Panasonic TX-40EXW734 TV test: Small but remote

Test results

With a final score of 96.4, the Pana­son­ic TX-40EXW734 is one of the best TVs we’ve test­ed. At the same time, the 40-inch UHD device even set new records in the “Equip­ment” and “Ener­gy Con­sump­tion” scor­ing dis­ci­plines. In the Image Qual­i­ty test cat­e­go­ry, it came close to 100 points. Thus, in the bot­tom line, we have a con­vinc­ing val­ue for mon­ey, as well as a clear rea­son to rec­om­mend for any­one who is look­ing for a small-sized 4K TV.

Panasonic TX-40EXW734 test results

UHD at its finest

With its 40-inch image diag­o­nal, the Pana­son­ic TX-40EXW734 is espe­cial­ly suit­able for small spaces. Here it is very impor­tant to choose a good posi­tion in front of the TV, as the sta­bil­i­ty of the view­ing angles of the TN pan­el leaves much to be desired.

Viewed from the right angle, the image qual­i­ty is con­vinc­ing in every way. At the same time, it does not mat­ter where the TV receives the sig­nal from — from the inte­grat­ed tuner or devices con­nect­ed to it — the pic­ture will always be extreme­ly clear. Thanks to the max­i­mum con­trast ratio of 10093:1, the image “inter­rupts” even many IPS pan­els. The checker­board con­trast ratio of 202:1 is also well above aver­age.

Mate­r­i­al below 4K res­o­lu­tion (3840x2160 pix­els) will be clean­ly upscaled, and HDR sup­port deliv­ers impres­sive visu­als. The max­i­mum bright­ness we mea­sured at 390 cd/m2 also cre­ates a pos­i­tive impres­sion. The plea­sure of home cin­e­ma is over­shad­owed only by the sound. While both inte­grat­ed 10W speak­ers pro­duce decent sound, com­pared to oth­er TVs in this price range, it comes across as a bit emp­ty.

TV throughout the house

There is hard­ly any rea­son to crit­i­cize any­thing regard­ing equip­ment. Pana­son­ic TX-40EXW734 offers 3 HDMI inter­faces, 3 USB ports (2x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.0), as well as an opti­cal audio out­put. You can receive TV pro­grams via the Triple-Twin tuner, which of course also han­dles DVB-T2.

A fea­ture of the device is the new Pana­son­ic TV>IP tech­nol­o­gy. With it, you can broad­cast the cur­rent TV pro­gram for play­back over your home net­work to oth­er devices: tablets and smart­phones. That is, you can watch TV from any cor­ner of your home. Along with this, the Smart-TV sys­tem cov­ers all the most pop­u­lar appli­ca­tions for video-on-demand ser­vices: Ama­zon Video and Net­flix, YouTube, as well as sev­er­al games. Although the offer here is not as large as in the case of Android-TV, the choice of appli­ca­tions still deserves atten­tion.

We were par­tic­u­lar­ly sur­prised by the lev­el of ener­gy con­sump­tion. In nor­mal oper­a­tion, we aimed for a very low 55W for a UHD TV; in stand­by mode, the meter showed 0.2 watts. Through the ECO mode, you can low­er the ener­gy con­sump­tion lev­el even low­er. The Pana­son­ic TX-40EXW734 belongs to the “A” ener­gy effi­cien­cy class devices.

The price of the Pana­son­ic TX-40EXW734 is about 50,000 rubles.

Alternative: Sony KD-43XE8005

Thanks to its IPS pan­el, the Sony KD-43XE8005 will deliv­er even bet­ter pic­ture qual­i­ty than the Pana­son­ic. In addi­tion, this UHD TV has con­vinc­ing fea­tures such as rich equip­ment and good ergonom­ics. On the oth­er hand, com­pared to Pana­son­ic, the sound qual­i­ty and pow­er con­sump­tion are worse. Nev­er­the­less, the price of our rat­ing leader (55,000 rubles) is more than jus­ti­fied.

Samsung UE40MU6409

Priced at around Rs 40,000, the Sam­sung UE40MU6409 is one of the most bud­get-friend­ly UHD TVs we’ve test­ed. How­ev­er, this 40-inch device does not have to be embar­rassed by its more expen­sive com­peti­tors. Its pic­ture and sound qual­i­ty is above aver­age for the rat­ing, and the equip­ment, includ­ing Tizen OS and DivX sup­port, is also great. In the “Ergonom­ics” test dis­ci­pline, an inex­pen­sive TV even set a new record.

Specifications and test results Panasonic TX-40EXW734

Panasonic TX-40EXW734 test results

Pho­to: man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­ny