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Jan 22, 2006 hjytcppeswqlkrtfoge     an excellent TV and I am sure this will be my last preference....

Dec 23, 2005 Nelson     Had a hard time choosing between this and a 42" Panasonic... but the Hitachi se...

Dec 8, 2005 txalan     I thought this looked good in the showroom, but, it looked even better at home. ...

Sep 14, 2005 Rick     I spent about 2 months researching 42" plasma tv's and was pretty dead set on ge...

My Experience: I spent about 2 months researching 42" plasma tv's and was pretty dead set on getting the 42" Panasonic HD (50U) model. Everything i read said that it had the best picture available in the price range i was looking for (around $3,000). Pretty much every retail sales associate i talked to said the same thing. Then i happened to stumble across the Hitachi. I was intrigued by the feature set and higher resolution but was miffed by the fact that outside of the customer reviews (which all gave the tv high marks)i couldnt find any professional reviews / opinions. As a matter of fact, it was hard to even find a store that carried it. Well, the day before I was set to buy, I went to check it out in person. The picture quality was outstanding and from what i could see was on par if not better than the panasonic. The feature set was head and shoulders above, and the higher native resolution meant that it would be better able to display HD movies via the new HD DVD players set to be released next year (hopefully). All this for only $300 more. Too good to be true, right? Well, i took the leap and bought the tv last weekend and have been nothing but impressed ( and thats an understatement). I have a friend that has a 50" Pioneer that he paid about 6k for and when he saw it he thought the hitachi had at least as good a picture, if not better. The display is amazing in HD and DVD and much better than i could have expected in SD. The motor driven swivel stand is icing on the cake. This TV is outstanding!! If you've been thinking about getting the Panasonic, give the Hitachi a looksee, you wont be disappointed.

Problems: There arent enough hours in the day to watch the thing...