Panasonic VIERA TC-32LEW56 32-Inch 60Hz LCD TV (White)

Great Internet TV for the Bedroom, August 27, 2012

By 

Peter B. Nelson (Pine Island, MN USA) –

  

  

This is a review of the Panasonic 32″ IPS-LED White TV, model TC-32LEW56.

Overall I found this to be a wonderful little TV for a space that doesn’t need some large screen. White televisions are hard to find, and this one certainly looks sharp. I posted a dozen pictures here on Amazon, so be sure to browse those for more photos, specifications, I/O ports and such. Apart from all that, I put the set through its paces in a few different ways, and here is a breakdown.

AESTHETICS. This puppy looks sharp. It has a nice clear-edge bezel, and the white is very soft. My first thought on seeing it was that it would look nice in the bedroom, and that’s where we put it. The black power cord and USB wireless adapter might bother some purists, but I didn’t notice them once everything was in place.

VIDEO QUALITY. Surprisingly good, I’d say, although I must confess I’m not a super videophile geek. Nevertheless, I am clever enough to use the Spears & Munsil High-Definition Benchmark Blu-ray Disc Edition [Blu-ray] that I bought last year for my Panasonic TC-P42S2 42-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV. I dug it out to calibrate this 32″ IPS-LED and the effort was well rewarded, as I was able to get a picture quality much superior to the factory default settings, if not quite up to plasma standards. Perhaps the most important thing is to set the AdvancedPicture/BlackLevel to Dark. That brought out rich colors and deep blacks and solved the “washed out” problem. It also disabled the S&M pages for calibrating brightness, but I nevertheless got good brightness levels on “Light” mode before switching to “Dark” mode for everything else. Not to be coy about it, here are the calibrated settings from my TV. Your results may vary slightly, but not by much, I would guess. Give these settings a try and see if they don’t work for you. *See below.

INTERNET TV. Fantastic feature, but sadly lacking Youtube. One of the greatest things about this TV is the built-in Internet streaming capability, but without Youtube support you are left with only pay-for-view services. As of August 2012, in the USA, the built-in streaming options are these: Netflix, CinemaNow, Vudu, Amazon and Hulu Plus. It’s my understanding that those could change at any time. As as aside, I’ve had Youtube support on my Panasonic Blu Ray player for some time, but I noticed it isn’t available on newer models, so perhaps Google is restricting access to promote their own Google TV? In any case, I tried Netflix and Amazon on this TV and they both worked exactly as they did on the Blu Ray player. Amazon setup was trivially simple – just use a PC to open the URL given by the TV and Amazon will give you a simple code. Enter that code into the TV using the remote and the account is activated. Netflix works similarly. Amazone Prime has lots of videos for free – my kids loved it when I found all three seasons (yes, only three) of Gilligans Island, for free. My only complaint is that Amazon doesn’t have a good way to search and build playlists on the PC. Even so, it’s better than surfing the traditional cable channels.

WIRELESS. This is a bit of a kludge, as the “built in wireless” is really just a USB dongle wireless adapter. Panasonic N5HBZ0000055 Wireless LAN Adapter with Base. I had to use a magnifying glass to read the MAC address from the back of the adapter. But it worked first try, so what more do we want?

AUDIO. Not bad. Loud enough to hear every show I watched, which is all I ask from built-in speakers.

PC DISPLAY. Alas, this is where the set really falls down. I posted a scan of the specifications page where it clearly shows full 1920×1080 resolution is NOT supported in PC mode. I found 1280×1024 in 4:3 mode to be the best (just hit the [Format] button on the remote to switch from Full to 4:3 mode). The manual specs page does have a bit of an “out”, in that it says “signals other than the above *may* not be displayed properly” [emphasis added]. Fortunately for this test I had a graphics adapter that let me create custom display resolutions. I was able to display resolutions as high as 1920×1020, including 1440×1050. But they all looked terrible. It possibly be that the problem was the analog VGA connection, and that an HDMI video card/connection would have produced a better image, but I don’t have a video card with an HDMI-out port for that test. I do know that 1280×1024 looks perfect on my old DELL monitor with an analog VGA cable, but never got really…

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Finally, a larger WHITE TV, August 16, 2012

I’ve been waiting a loooong time (years) for a larger white LCD TV for my bedroom. This girl put it together and set it up tonight. So far, so great! Although it isn’t shown anywhere in the specs, it does have a “sleep timer”…very important in the bedroom. Like the white remote too. My only complaint is the black cord on a white TV, but that is what white paint is for!

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Vanity wins again!, September 17, 2012

This was a replacement purchase for a 23″ Samsung with a white bezel that I had in my kitchen. The white bit is important as all my appliances are white and I wanted a match. The flaw in the Samsung (deficient viewing angles;color negative picture 30° off) does not exist in this TV. Its ability to grab the house WiFi is phenomenal, and I no longer need to use the Roku box in the kitchen.

The first reviewer did such a great job that all my operational questions were answered, but the aesthetic, there is white and there is white; this is not an appliance bright white like the Samsung was, it is more a creamy white. We have a larger VIERA in another room so I knew in advance that I would not like the remote/setup. I think Panasonic makes it more complicated that what it needs to be. But all in all I am so pleased with this purchase.

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