Panasonic TX-L47E5B review

The L47E5B coped well with both standard- and high-definition TV broadcasts. Even when stretched across the 47in full HD panel, there was minimal digital noise and motion was reasonably smooth. It’s easy enough to spot noise artefacts from up close, but from a more normal viewing distance Freeview HD in particular looked very sharp, with plenty of smaller details preserved.

Unsurprisingly for this price you don’t get 3D support, but Blu-ray discs still looked incredibly defined, with sharp lines and incidental details preserved. Colours were overly vibrant at the default settings, but we got much better results using the True Cinema pre-set. You can further tweak brightness, contrast, colour and sharpness values individually, although there are fewer advanced options than on Panasonic’s more expensive TVs. Noise reduction and Clear Cinema up-scaling are pretty much all you get. Black levels were reasonable for an edge-lit set, although we had to turn off the lights to get the most vibrant colours and there was still a bit of backlight bleed.

One area that failed to impress was audio. The two 10W speakers were merely average, producing reasonable volume and a clear mid-range, but the high end became slightly sharp at higher volumes and there was a constant lack of bass regardless of the settings we chose. It works best for the news, but not much else – if you’re into films you’ll definitely see the benefits of an external speaker system.

Considering it’s one of Panasonic’s less expensive TVs, the L47E5B has plenty of features and is very competitively priced for a 47in panel. However, it can’t compete with more expensive plasma sets in terms of picture quality, and its range of calibration settings are limited, which can make it difficult to tweak the picture to suit your personal tastes. There’s also no 3D support, but if you like the idea of near-perfect viewing angles but can’t afford a plasma set, this is a good choice.