Press TV reviews........who do you believe!?

[Mr Noble]

Been thinking of getting a new TV.

Lots of reviews say the Panasonic TX-P42GT60 is the best 42" currently available. "Amazing picture" "Amazing 3D" etc.

Like this http://www.whathifi.com/review/panasonic-tx-p42gt6... that scores it as 100%.

Then I read the Which? Review, that gives it a lowly 56% and says .....both the picture and 3D are crap - do not buy.

Who the hell are us consumers supposed to believe?

Which said:

"What's the picture quality like?

This TV produces a bright image for a plasma screen, with plenty of definition and a strong sense of depth. Viewing angles are excellent - more than wide enough for any living room. However, throughout our tests fast horizontal movement caused the image to break up, making it a set you should avoid if you like watching sports or fast action movies. 3D TV is not great, either."

[Ved]

I'd sooner take on the opinion of Mr Magoo than Which?

HDTVtest and AVForums (review and owners) are the only ones I bother with.

[Mr Noble]

Tend to agree, and yet Which? Are apparently the only totally Independent reviewer who has no influence from manufacturers, as I'm sure many of the reviewers do.

It must happen a lot -"If you give the new TV a great score, you can keep it, otherwise we want it back"......

[TonyRPH]

Any What HiFi review is generally biased crap IMHO.

[belleair302]

Any picture will always garner different responses depending when it is viewed, how it is set up and what is showing. I tend to go on 'owners' responses not those written by journalists or 'paid reviewers'. Go along and look at one, change channels and then decide.

[anonymous-user]

Sites like What HiFi put out reviews depending upon how much they're paid. For example, HDMI cables - the lengths they would test i.e. short - upto say 5m, wouldn't suffer interference and therefore are likely to be identical, but they find all manner of superlatives to set cables apart. Their end of year reviews are quite comical, especially when it comes to awarding a product with 'best in class' when it's not even been tested or released as a sample for review.

AVForums is the only one I believe when it comes to written reviews, as they produce the test data from calibration, and as most of their reviewers (particularly Phil H, and Steve W, who calibrated my PJ for me), are THX and ISF certified, they know what a good image is, and how an intuitive user interface is meant to be (often underestimated by end users).

The level of detail that reviews go into is very much an enthusiast speak and techno jargon if you're a regular consumer though.