The good:

• Rich, vivid colours with an ideal level of saturation
• Deep blacks are produced superbly
• 1024x1024 resolution
• HDMI support

The bottomline:

The Fujitsu P42HHA40WS boasts all the trappings of a top-grade plasma. Pity it?s so expensive.

Performance
Contrary to Fujitsu?s claims, expanded video content isn?t noise free. While the panel does a respectable job of up-sampling low-end video signals, these images still appear grainy when viewed from a shorter distance and we also noticed the occasional artefact.

Conversely, while plasma displays are traditionally poor at producing deep blacks, the Fujitsu video processor has few issues in this regard. We were able to discern slight differences in darker shades even in low-light conditions, in part due to the impressive contrast ratio which Fujitsu rates at 1000:1.

Similarly, colours are vivid and full with a high level of saturation, but thankfully this doesn?t result in the image looking cartoonish. The above observations hold true whether the source is a 480p DVD player, an Xbox with the HDAV upgrade, or a 1080i HDTV signal.