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  • The Outfit

  • The Bells & Whistles

  • The Picture Quality

  • Last Look

  • Behind the Screens

  • Calibration

  • Contrast

  • Viewing Angle

  • Color Gamut

  • Grayscale & RGB Balance

  • Gamma Sum

  • The Outfit
  • The Bells & Whistles
  • The Picture Quality
  • Last Look
  • Behind the Screens
  • Calibration
  • Contrast
  • Viewing Angle
  • Color Gamut
  • Grayscale & RGB Balance
  • Gamma Sum

All the same, Panasonic is off to a promising start for 2014: We just tested the company's mid-tier TC-50AS530U LED LCD TV (MSRP $899.99) and noted some very positive results.

With smart staples like Netflix and Hulu, 50 inches of screen space, and solid performance points like healthy contrast and accurate color, the AS530U series offers some real punch for your pennies. It also comes in numerous screen sizes: 39, 50, 55, and 60 inch. Before you bet on this horse, however, keep in mind that it isn't alone on the track.

The Outfit

A snappy little design with modest materials

Panasonic's AS530U displays look pretty sharp at a glance. The 50-inch model we tested sits atop a rectangular stand with rounded edges, and slim, shiny bezels border its sizable screen up above. A red LED winks below when the TV turns on, but this is an otherwise colorless affair—no chrome, no silver, no grey: just an inky black scheme.

Some might hope for an extra HDMI, but you'll need to settle for two.

The connectivity is sufficient, but less than what you might hope for in a highly connected room. The back left side hosts hookups for two HDMI, two USB, hybrid component/composite connections, coaxial in, ethernet, and digital audio out (optical). On a 50-inch panel, most would want an extra HDMI, but this is a middle-of-the-road model, so you'll need to settle for two. Note also that the HDMI ports are both wall-facing, which makes this TV trickier to wall mount. Around the right side of the panel, users will find on-set controls for volume, input, channel, and power.

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The accompanying remote is Panasonic's standard fare, featuring dedicated keys for Netflix, Apps, Home, and input, and otherwise offering the basics. If you want something fancier with a touchpad, you'll have to invest in a higher-end Panasonic.

The Bells & Whistles

DIY Home Screens and yesterday's remote

The Panasonic AS530's Smart Viera platform offers almost everything in the way of customization and video-streaming apps. Users can create their own Home Screens, browse the internet, and tinker with social media. The only trouble is, this series ships with a run-of-the-mill remote that makes typing and navigation anything but fun.

Higher end models ship with a touchpad remote for more fluid control, but I had to make peace with basic up/down buttons to navigate—and that made this TV's Bing browser all but intolerable. If you want to effortlessly voyage around the web, you'll have to clutter your TV stand with a USB mouse and keyboard... not very modern.

The rinky-dink flash games will only entertain the very young, and a dedicated section for porn is sure to offend families everywhere.

Panasonic does set you up with some great preinstalled video streaming apps, though: Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube are all ready to go, and so are supplementaries like Vudu and Target Ticket (both sub-par video apps). Panasonic's app Market also has free and paid downloads to choose from, but when you click install, something very unfortunate occurs: You're required to create a Panasonic Home Cloud ID and password—as if we need another profile to keep up with. Luckily, signing up with Panasonic's Home Cloud isn't wholly necessary. Aside from some prominent music (Pandora, Rhapsody) and sports (MLB, MLS) apps, most of these downloads are downright silly or worse. The rinky-dink flash games will only entertain the very young, and a dedicated section for porn, tastelessly dubbed After Hours, is sure to offend families everywhere.

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In general, everything you need is on this smart TV, but so is everything you don't (here's lookin' at you, porn apps). From calendars, to social media (Twitter, Facebook), to local weather, the customizable Home Screen offers inferior versions of everything on your phone or PC. If you prize simplicity, this may not be the best platform for you.

Panasonic includes a welcome selection of robust picture controls.

Finally, Panasonic includes a welcome selection of robust picture controls. Modes like Standard, Vivid, Home Theater, and Cinema are just a few clicks away. For more savy users, a Custom mode allows you to tinker with a healthy host of settings: back light, contrast, brightness, color, tint, sharpness, color temperature, and motion settings, to name a few. And for the very advanced, there are also color management controls, RGB white balance adjustments, and Gamma settings.

The Picture Quality

For the price, a dashing picture for cinema and daytime

For an affordable mid-tier option, the AS530U offers some very fine performance. Testing results like these are ideal for both cinematic and basic daytime TV. The picture isn't breathtaking, but you can't expect the world when you pay well under 1K for 50 inches.

Crucial picture quality aspects tested very well.

To begin with, the most crucial picture quality aspects tested very well, and that's key: Minimum dark levels on the AS530U aren't good, they're great, and the peak bright reading is healthy too. That means that those dramatic areas of shadow in your favorite movies will look detailed and convincing, and that watching in a sunny living room won't be a problem.

If you want to wall-mount this display, however, do so carefully: The viewing angle, as with most LCD panels, is rather narrow, so you don't want to watch from extreme off-angles. The AS530U's colors look mostly natural, too, though reds are just a bit less vibrant than they ought to be and blues are overly vivid at times.

