LONDON: Panasonic has great reputation for high quality picture on its TVs, so new curved models have a lot of potential with something of a gimmick. To some extent, Panasonic admits that this is something of a design thing, rather than a performance one. But when customers want curved TVs there aren’t many good reasons for not giving them one. As always, it’s nice to have a choice though, and that’s the way Panasonic is playing this.
The first TVs to see this new curvaceous look are the CR850 series. There will be 65 and 55-inch models first and smaller ones later on. These are 4K TVs too, so you’re getting the very best possible resolution, along with that banana-shaped screen. Panasonic has also announced that it’s going to be bringing Free view Play to TVs first.
If you haven’t heard of it, free view Play is about offering free view users an experience that’s a bit more like You View. Crucially it offers a standardized user interface along with catch-up TV services from the major broadcasters. Most important though, the EPG has the same ability to scroll backwards through the EPG to find catch-up shows as You View does.
No pricing or availability yet, but usually new TVs start to appear quite quickly in the second quarter of the year, once the CES dust has settled.
