The Panasonic TX-L65WT600

The Panasonic TX-L65WT600, at £5,499 (about US$8,859 and AU$9,346) is the shape of 4K Ultra HD TVs to come.

In truth, it's actually shaped much like any other well-heeled 65-inch 8 million pixel screen, the real difference being the inclusion of an HDMI 2.0 input and Display Port 1.2 connectivity.

Effectively, what we have here is the first genuinely future-proofed Next Gen TV.

And with 4K TV standards still a broiling soup, that's a trump card that can't be ignored.

Features wise, the TX-L65WT600 mirrors what you'll find on Panasonic's high-end LED LCD and plasma offerings.

The user experience is built around the brand's My Home Screen portal, which peppers the launch screen with preferred apps. There's a fair range of connected services to choose from, from YouTube to subscription VOD.

The Panasonic TX-L65WT600 is also undeniably gorgeous. It embraces the glass and metal aesthetic seen on the brand's DT and ZT screens, and features a pop-up webcam and artful pedestal. The panel itself is reassuringly hefty, although it's a bugger to lift as the bottom of the screen has a transparent lip that cuts into your hand like a plastic machete.

Connections comprise four HDMIs (one of which is flagged 4K compatible), three USBs, inputs for Scart and component/composite video (adaptors provided), Ethernet and DisplayPort 1.2.

The Panasonic TX-L65WT600 ticks all the connection boxes

The latter is the first time we've seen this on a consumer TV, and can be used to deliver audio plus 4096 x 2160 at 50/60Hz. There's also an SD card reader, optical digital output for use with a soundbar and suchlike and (redundant) CI card slot. Wi-Fi is integrated.

As with the rest of Panasonic's business-class fleet, there are two Freeview HD tuners and two Freesat HD tuners. With a USB hard drive connected, you can cache live TV. The panel is Active Shutter 3D ready; two pairs of RF shuttering glasses are included in the box.

The HDMI 2.0 input is clearly labelled

The WT600 mirrors the feature bouquet of Panasonic's Full HD crowd. There's the same Dragon powered speech tutorial and user interface, and My Home Screen is beguiling in its simplicity. The set comes with a secondary Bluetooth touchpad with integrated microphone.

Panasonic's Internet connected TVs aren't strong when it comes to catch-up though, offering just BBC iPlayer.

However, there are other diversions available, including Netflix, YouTube, iConcerts, Skype, DailyMotion and EuroSport. The VIERA Connect Market offers more, including Crunchyroll, Woomi, Vimeo and Viewster, but you'll need to create a VIERA Connect account before you can download them. There's also Facebook and Twitter for socially addicted telly addicts.

As a media player, the TV is excellent when it comes to USB. The stick reader can play most popular codecs and containers. Across a network, though, the set ignores MKVs.

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Sony KDL-42W653A

Features:

• Impressive picture quality
• Some good online services
• Great value
• Strong video processing
• Smart interface lacks sophistication
• Limited catch-up TV services
• Only two HDMIs
• Sound quality is average

The first thing you need to do with the 42W653A is put aside all the prattle and hyperbole swilling around the AV world right now about 4K/Ultra HD, OLED, curved screens and other high-end fancy stuff. For this TV is ultimately about one thing, and one thing only: price. At £550 for a 42-inch TV, the best we can hope for is that it delivers a good slice of Sony's newfound TV picture quality without breaking the bank.

In delivering on this value promise, though, Sony clearly has to make compromises somewhere. Sorting through the impact of these will be at the heart of our assessment of the 42W653A – and right away we can see a few issues of potential concern.

Its design and build quality are both clearly inferior to Sony's more expensive sets. There's no 3D support and no sign of the local dimming lighting engine that worked so superbly on Sony's W9 and X9 series. There's no Sony TriLuminos colour technology, and the set only delivers a 200Hz-like effect compared with the 800Hz engines employed higher up Sony's range.

It might not rock 3D, but do you really care?

It's not all doom and gloom, though, for the 42W653A does still retain Sony's latest Smart TV engine, as well as Sony's impressive X-Reality Pro video processing system.

It doesn't help raise our hopes for the 42W653A's performance, however, that the 47W805 range one level up from the W653A series turned out to be a disappointment, with some fairly significant backlighting problems. It's only when stepping far higher up the price ladder to the W905A series that Sony's range gets seriously tasty.

The other models currently available in the W6 series are the 32-inch 32W653A and the 50-inch 50W656A.

We'll look at potential worthwhile rivals later on, but briefly models that spring to mind are the Toshiba 40L6353 and Samsung UE40F6400.

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Sony Introduces Curved-Screen LED-Based LCD HDTV

Sony has announced that its first curved-screen LED-based LCD television, the 65-inch KDL-65S990A, will be available in October at Sony Stores and select electronics retailers nationwide at the price of $4,000. Read the story here.