Panasonic TX-P46Z1 Review

Lets dispense with the foreplay, the Z! streams 108024 wirelessly. Full HD Blu-ray video with no wires whatsoever. Thats enough. Job done. Five stars. Now comes with the padding.

Sitting at the top of  Panasonic’s Viera TV range, in both price terms and specification, the P46Z1 is an object of tech beauty. It’s sleek, svelte and very trendy. A metallic finish equals high-end in the tv business these days.

To be honest though, The Z1’s aesthetic elegance comes as a bit of a shock. Panasonic is not generally known for its fashions sense. Cutting-edge kit, yes. Dependable devices, more often than not. Indeed, the company puts a lot of stock in functionality and we applaud the gesture. However, as natty as the perform, they’re normally shrouded in blocky, placky, black boxed. Built by inventors, designed by undertakers.

Its also super skinny. In fact, at 24.7 mm at its leanest point, it is easily the thinnest plasma panel I’ve seen. It’s LED TV thin, which is impressive for a plasma. There are even some that would buy this TV simply because of it’s waif-like nature, but they would be best advised to read on, there is a drawback…

The WirelessHD functionality requires the use of a transmitter and receiver, and the latter is bolted onto the back of the display. Therefore, the footprint, when mounted, is greate than expected – It sticks out approximately 50mm. twice the distance. That’s still half the depth of, say, the Philips Cinema 21:9, but it undermines certain boasts.