Panasonic TH-50PF9UK 50″ 1080p

Not content to swim with the masses in the lower tier market, Panasonic Pro series of plasmas is clearly aimed at the videophile. This 1080p native panel comes with configurable input slots that allows for different configurations. However, stock wise it only comes with one digital HD input which is a bit lacking for a 6000 dollar price tag. On the bonus side, it does come with a VGA input that allows for 1080p which will be nice for HTPCs without a HDCP compliant HDMI port.

From the article:

Interchangeable blades are a feature of this line of Panasonic industrial plasmas. With the 720p sets, they came standard with a component and some combination of s-video and composite inputs. If you wanted HDMI, you had to pay extra. With the TH-50PF9UK, you get a component and a DVI-D input. Now, since this display is really just a monitor – no pesky tuners or anything – trading in an s-video input for DVI-D is HUGE. For a HD display, s-video and composite are all but useless. Having two HD capable inputs will probably save many users from having to purchase a separate blade. With an HDMI to DVI cable, most any source can be used with the display – you just don’t get integrated audio.

Those of you using a computer (or HTPC) will be glad to know that you have access to a PC Input (15pinHD) that is 1080p capable. On top of this, there is an empty slot ripe to be filled with any blade you need (at an additional charge of course). While I personally would have preferred an HDMI input over the DVI-D, the display has no speakers and DVI-D has no appreciable picture quality difference from HDMI.