Panasonic TX-L32E5B review

Although the TX-L37E5B is relatively light on picture tech, it does have a few notable features to boost clarity and colour.

Clear Cinema – an anti-blur feature – makes up its 'advanced' settings almost alone, though in truth the panel is natively very stable and free from ghosting and after-images. That's best left switched on, though Smart VIERA Engine Pro's other flag-waver, Vivid Colour Creation, is a matter of personal taste. When activated it does bring some more vitality to blocks of colour, but can overcook things.

Talking of which, the TX-L37E5B does include some useful presets comprising Dynamic (best avoided), Normal, Cinema, True Cinema and Game, though they need to be used with care.

Unusually, Cinema and True Cinema actually increase the brightness, the latter bringing a yellow tinge; we stuck with the Cinema mode, though couldn't resist upping the contrast a tad.

Elsewhere on picture tech, we disabled C.A.T.S. as it caused the picture to visibly change in brightness rather too obviously for our tastes.

Freeview HD fare – in this case The Great Barrier Reef on BBC One HD – are immensely colourful, boosted by lots of strong black elements and bags of detail.

Though the latter tails off noticeably on a standard definition broadcast of The Voice, the image remains clear and clean.

It's with our Blu-ray disc of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that the TX-L37E5B does its best work, with not a whiff of judder, and an impressive amount of contrast on show that doesn't drain too much when watched from a narrow viewing angle.

It's not unaffected, of course, but it doesn't hamstring this TV in the way it does many LCDs. Black levels are impressive, too, with a rare inkiness to dark areas, though there's a lack of detail within those sectors.

However, though black levels are more profound than we'd normally expect to see at this price, what we did notice in dark scenes were LED light leakage problems both along the top and in the bottom right-hand corner.

When watched from viewing positions slightly above or below the screen, the lower leakage problem appears to stretch a patch of brightness towards the centre and sides of the panel.

In practice this physical issue is only visible during dingy sequences.

Ultimate mixed brightness scenes excel, too; at one point in Crouching Tiger a bright lantern is shown amid a jet-black night. The contrast and accuracy are impressive indeed.

An MKV HD trailer of Shutter Island excels, with a rare stability, crispness and a smooth, clean finish, though a drop down the food chain to Land of the Lost Wolves on the BBC iPlayer brings some dirt and low bitrate chunks, but not enough to ruin anything.

Upscale a DVD and the effect is polished and free from noise – this is one versatile panel.