Currys Panasonic TH42PX60B 42" High Definition TV £899

Calm-Seas

williamh1 wrote:

Thanks Calm-Seas - I cancelled an order from last night with Dixons and re-ordered to get the price down to £779 with all discounts

YVW William if it hadnt been for your post i wouldnt have bothered looking so Thank You.
I have just got my email to say it will be delivered next Friday Yessssssssssss
Now to make the DH a special tea to brake the news gently that I have gone ahead and bought this tv. I am sure he will be pleased:T

williamh1

Calm-Seas wrote:

YVW William if it hadnt been for your post i wouldnt have bothered looking so Thank You.
I have just got my email to say it will be delivered next Friday Yessssssssssss
Now to make the DH a special tea to brake the news gently that I have gone ahead and bought this tv. I am sure he will be pleased:T

I've already primed my DW so here's hoping that the only shock will be the bargainacious price!

gromituk

I had a bad experience with Digital Direct too. I ordered a panel on a Saturday and they didn't send me the promised confirmation email, so I emailed them (supposedly open on Sats) and got no reply. On the Monday I called them (fortunately number available via saynoto0870.com) to be told that "my browser skipped a page" (!) and I hadn't confirmed the order but that it would now happen. On the Wednesday they called me because I'd entered the wrong credit card number, and after taking the correct one, sprung a £35 extra fee on me for delivery before Christmas, even though the site said it was guaranteed when I made the original order, and on Monday when I called them. I told them to stuff it.

sptaylor75

Hi

Went in to my local Waitrose store last night which is a large one and sells plasma TV's.

They did not have the 42 inch Panasonic in stock but as they are part of John Lewis they could search the whole group. Apparantly only 3 left in stock in whole country but managed to order 1 of them and didn't have to pay a penny up front, you only pay when they can deliver it.

Also they offer free home delivery, installation and the 5 year warranty.

Would only match local stores but did it there and then so in the end it was £899 the same as currys but I got the 5 year warranty and installation.

Only done side is I might not get the TV until the beginning of February.

Hope it is of some use if you live near a big Waitrose's.

williamh1

Glasgow John Lewis is selling at £817 today - what they call an undersale i.e. pricematch - although I'm not sure which store they're pricematching against.

Timmy

Searcher2 wrote:

With Pirates of The Caribbean if you start watching at about 30-31 minutes then you will see plenty of snakes for quite a while (if you have them). With Matrix Revolutions it starts at 4m 40s, 10 mins, 14 mins 10s, 15mins 45s.... it goes on. Apparently Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Panic Room are great for demonstrating the problem too but I don't have these.

And if anyone thinks I have to dig to find these snakes - I saw Gone In 60 Seconds on TV the other night and that had them all the way through - so it's not just DVD's. Even Big Brother had a guest appearance last night.

If you have not noticed the snakes and are happy with your set then I suggest you don't look for them... as, if you are like me, once you notice them they become annoying.

Panasonic staff in the UK have claimed that they have never seen the issue before, it is within spec, that the sets are refurbished and sold as new, that there are compatibility issues with equipment used... it goes on. It has been the avoidance of acceptance of a problem that has personally annoyed me the most. When I have rung up their Customer Services I have been told to get my Panasonic Service centre to come out and have a look under the warranty. When I have run the Service Centre I have been told I would be charged for this call out (despite Panasonic saying I wouldn't be). Panasonic Customer Service Staff even told me to ignore anything I read on AVForums as it was full of people with a grudge against Panasonic and not to believe what was written!!!!!! Two emails to Panasonic about the issue have so far gone unanswered.

AVForums have people claiming Panasonic have admitted to a problem (in Germany and Japan... not the UK!) and have a firmware fix.... we will have to see.

If Panasonic are correct and all of us over on avf have a grudge against Panasonic then why the hell did we buy Panny plasmas in the first place!!?

I've got an engineer coming out to confirm my fault next week and then I'll be asking for a refund. I'd like to see him tell me it's anything other than a fault with the tv when I show him the snakes using my Digital Video Essentials home cinema set up and evaluation disc. If it's showing snakes on a disc like that then I can't see how they can try and talk there way out of it!

If Panasonic hadn't tried to be so crafty and not admit fault I would just wait for the next model but because of the way they've been I'm gonna spend the extra dosh and get a Pioneer instead. Sorry Panasonic but you've lost another customer for good.

gromituk

Timmy wrote:

If it's showing snakes on a disc like that then I can't see how they can try and talk there way out of it!

Au contraire - they could easily argue that that sort of material is not what the TV was designed to display, so it's not a fault if it doesn't display it faithfully. Sort of like complaining about a dud pixel which you can only see when your eye is pressed up to the screen.

beancounter1968

The posts on the AV forum regarding the the so called purple snakes have been extensive and done more than enough to convince me that this unit is not worth the risk and trouble that so many people are experiencing. I am very troubled that Panasonic customer services are not coming out well in all this. I understand that Watchdog are also being petitioned to try and raise the profile.

Good luck to anyone who has a unit or about to take delivery. I know that I will be looking elsewhere.

Phil

Timmy

gromituk wrote:

Au contraire - they could easily argue that that sort of material is not what the TV was designed to display, so it's not a fault if it doesn't display it faithfully. Sort of like complaining about a dud pixel which you can only see when your eye is pressed up to the screen.

I don't know if you've witnessed a 'purple snake' but it's nothing like a dead pixel. In fact it's exactly like a ghostly image of a purple snake trailing from one side of the screen to the other and a few inches wide!!

The DVE disc has some rather uniteresting demo footage purely to test your picture after calibrating everything to make sure everything looks natural. There's nothing natural about a guy standing giving a talk when there's a huge purple ghost snake trailing across the wall behind him.

If they don't like that I'll show them Pirates of the Caribean with purple snakes a plenty. Maybe they'll try and argue it's an american film and their tv's were designed for the UK market or some such nonsense!! Either way it's far from acceptable and I wish the best of luck to all those that discovered the problem further down the line who are struggling to get help.

Chatham2665

dazco wrote:

Chatham2665 got a pricematch with them, so maybe they do.

But I have tried ringing Digital Direct countless times and have just been on hold for up to half an hour. I have also sent them 3 sales orientated e-mails in 3 days and not had any replies.

I would not buy a plug off these people.

Dazco I did the Price match with Empire Direct. Just working out the best way to connect Sky, Dvd cinema sound etc, will let you know how I get on.