Panasonic Viera TC-37LZ85 37-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV

This tv is amazing quality for the money. I own another lcd hdtv (samsung 42incher) and the picture quality on this panasonic is quite impressive compared to that tv. For beginners, the panel is an ips panel which means the viewing angle is wide; you can see the screen clearly from the side. The finish of the screen is matte which is great for my room with lots of daylight.

The picture quality surpasses my samsung in many ways including blacks and color gamut--very impressed. In addition, i use this panasonic for gaming and as a pc monitor. Be sure to set the hdmi mode to 2 and use the 3rd hdmi input (gaming). This means the pixel ratio is 1:1 so the text is sharp and the graphics amazing. Playing crysis on this screen blew me away as did metal gear solid on ps3!

A few other things I like are the sdhc memory card input: we returned from a trip to africa with several gigs of pictures on sdhc, this tv was a great way to showcase the pics in high def to the family.

finally, the lack of tax, and white glove service of amazon saved me so much time and money I wish i had a reason to buy another.

I was an electronics salesman for 2 years and this is the best performing 37" lcd I have seen. I could get technical about it but the bottom line is it just looks better. I did not own a flat screen TV prior to this because I hadn't found anything worth spending the money on, but I now own this TV and it has not dissappointed!

July 2008 Consumer Report rated this one of the top LCD's. Price at around $1500. But I bought it from Amazon for under $1000 including shipping (it came in a couple days. It is so excellent! And no glare!! I can finally open my drapes again. Very clear picture and colors and this is without HDTV! I can't wait to try it with HDTV but even regular TV is a heck of a lot better. And it's wide screen and about a million times lighter than my old TV.

I just received this set today, after weeks of web and in-store research. I had always thought that the Panasonic LCDs looked a bit better than the Sonys and Samsungs at the stores, and looked very much better off-axis (important in our room). Well, all I can say is they must not have had the set adjusted very well in the store.... it looks way better at home that it even did there!

I actually chose this set not only for what I had seen in the store (a little better picture, but not by a lot as I saw it there) but because I had read some reports on the net that the Panasonic IPS-Alpha screens generally do better on standard and analog TV than most other types. We have a lot of old VHS (such as home movies) and wanted a good quality set on which these would still be watchable. I'd say the old tapes look as good on this set as on the old CRT set, other than the expected results of the screen just being so much larger showing the lack of detail. A nice surprise, even analog over the air TV is completely watchable, no gritty lines or obnoxious blurs. On a whim, I connected my laptop to the TC-37LZ85 via the S-Video connector and brought up some old B&W shows on [...]. The ancient B&W Alfred Hitchcock shows look better in this set, through the low-res internet link, than they EVER did on analog TV.

We don't have a Blue-Ray player to see what the highest resolution video looks like, so I slipped in a SD-card with some high res (5MByte) photos on it. These are just drop-dead gorgeous. Couldn't stop watching the slide show, I had never seen these photos quite like this, wish I could print them as well as this screen shows them.
The only negative of the set (so far, hey it's just the first day) is that in my research I neglected to notice that this model does NOT have a VGA connector for computer video, so I can't see my laptop screen in its full resolution. Maybe the TC-37LZ800 would have been a better choice (for another $[...]), but maybe not, I don't know how often I'd do that anyway. :)

Bought it from Amazon and got it via CEVA in 5 days (could have been shorter as it was shipped from a warehouse just 500 miles from where I live :) I almost bought the 32LZ800 for almost the same price but decided to get this due to the matte screen, I dont like the glossy screens. Also I got a Panasonic due to the IPS panel instead of the PVA variants from most other vendors. Look at all the sets at a 45 deg angle before you decide :)

Razor sharp pictures through a PS3, SDTV is not bad (after reducing the sharpness etc), no VGA input, adequate sound (though could have been a little louder).

The factory default settings are not great but it can be tuned to display pleasing results. For a 2008 TV, I am unhappy that there isnt a separate RGB control. Another bummer is the lack of a VGA input: my older laptop doesnt have DVI/HDMI. Every 32-37" LCD I have seen has this input and I didnt check this before ordering :( With a VGA port and the RGB controls, I would have given it 5 stars.

Overall its a good purchase. If you need a no-frills panel, this is a good choice, given that it was the cheapest 37" TV from Amazon when I bought it.