Strong and Medium motion enhancement modes have a very adverse effect on content, making subjects appear overly rendered and unnatural.

Lastly, although general daytime viewing like talk shows and news reports look great, action films and sporting events don't fare quite as well due to less-than-perfect motion performance. The AS530U offers motion enhancement settings, but the Strong and Medium modes have a very adverse effect on content, making subjects appear overly rendered and unnatural (like a soap opera). The Weak setting is certainly the most advisable: It doesn't completely resolve blurring and jagged panning, but it effectively lessens the issues—without making content look downright weird.

Last Look

Cutthroat competition

Panasonic's AS530U series (MSRP $899) has plenty going for it: Great black levels and fairly accurate colors mean movie night will look great on these TVs, yet they're also bright enough to hold up in sun-splashed living rooms. Video-streaming big boys like Netflix and Hulu come preinstalled, and 50 inches of screen for under $1,000 isn't too shabby.

Price tags on similar models undercut this TV.

But price tags on similar models undercut this TV. Vizio's claws came out this year in the form of the 2014 E Series, which offers five more inches of screen for $170 less—and that comes with solid performance and key streaming apps , too. If it's more comprehensive smart features you're after, you may want to eye higher-end Panasonic TVs—their touchpad remotes go a long way.

The plain fact is, if you don't offer the best picture or the best smart platform, you land somewhere in the cloudy middle: The AS530U is a nice mid-tier series, but it just isn't ahead of its adversaries—$799 sale price or not.

Behind the Screens

After warming up the Panasonic TC-50AS530U, we carted it into the lab and put it up against a veritable storm of performance tests. This TV didn't leave with its tail tucked, but it didn't earn any medals either: The AS530 tested with great bread-and-butter performance traits like black level and contrast, but it needed some hand holding in terms of RGB balance and gamma sum.

Calibration

Usually, a television's Cinema or Movie mode is a great place to start because it generally achieves the best out-of-the-box settings for ideal, low-light conditions. Therefore, using Panasonic's Cinema mode, I altered gamma, backlight, as well as the red and blue sub-pixels. Posted below is a record of the programmed Cinema settings next to my final calibration.

Contrast

Contrast, and minimum black levels particularly, are the keystones to good performance—and this Panasonic AS530U handles these aspects very nicely. With an ANSI checkerboard pattern, I discovered a peak white reading of 134.5 cdm2 and a minimum luminance level of 0.027 cdm2 . That puts this TV's contrast ratio at 4982:1—that's a solid result for a mid-tier LCD TV.

With performance like this, users can enjoy this display in both theater-like and bright settings, though the former is preferable.

Viewing Angle

When it comes to liquid crystal displays, viewing angle is usually a negative sticking point. The nature of the panels are just usually such that off-angle viewing results in lowered contrast.

Panasonic's AS530U falls prey to this familiar pitfall, so be sure to sit front and center. I measured a total viewing angle of 44°, or ±22° from the center of either side. I've certainly seen worse on competing LCDs, but this result isn't blowing me away by any stretch–especially since this is a large, 50-inch display.

Color Gamut

Panasonic's AS530U TVs adhere closely to the International Rec. 709 standard, making for accurate, natural colors. Red, blue, green, cyan, magenta, yellow, and white all land fairly close to where they ought to be, though there are a few notable missteps.

For instance, green is slightly the wrong hue, red is a bit undersaturated, and white values err a bit on the yellow/red side. That means that cyan appears a bit too green, and magenta is a bit too pink—but these are mild issues, and ones that some knowledgable calibration can certainly correct.

Grayscale & RGB Balance

In terms of grayscale performance and RGB balance, we discovered some noteworthy blemishes. We talk about these traits together because grayscale deals with black, gray, and white production—and it's the green, red, and blue pixels that create that grayscale.

Panasonic's grayscale controls luckily enabled me to balance out the RGB errors, which leveled the grayscale. What started as a DeltaE (error) of 3.63 was improved to 1.88.

Specifically, the AS530U emphasizes the red sub-pixel above the green and blue ones, but by lowering the intensity of red throughout 60-100 IRE, and bumping blue up in the same vicinity, the overall balance mostly evens out—minimizing error.

Gamma Sum

Gamma describes the speed at which a display exits minimum luminance into middle gray and bright white. There are a few gamma sums considered standard: among them 1.8, 2.2, and 2.4.

In Cinema mode, the AS530U tested with a gamma sum of 2.21, which is very close to the 2.2 standard. A gamma of 2.2 is best for rooms with some ambient lighting, but since we set TVs for dark, theater lighting, we calibrate to the 2.4 standard. After calibration, the AS530U achieved a gamma sum of 2.44—not perfect, but very close to the 2.4 standard nonetheless.

Meet the tester

Virginia Barry

Virginia Barry

Former Managing Editor

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Virginia is a former Managing Editor at Reviewed.com. She has a background in English and journalism. Away from the office, Virginia passes time with dusty books & house cats.

See all of Virginia Barry's reviews

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