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Win a chance to ride along with Engadget for a private briefing on Panasonic's 2012 home entertainment lineup!
As you probably know, we're in a lot of exclusive, behind-closed-doors briefings of products that won't find their way to retail availability for months to come. We do our best in every post to give you the full experience and virtually bring you along with us, but for the first time we're doing something different. Next week, Panasonic will be giving the media an up-close look at some of its biggest home entertainment products shipping later this year, including the 55-inch WT50 IPS LCD and the VT50 plasma (successor to last year's HDTV of the Year). This time, we've been given permission to take a lucky few of you along for the ride.The event takes place next Tuesday, March 27th in New York City at 7:00pm. To get a chance to attend, you need to email nycevents [at] engadget.com with your full name. If you make it, we'll respond back with details on the event, but it'll be up to you to find your way to Manhattan.Winners will not only get to check out Panasonic's 2012 line of cameras, HDTVs, Blu-ray players and other home entertainment products but a few particularly lucky attendees will get to take some of them home. Yes, there will be giveaways, and they'll be good ones.Here are the deets: The event is open to those 18 and older. The event begins at 7:00pm and will run for approximately two hours. This is not first-come-first-serve, so there will be no need to line up. Please bring a photo ID and your confirmation with you for admission.Send those emails in soon, and we hope to see you next week!Update: We've received more than enough entries, so we're halting acceptance of new ones for now. We'll let you know if we need to re-open the flood gates!
2012 HDTV pricing leaks out for Panasonic, Sony, Sharp and Samsung
The madness of CES 2012 is long over and now that we've seen all of the new HDTVs, it's time to find out when they're actually going on sale, and for how much. HDGuru has just dug up advertised pricing for some of the new models from Sony (BX, EX and HX lines) and Sharp (640, 745, 844, 847 and 945), while US pricing and ship dates for Panasonic's new plasmas have been revealed by Value Electronics. For Samsung, some of the new HDTVs have already showed up for preorders at retailers like Vanns, including the top of the line 75-inch ES8000 priced at $7,999, while a more reasonably sized 46-inch model is $2,699. Sony's prices range from $399 for the KDL-32BX320 to $2299 for the KDL-55HX750, while Sharp's range from LC-46-L540U for $1,099 to the LC-80LE844U for $6,499. Most of the ship dates are still TBA, although Panasonic is planning to unleash the ST50 later this month, followed by the UT50 and GT50, then the top of the line VT50 in May. While we wait for official announcements, you can hit the source links below for more details, and let us know if you've seen any other 2012 model information peeking out early.
Panasonic unveils Infinite Black Ultra Panel plasmas for 2012 (eyes-on)
The leader in plasmas TVs keeps stepping up its game with 16 new 3D models for 2012 and one lonely 2D set. At the top of the line is the VT50 series -- 4 is unlucky in Japan -- featuring the new Infinite Black Ultra Panel with blacker blacks than the 2011 VT35 and 24,576 steps of gradation, which should provide more detail in dark scenes. It's too early to tell if this will officially dethrone the king of blacks, but we were able to appreciate the improved performance in a side by side demo. The picture quality isn't the only thing new, 2012 brings DLNA, a new more anti-reflective screen and a web browser that uses a smartphone app to avoid entering data with an onscreen keyboard. There are also new 3D glasses for 2012 that are much ligher and work via Bluetooth -- and of course not compatible with last year's. We wish there were more details (like price and availability) in the press release after the break, but we'd guess this Summer for less than you paid for your 2011 HDTV.
