Panasonic TX-L37V20B review

Panasonic has consistently struggled to achieve the same critical success with its LCD TVs that it routinely enjoys with plasma. But the TX-L37V20 is, on paper at least, unusually well equipped to put this imbalance right, given that it's Panasonic's most fully featured LCD TV to date, complete with that technology du jour, edge LED lighting.

It even looks a cut above Panasonic's usually rather drab TV aesthetics, with its silver, vaguely metallic finish and slinky lines.

It hits all the right buttons with its multimedia support, offering playback of most of the key video, photo and music file formats, enabling you to record from its twin HD tuners to USB drives and carrying DLNA support for PC streaming.

However, while its pictures exhibit many strengths, familiar edge LED weaknesses rear their ugly head during dark sequences.

If you have a very dark room and so can run the screen with its brightness dialled down, the TX-L37V20 is possibly worth considering if you don't mind a lack of shadow detail, but should you really have to accept such compromises with a TV that costs nearly £1,000?

We liked

The TX-L37V20B hits the ground running with its slender design and metallic bezel and builds on this with exceptional connectivity and an impressive feature sheet, complete with multimedia tools galore and some solid calibration aids.

Its HD pictures are very sharp and colours are superbly well judged. It's no slouch sonically, either.

We disliked

The edge LED lighting's problems with achieving a consistent lighting level across the screen are at times excessive, and trying to calibrate around them results in a rather dull image devoid of shadow detail, which ends up making the L37V20 look rather expensive.

Final Verdict

The TX-L37V20B delivers considerable strengths in the sharpness and colour departments, but also suffers significant disappointments when it comes to black levels and, particularly, backlight consistency.

The strengths of the TX-L37V20B arguably suggest that with a little more experience Panasonic might be able to use edge LED tech to deliver a truly excellent LCD TV, but it's not there yet.

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