your front room anytime soon, and neither are we.

Behold the behemoth

Yet its allure is impossible to resist. Sit cross-legged in front of it, gazing up in awe at the hockey pitch-sized screen and you’ll find it speaks directly to your gadget-loving soul.

It arrived in the most impressive looking flight case you’ve ever seen and it didn’t disappoint once we’d seen it in the flesh – all 345kg of it (including the mammoth floorstanding pedestal).

At £50,000, the TH-103PX600 prices itself out of the reach of most people’s wallets – and at 2.3m wide and 1.2m high, it certainly sizes itself out of most people’s homes.

There’s something almost malevolent about its bulk, and you can’t escape the feeling that if you allowed it into your home it would take control and you’d end up subservient to it – scrimping and saving to please it with offerings of expensive AV equipment.

It’s so large that if you treat it to some Lord of the Rings (and we know at some point you will) you’re going to find yourself sharing your lounge with some life-size hobbits.

The Panasonic has 1920x1080pixel resolution and a variety of slot-in input boards to let you hook up all your kit (and if you can afford a 50 grand TV, you probably have lots of it).

[MPU]

HD good, SD bad

Once we’d hooked up a Blu-ray player, Sky HD box and a Freeview tuner via the HDMI input our model was sporting, we got ready to treat our eyes to a once-in-a-lifetime feast – our peepers were about to find out how the other half live.

And? Well, with an HD signal, the TH-103PX600 will blow you away with a bright, colourful image – but flaws like jagged lines and digital noise are blown up to supersize and are there for all to see. Standard def? Forget it.