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Review: Panasonic TX-50CS520

Introduction and features

Brace yourselves tech fans: the Panasonic TX-50CS520 is not - I repeat, not - a 4K UHD TV. Despite boasting a home cinema friendly screen size of 50 inches.

What's going on here? Has the world stopped spinning on its axis? Have we stepped through a time warp that's taken us all the way back to 2014?!

Actually, the answer's pretty simple. For however difficult many of us technology obsessed folk may find it to believe, there are still a heck of a lot of people out there who don't care two hoots about 4K.

In fact, I suspect there are a heck of a lot of folk out there who still haven't even heard of it. So it would be madness for the TV manufacturers not to still cater for this Full HD audience.

What's more, you could argue that from a financial point of view this non-4K audience is very astute. For the tsunami of 4K UHD TVs flooding shop shelves this year has applied some pretty dramatic downward pressure on the prices of HD TVs, meaning that even though it's not remotely rudimentary with its specification, the 50CS520 will cost you a mere £520.

Premium looks

The fact that this lowly sum isn't just buying you some sort of lowest common denominator hunk of third-rate plastic becomes obvious as soon as you look at the 50CS520.

Its pencil-thin screen frame is narrow enough to set a high-end tone, the contrast between the deep grey of the top and sides and the silvery finish of the bottom edge is cute, and the remarkably restrained stand does a great job of leaving you focussed where you really want to be focussed: on what's showing on the TV's screen.

The 50CS520's build quality isn't the greatest, however, but it looks the part unless you happen to be standing or sitting much closer to it than is sensible.

There are, though, less easy to accept signs of budget compromise with the 50CS520's connections.

You get just two HDMIs when we're now accustomed to finding twice as many, and you only get one USB port for playing back multimedia from USB storage devices when we're increasingly finding at least three on well-to-do modern TVs.

The 50CS520 does at least still offer both Wi-Fi and LAN network options, which are partnered with Panasonic's 'my Home Screen' smart interface to deliver both DLNA streaming from compatible networked devices and access to Panasonic's 'walled garden' of online content.

No fantastic Mr. Firefox?

Dedicated followers of tech may have spotted there that I talked about Panasonic's my Home Screen interface, not the swanky new Mozilla Firefox OS Panasonic unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.

Unfortunately, if not entirely surprisingly, the Firefox system only comes into play higher up Panasonic's new TV range.

Having seen Firefox there's no getting around the fact that my Home Screen now feels dated; a sensation not helped by the way a classic 1980s computer-synthesised female voice is used to narrate parts of the initial set up procedure.

However, my Home Screen remains an exceptionally easy system to use, and also benefits from bags of customisability. Different members of your household can even easily set up their own individual starting 'home' screens to provide faster access to their preferred content.

It's also good to see that despite the 50CS520's affordability, my Home Screen isn't its only 'smart' component. For as with many of last year's Panasonic TVs, this one carries built-in Freetime support, meaning you can access on-demand content from the UK's key broadcasters simply by finding shows you want to catch up on by scrolling back through time on the Freetime electronic programme guide.

Screen specification

Turning to the picture technology sported by the 50CS520, it's pretty promising for an affordable big-screen TV.

The screen is lit by an edge LED system, with contrast supported by just an adaptive contrast system. There's no local dimming control over the edge LEDs, and although the set's motion handling is rated at 200Hz this is achieved through processing and backlight management; the panel is not running at a native 200Hz refresh rate.

The one interesting thing about the 50CS520's heart is Panasonic's claim that it uses a new Bright Panel Plus architecture capable of producing a marked boost to brightness. Though it's hard to quantify the benefits of this as Panasonic isn't one for revealing its TVs' luminance specifications.

One last point to note is that as more evidence of 3D's sadly declining fortunes, the 50CS520 doesn't carry any 3D support.

Picture Quality

I was pleasantly surprised by how little of a negative jolt I felt when going back to watching full HD on the 50CS520 after a run of testing 4K UHD TVs.

The 50CS520 reveals pretty much instantly that it's definitely not just some half-arsed budget model Panasonic has shoved out the door because it felt it had to. Its images immediately betray plenty of signs of Panasonic's long experience of knowing how to make a good TV picture.

Particularly welcome in light of Panasonic's unfortunate flirtation with low-contrast IPS-type panels for some of its 2014 range is the 50CS520's black level performance. Dark scenes enjoy rich, deep black colours that given them a naturalistic and cinematic finish in excess of anything I might have expected to see for only a little over £500.

There's a reasonable sense of depth and detail to dark scenes too, while contrast - the ability to portray bright and dark content in the same frame - is also strong. This all suggests that the panel at the 50CS520's heart has a natural affinity for contrast rather than having to rely on distractingly draconian light control measures.

Sharpness and detail

Also highly impressive is the clarity of the 50CS520's HD images. Detailing and textures look pretty much as good as they probably can with a non-4K screen - better than HD, in fact - backed up superbly by a dearth of noise and some startlingly refined colour mapping for such an affordable TV.

