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Rick Rizner
Panasonic's 42-inch plasma handles color well, taking third place for that attribute in our tests of eight models. We saw deep reds in footage from a classic car show, for example, and natural-looking skin tones for characters in a high-def recording of The George Lopez Show. The TH-42PX25U/P also took third place for displaying detail, with minimal video noise in TV recordings and DVD movies. But the TV placed sixth in our measure of brightness and contrast-- ironic given that Panasonic touts the high contrast specifications of its plasmas as a major selling point. The end result was a middle- of-the-pack rating, with the TV placing fourth out of eight for standard-definition and high-definition content and fifth for DVD performance.
Audio performance was likewise uneven. The dual 13-watt speaker units (tucked...