Panasonic VIERA TH-L42E5K LCD TV, VIERA Remote App Support and VIERA Connect Review
I got this TV about half a year ago and thought I might as well share my thoughts on the it.
I'm not a professional TV reviewer, but I do love to watch TV.
There's really nothing to complain about this TV in terms of video quality. It goes up to 1080p resolution and I've played Avatar in full HD on it and the video looks stunning. I don't play games on it except with my Nintendo Wii, which really isn't the benchmark for games these days. It has two USB ports, one SD card port and 4 HDMI ports, which is decent. For audio, you are better off using a pair of RM100 PC speakers than to use the built in one.
Photo support on the Panasonic is also better when it comes to viewing and slideshow modes vs the Sharp TV. No noticeable lag when cycling through photos taken at 16MPs from my DSLR when I played it direct from the SDHC Card.
It sounded so cool when the sales guy tried to sell it to me. You can:
Of course, reality isn't that sweet. Why would I use my smartphone as remote, when I can use the actual remote control? Streaming photos and videos works only if you can wait two seconds to load the next photo and watch laggy videos? And keyboard feature? That's only if you can endure the Viera Connect feature which I shall explain next.
I'm not a professional TV reviewer, but I do love to watch TV.
There's really nothing to complain about this TV in terms of video quality. It goes up to 1080p resolution and I've played Avatar in full HD on it and the video looks stunning. I don't play games on it except with my Nintendo Wii, which really isn't the benchmark for games these days. It has two USB ports, one SD card port and 4 HDMI ports, which is decent. For audio, you are better off using a pair of RM100 PC speakers than to use the built in one.
Media Player
The video format support on the TV is also better than the Sharp LED TV my in-laws have, as I was able to play some file on my Viera from a USB drive while theirs couldn't. Generally, the Viera plays almost everything I throw at it (mkv, avi, wmv, rmv). Subtitles however, I do wish when playing mkv files without proper subtitles it can support srt subtitle files, but it doesn't.Photo support on the Panasonic is also better when it comes to viewing and slideshow modes vs the Sharp TV. No noticeable lag when cycling through photos taken at 16MPs from my DSLR when I played it direct from the SDHC Card.
DLNA
It has a DLNA support and I've tried hooking up my Macbook to it using free DLNA server application (TVMOBiLi). Video files seem to lag a lot, and I'm not too sure if it's due to my router or if it's just the TV. As far as I know, the or laptop does transcoding of video files in real time before it gets displayed.VIERA remote App Support
The TV also supports a remote control on smartphone devices, which you can get on the iOS and Android.It sounded so cool when the sales guy tried to sell it to me. You can:
- Use it as a remote control
- Use it to stream your smartphone's photos and videos to the TV
- Use it as a keyboard for your Smart TV internet features
Of course, reality isn't that sweet. Why would I use my smartphone as remote, when I can use the actual remote control? Streaming photos and videos works only if you can wait two seconds to load the next photo and watch laggy videos? And keyboard feature? That's only if you can endure the Viera Connect feature which I shall explain next.
Viera Connect
This TV is touted as a "Smart TV". A TV without "intelligence" would probably have costed RM500 (USD150) lesser. Because this TV was an impulse purchase, I do regret overpaying for it. My TV came with a free WiFi USB dongle which takes up one USB port. Alternatively you can use an Ethernet cable and hook it directly to your router.
Panasonic calls their Internet TV feature, the Viera Connect. To access it, you click on the Internet button on your remote. The Viera Connect feature works on paper, but in reality you really don't want to use it after you tried it once. Why?
- Connecting to the network after clicking the "Internet" button takes 20 secs (in Internet time, this is forever)
- After Viera Connect is loaded, navigation between icons has a one second lag (again, very long in Internet time)
- Applications in the Viera Connect is limited. It has a Skype app which allows you to video chat (but you need supported USB webcams, duh!), Facebook app and YouTube app just to name a few. There's a Viera market which you can download more apps, but the selection is really bad (perhaps here in Malaysia anyway).
The only app I like is YouTube because I can sign in with my YouTube account to watch my subscribed channels and from my iPhone I can actually search and display videos to the TV wirelessly via the iOS YouTube app. Sounds great BUT it takes me 20secs to load the YouTube app, which is wayyyyy too long! Other apps are honestly useless, since the load time is so bad and UI so clunky, it is not worth your time trying them.
Summary
As a TV, the Panasonic Viera TH-L42E5K does it's job very decently. But as an internet device, you should look else where, like an Apple TV or some perhaps even a cheap Chinese media player or the Rikomagic (see review HERE). Don't buy the TV for the internet functions, you will be sorely disappointed.
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