The mostly excellent sharpness does take something of a hit when Panasonic's screen has to deal with a lot of motion - especially camera pans - as both judder and resolution loss come into play. However, neither of these issues affect images as aggressively as they historically tend to at the 50CS520's level of the TV market.

What's more, since Panasonic's TV isn't over-burdened with heavy duty motion processing you aren't ever in danger of ending up with pictures that look unnatural or overwhelmed by common motion processing artefacts like flickering over areas of really fast motion or shimmering haloes around moving objects.

There's frankly little worse in the TV world than a TV that tries to go too heavy on the video processing without having the processing power to back it up. So it's a relief to find the 50CS520 not falling into the trap.

Needless to say, though, the 50CS520's picture quality isn't wholly immune to its aggressive price point and relatively unassuming picture specification.

Brickbats

Its biggest problem by far is the potential for patches of excess light to appear in the corners of the screen during dark scenes. Especially if those dark scenes happen to have a bright element or two towards their centre.

The 'clouding' effect I'm talking about is subtle enough not to be a significant problem during bright room viewing, and pales into insignificance versus the backlight woes associated with Panasonic's previous IPS-based TVs.

But if you fancy a serious lights-down movie session you will likely find yourself having to significantly reduce the 50CS520's backlight setting in order to reduce the corner clouds to a point where they're no longer distracting. I found that it was only when I got the backlight down to barely its 20 per cent level that the clouding really dissipated - and of course, by the time pictures significantly less bold and punchy than they did before.

Still, that's not to say the 50CS520's pictures don't still enjoy a solid sense of contrast and dynamism for the set's money even after a 'declouding' calibration.

Colours with HD sources still look likeably natural during dark scenes too. It does have to be added, though, that downgrading the backlight setting so drastically does mean some previous visible grayscale information and dark area detail gets pushed out of the darkest corners of the picture.

One other area where the 50CS520 didn't blow me away is its upscaling of standard definition.

Panasonic's processing engine does a good job of adding detail while simultaneously reducing source noise, but colours look unbalanced and strained, and I wasn't able to find any blend of settings in the TV's set-up menus that really addressed the problem.

Although I guess you could always take the drastic but not recommended measure of simply not watching standard definition content any more…

Usability, Sound and Value

Although the 50CS520's 'my Home Screen' interface looks dated and can run a bit slowly at times, it's still the only smart TV system so far that's managed to crack the issue of delivering a personalised experience within a family environment.

It allows different family members to easily set up and access their own home pages customised to carry just the favourite apps each individual wants quick access to. You can also set up home pages based on different themes if you so desire.

There's nothing particularly 'smart' about the remote control you get with the 50CS520, aside from the welcome addition of a Netflix button at its heart to provide direct access to the world's leading video streaming service (welcome, assuming you're already signed up to it). You need to buy higher up Panasonic's range to also get one of Panasonic's smart remote controls - though to be honest, I haven't been a great fan of these touch pad-equipped remotes anyway.

Setting the TV's pictures and smart features up is pretty straightforward, with the only niggle being the need to set up a low-backlight setting for dark room viewing and then toggling between that and a more 'normal conditions' setting for more regular day to day viewing.

Sound Quality

Thin, slightly plasticky TVs like the 50CS520 generally come with pretty significant sound quality strings attached. But Panasonic's model comes as a pleasant surprise, managing to inject quite a bit of both bass and treble detailing life into a good action movie soundtrack without leaving the mid-range feeling overly compressed or causing the speakers to phut or sound harsh.

Particularly welcome is how natural voices sound. They always appear to be a natural result of the environment they're appearing in, rather than sounding superimposed, nasal or boxy.

Value

You can get cheaper 50-inch TVs than the Panasonic 50CS520. But you'll seriously struggle to find one that performs anywhere near as well for under £550 - especially one that also gives you a smart TV system as effective as this one's my Home Screen and Freetime combination.

Verdict

With HD (as opposed to 4K UHD ) TVs still apparently accounting for the major of TV sales from most retailers, the full HD Panasonic 50CS520 is a long overdue arrival on our now 4K-dominated test benches.

Especially since its no-nonsense combination of a friendly smart TV system; impressive picture and sound quality; and eye-catchingly aggressive price work together handsomely to keep the HD flag flying high.

We liked

At £520 the 50CS520 feels like a bargain for the quality, screen size and features on offer.

The space-saving design is attractive for such an affordable TV too, and while its smart TV engine may look dated it's easy to use and offers a good selection of catch up services. Best of all, both picture and sound quality are strong.

We disliked

Backlight inconsistencies require you to remove quite a lot of brightness from pictures during dark room viewing, which can also lead to a reduction in shadow detail.

Standard definition sources can feature rather unnatural colours, and more HDMI and USB ports would have been appreciated.

Verdict

If the 50CS520 is a sign of things to come from the 2015 HD TV market, people not ready to commit to 4K yet are going to be in for a treat.

Panasonic's mid-range HD model looks smart and modern, is well stocked with impressively customisable smart TV features, and delivers picture and sound quality that are both far, far better than you might expect of a £520 50-inch TV.

from TechRadar: Technology reviews http://ift.tt/1ekIvpg