Panasonic TH-85VX200 review

With its mammoth 85-inch screen requiring a professional installation by a team of installers and £42k in your bank account, the TH-85VX200B is not for the faint-hearted. But considering it comes via Panasonic's professional distribution channel rather than its consumer one, it wears its size rather well, with its gleaming, black metallic bezel.

Its standard connections include four HDMIs, meanwhile, to help AV users out, though there's no support for multimedia or online purposes beyond a D-Sub PC port.

The screen also lacks any tuners, but it makes up for this with a pretty extravagant suite of picture adjustments endorsed by the Imaging Science Foundation, and by employing some high level picture technologies not found on Panasonic's mainstream consumer TVs.

These picture technologies seem to work, too. The TH-85VX200B's pictures are, for the most part, astonishingly good. Its 3D images in particular are phenomenal, thanks to their brightness, freedom from crosstalk noise and sheer enormity.

It's also a superb 2D performer, leaving as our only serious niggle with the screen, aside from its impossible price - the poor quality of Panasonic's current 3D glasses.

We liked

The size of the TH-85VX200B is enough in itself to get a movie fan's pulse racing and it's beautifully made. It's got plenty of calibration tricks to keep tinkerers and installers happy too, but best of all is the hugely impressive quality of its pictures. 3D, in particular, is a revelation, especially thanks to the way it appears with practically no crosstalk noise.

We disliked

With many folk struggling to find even, say, £20k for a decent family car, the idea of stumping up £42k for a TV will just seem laughable to most people. The screen isn't particularly energy efficient either, especially as it needs cooling fans when running at sort of brightness levels that are recommended for 3D viewing.

The operating system is a bit bland, too, there's no tuner, and multimedia talents are limited compared with today's consumer TVs.

Finally, the generally terrific 3D quality is undermined by Panasonic's current 3D glasses design.

Final Verdict

Few, if any, readers of this review will ever be able to own an TH-85VX200B on account of its millionaires-only price.

From an AV quality perspective, though, it's a phenomenal bit of kit. Tucked away inside its extremely robust and metallic bezel is the best 3D picture quality seen to date, thanks chiefly to the way the screen's professional-grade features help keep a lid on 3D's infamous crosstalk noise problems, and the screen's impressive brightness levels.

Sure, it would have been nice to get more regular 'TV' features like a tuner and online/multimedia functions. If, however, you simply want to add a monster screen to your mansion that delivers the picture goods in spades, then you won't find anything finer than the TH-85VX200B.

Follow TechRadar Reviews on Twitter: http://twitter.com/techradarreview