|
Service center now out of business and Panasonic wants me to ship it to Kansas. My bulb blew at 312 hours. Came home and it still does the same thing. Will not go with Panasonic again. Took it in person to nearest Panasonic authorized service center (75 miles away) and they told me it was just dusty and charged $120 for the evaluation and cleaning. Now I am looking for a good replacement as fixing this one will likely run hundreds. Judging from all the online info this is a lemon and Panasonic knows it.
The bulb life is a joke and the power supply is faulty. I agree with the review that this is a defective product. Then had same problem with cycle-on and cycle-off. Wasn't under warranty and cost me another $400+ to replace. Panasonic service online and on-phone are terrible. My current bulb is at 295 hours so even after it is fixed I am afraid it will blow soon and another $400+ will be needed.
My bulb, after only putting 470 hours onto it, exploded last night. I think I may go back to sharp, who made my original projector which I loved. I'm finding case after case of this happening to people with this projector. beware of this. I can only hope panasonic will do the right thing and replace my bulb at no cost. I'm sad to say that I probably won't buy another panasonic projector (and, from the looks of things, I'm going to be back in the marker REAL soon). I have been a proud owner of this projector for a short while over a year.
However, there is a manufacturer's defect in the bulb. I love the picture this projector creates. Bright, smooth images and the HD is awesome. you'll be very sad when your bulb prematurely goes "POP".
So much for extending the lamp life to 3000 hours by using it in "low" mode. I hate to think how short the life would have been if I'd have used it in "high." Unfortunately, I used my worthless Discover card to purchase this projector so I had no buyer assurance or extended warranty like I do with Visa. The power supply went bad, which made the projector nothing but a $2000 paperweight. Never again. Way to learn the hard way. I'll never buy or recommend Panasonic again after this experience. Goodbye Discover Card.
$400.00 to fix it. Panasonic was no help either when I called. They just tried to push me off on their in-bed repair facility in Kansas. I was happy with this projector for a year, then within two months of the one-year warranty expiring it went quickly downhill. Right after that, my lamp went kaput after exactly 800 hours. It's a very common problem with this model, judging from all the complaints on home-theater forums. It would power on and almost immediatly shut itself off, then try to restart over and over until the main power switch on the back of the unit got turned off.
Beware.
The picture is fantastic. But in zoom mode, I can cover my 14x8 foot wall. Their Customer Service and Sales teams are excellent and knowledgeable. You can talk to a human being and ask questions and get real honest answers. The first movie my family watched was Star Wars episode I. Now imagine the Superbowl that large and in HDTV.
I recommend this projector to anyone. Ask for Ross. No hard sell. For $1499, it is a steal.
The one thing it could use is an auto focus or a focus from the remote. The Zoom is also manual. I have owned this projector since May, 2005. They are not only cheaper than Amazon, but they absolutely back the product if you have a problem.
Although a 1000 lumens,the picture shows up excellent in the dark, and good in low light. But buy it from "Projector People" instead. This projector can do that.
Remote is back-lit. There is no "screen door" effect at all, and the black levels are very impressive.I have the unit mounted to the ceiling (purchased RPA mount for $190) and project onto a 120" gray screen.One feature that helped clenched the deal for me is the 2x zoom lens - I have the projector situated less than 14 feet from a 10-foot diagonal screen.I had a little trouble with the mount I purchased, but the projector itself is incredibly easy to setup and operate. Menus allow plenty of tweaking.
The joystick next to the lens lets you to control the horizontal and vertical shift without tilting or moving the whole unit. You can store user-defined settings or use factory presets (like cinema, natural, dynamic, etc).I have the projector in a dedicated home theater room with no windows and keep the lights turned off while it's running. This was my first projector.
It has none of the flaws usually associated with LCD projectors. I researched a lot of different models and finally decided on this one because on paper it looked to give the most bang for the buck (my price range was $2000-$3000). I also wanted native 16:9.After owning it for over a month, I'm quite happy with it.
If I had to deal with ambient light though, I probably would have chosen a brighter projector since this one is only 1000 lumens.I mostly watch DVDs on this, but also use it to watch cable and play video games - playing Halo 2 on this is an awesome experience.
|
