Review of the Hitachi 42PD9700 42
Design
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| Setup/Installation | ||
| Once you open up the box you’ll see how easy the Hitachi 42PD9700 is to set up. It is all laid out before you, leaving you to simply get it out and plug it in. It took us approximately 5 minutes from cardboard box to watching the box. | ||
| Features | ||
| Apart from the blinding science hidden inside this plasma, it does have some attractive, and simple-to-understand features too. Boasting an integrated digital tuner and PictureMaster taking care of the HD performance, the 42PD9700 is nicely futuristic. Connectivity is superb too, offering two HDMI ports for you to take advantage of. We like manufacturers that continue to regard scarts highly, and this time Hitachi have supplied three to keep us happy; they’ve kindly added some PC connectivity and a USB too. With a concoction of an Alis 1080 panel, 4000:1 contrast ratio and 16:9 aspect ratio, the picture performance should be awe inspiring. When the TV is ready to go, spend a bit of time tinkering with the huge selection of picture and screen settings. Some of these include great white balance settings, and you’ll find 5 wide screen options too. You might want to check out our guide to getting a better picture on your plasma. Other on-screen features that we’ve come expect are picture-in-picture and the 7-day electronic programme guide, to stop you missing your favourites. | ||
| Performance | ||
| We have to start by raving about the 42PD9700’s black levels; we started by playing the Xbox 360’s Table Tennis. Motion was handled superbly, without any sign of blurring. Sound quality was sharp and bass was particularly extreme; the only downfall was that it wasn’t as good when watching SD. Visually the SD performance let us down again with a noticeable amount of noise, with us all agreeing that it was grainy and pixellated. Saying that though, once we’d played around with the picture settings our opinion improved slightly. With over 68 billion colours, the 42PD9700 did put on a good show. We watched a football match on HD BBC, and were especially impressed by the vibrantly true colour range. | ||
| Overall Opinion | ||
| In our opinion, based on picture performance alone, the Hitachi 42PD9700 plasma TV would not be worth its asking price. Luckily the fact that it can boast selling points such as a USB connection, 2 HDMIs, SD memory card slot and electronic swivel stand, it is competing by the skin of its teeth. We are not saying that the picture performance was bad, as the black levels were some of the best we’ve ever seen. What we are saying is that there are other plasmas asking the same price, and offer a slightly better picture performance. | ||
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Pros + Alis 1080p + Electronic swivel stand + Integrated digital tuner + Picture-in-Picture + Award winning attractive design + Superb sound + 2 HDMI connections |
Cons - Poor SD performance |
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Picture Quality 8/10
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Sound Quality 8/10
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Connectivity 9/10
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Future Compatibility 10/10
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Ease Of Use 9/10
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Overall Rating 
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By Lisa Malyon
18/10/2006 at 3:44:23pm
18/10/2006 at 3:44:23pm
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