Panasonic TH-50PZ800 Plasma TV:
User Interface User Interface
Like most TVs, this one’s remote is a universal type that can control up to three devices other than the TV. The buttons are big and well-organized, which is great, since the remote is not illuminated other than the device-selection buttons.

As usual, there are no dedicated input buttons—you call up a menu of inputs by pressing the TV/Video button, a label that is a throwback to the days of VCRs and TVs tuned to channel 3 or 4. Please, Panasonic, at least give this button an intuitive label like Input or Source!

The menu system opens to a list of main items (Picture, Audio, etc.) along the left side of the screen. However, the selected menu can't be seen until you press Enter, which is an unnecessary step—there's plenty of screen real estate to display the selected menu next to the main list. Thus, the main picture controls are two levels deep, and the advanced controls are one level farther down the rabbit hole.

When you select a parameter and hit Enter, nothing happens—you must press the right or left cursor buttons to change a parameter value. The selected picture control drops to the bottom of the screen and the rest of the menu disappears as it should, but it pops back after only one second of inactivity, preventing you from carefully considering your settings. Very frustrating!