Panasonic TX-58DX802B review

In a TV world where it's increasingly hard to stand out from the crowd, the Panasonic 58DX802 is a breath of fresh air. Its dramatic but light design is unlike anything else this year. Panasonic's brave decision to use a large external soundbar delivers exceptional sound quality for an LCD TV. And while its picture configuration might not provide the absolute best picture quality I've seen this year, a well set-up 58DX802 certainly performs better than you could reasonably expect for £1,600.

The 58DX802's price really does look very reasonable for such a feature-rich, good-looking and high-performance TV. It may not deliver quite as much impact with HDR as a handful of its rivals, but those rivals all cost more.

We liked

While the 58DX802's design could be divisive, we like it. It's dramatic without being imposing, or compromising picture or sound performance. In fact, the TV's audio quality is far better than that of the vast majority of other TVs on the market, while its picture quality with HDR and especially SDR sources is impressive for a £1,600 58-inch TV.

We disliked

You need to set the Adaptive Backlight feature to its highest setting to get a satisfying black level response out of the 58DX802, which can lead to occasional backlight instability. There are also signs of backlight blooming and blocking when showing extreme-contrast HDR content, and the general clarity of the pictures is occasionally disrupted by slight motion blur.

Verdict

The arrival of high dynamic range technology has made the TV world's middle ground a particularly tricky space to occupy successfully this year. The Panasonic 58DX802 stakes a strong claim to it, though, thanks to its appealing blend of stand-out design, above-par all-round AV quality, straightforward smarts and aggressive pricing.