Latest and greatest from Panasonic

Last Tuesday I was invited to the Panasonic Roadshow at the Langham Hotel in Auckland.  I was part of a small group of seven people, from the main media outlets, able to preview all the new technology coming out from Panasonic.  That evening (they had already held one the previous evening), 400 retailers would be shown what we were seeing - the benefit for us is we could take our time looking at everything, while not being told how to sell it to our customers.

The tour lasted for about 45 minutes and a lot info was covered.  We got to see Panasonic's 3D offering (which I have already seen and raved about), their new plasma and LCD LED TVs, a LCD screen running 3D graphics natively from a Nvidia graphics card (must have for gamers, and I must convince my better half that I need one), cameras and camcorders, plus offerings in HiFi, DVD and Blu-ray players. 

There was so much covered, so there is only a brief summary below.  If you're keen to get more info, this post really doesn't do any of the Panasonic products any justice - drop into your local tech retailer and try them for yourselves.

• Plasmas/LCDs
• Improved the front glass panel to minimise light entering in - this means scenes of pitch black are much sharper
• Impressive 178 degree viewing angle (you reading this Samsung?!)
• Has the ability to convert 2D movies into 3D (we watched Sherlock Holmes, not as impressive as a "native" 3D movie, but very cool technology) - the Blu-ray player can also do this
• Better sound (personally I would stick to having a stereo system and not relying solely on the screen)
• DLNA / Wi-Fi enabled
• Ability to record TV to a SD memory card or a external USB hard-drive (plus pause live TV)
• Digital cameras
• Water proof up to 12m (with a dive case this can be extended up to 40m)
• Only compact camera with GPS, a compass, an altimeter and a barometer
• Has optical image stabiliser where other brand only have digital stabilisers.

Thanks Panasonic for the invite.