PARENT - Sampo PME-42X6 42-Inch HDTV-Ready Widescreen Plasma TV
Are you ready for plasma?
In terms of picture quality the Sampo is pretty much on par with others in this size class.  I've seen a few plasma TVs made by Fujisu at Harvey Electronics stores here in New York, and they are absolutely the best.  Where Sampo &quot;excels&quot; is the price point.  You get bright, fairly clear pictures and also HDTV readiness for a very attractive price, even better than the hot-selling ones at Gateway.  BTW, Sampo makes the Gateway plasma TVs.<br />The PME-42X6 stands out among 42&quot; plasma TVs in being HDTV-ready.  This means it supports all the HDTV resolutions from 480p to 720p to 1080i.  (BTW, BestBuy.com has a decent guide to HDTV terminology.)  It doesn't have a built-in tuner, though, so you'll need to get one yourself, so add a couple hundred to your budget.  As with other plasma TVs you should hire a professional to tune and set up the Sampo.  Improper setups can cause the gas bulbs inside the TV to burn out faster.<br />As I've already said image quality is average, which means you'll see some blocky artifacts.  Of all the plasma TVs I've viewed extensively, only Fujisu and Panasonic models seem to be free from such artifacts.  (No, I don't work for either company or Sampo!)  Sony and Philips are acceptable, too.  The other Asian TVs all suffer from this as well as problems with getting the black &quot;color&quot; right properly.  In terms of everyday use you probably won't mind such &quot;defects,&quot; since they are not too obvious in a good DVD movie.  Sampo does seem to have better color-decoding technology than others in this price class which means you get red and blue right, etc.<br />Before I finish up let me give you an update: I just found out via cnet.com that the native resolution of this unit is 1024x1024.  This means 720p and 1080i will be simulated rather than in native.  To tell the truth at least on this Sampo it doens't mean much.  Everyone would prefer native support for every HDTV resolution, but even super-expensive units from Zenith and Hitachi don't have this feature.  The Sampo is totally affordable and deserves a recommendation.Zenith and Hitachi don't have this feature.  The Sampo is totally affordable and deserves a recommendation.