Panasonic TC-L50E60 50-Inch 1080p 120Hz Deal

Howard S. "Luvthegadgets" (New York, NY USA): This is a beautiful TV with a fantastic picture at a great price if you are planning on using it on the supplied pedestal with it's internal speakers. Otherwise, it has some silly, fatal flaws. Apparently. Panasonic's engineering department is not really using it's head! Most flat panel manufacturers are aware that these TV's are very frequently wall-mounted and also used with a soundbar in order to overcome the inherent problem of poor sound due to having to use small, flat, usually down-firing internal speakers. So, they provide side facing HDMI ports and a menu setting to disable the internal speakers.

OB1 "OB1" (OH): This set has 3 rear-facing HDMI ports. The only side-facing ports are USB. This means that you will have to find a 90 degree HDMI adapter (very hard to find) if you plan on mounting this set to a wall. Why would you put the rarely-used USB ports on the side? Also, although the A/C power cord going into the set is cleverly going into an indented area on the back of the set making it completely low-profile, the plug that goes into the wall is like 2.5 inches of unbendable-ness creating a problem if you have had a power outlet installed behind where you plan on wall mounting it.

Jeff Cz (Muskego,WI,USA): With most soundbars, if you don't disable the internal TV speakers, you will have an echo caused by a time delay between the internal speakers and the soundbar. Every other manufacturer has a setting on the menu's to disable the internal speakers or just use a fixed volume setting. I called Panasonic tech support (I did get to a support person pretty quickly) and they confirmed that their 2013 TV's do not have this setting. Nor do they seem to get or care that it's a problem when using an an external soundbar. They claim that if you use the Optical Out and have it plugged into an external sound device, it will automatically disable the internal speakers but it ain't so. They suggested muting the TV, but then of course, it will say 'MUTE' on the screen while you are watching your beautiful LED TV picture; not a very elegant solution and a ridiculous suggestion!