February 2013 - Snellings Gerald Giles

We’re just back from the Panasonic Exhibition in Nice and although many thought that plasma TVs were a bit old school, usurped by those LED TV upstarts, Panasonic have put plasma firmly back in the game with their new flagship plasma TV – the ZT60.

We got the chance to take a really close look at the ZT60 (which has a model number of TXP60ZT60B) and we have to admit that this is a stunning bit of kit.

Unfortunately to understand what makes this plasma unique means yet another new three letter acronym (TLA) to learn. The Panasonic ZT60 has an AGL screen. AGL standing for Air Gap Less.

In all other plasma TVs there is an air gap between the glass screen and plasma. A lot like double glazing. If you hold a lit match up to your double glazing – you’ll see two reflections of it. One for each sheet of glass. The same is true normally of plasma TVs. Whilst that is good for keeping home warm – the reflection is not great for picture quality.

So what Panasonic have done on the ZT60 is to remove that gap making it AGL. Air Gap Less. Reduced reflection means better picture quality especially on blacks. And the picture quality is indeed amazing.

The down side of this AGL technology is that they are difficult to make, meaning when the ZT60 comes out in May (we think) it will be pretty expensive and available in just the one size – 60 inches.

Additionally, worldwide – there won’t be many made. Only around 20,000 – so you’ll have to move fast to get one.

Because they are limited edition, flagship models each one comes with a uniquely numbered booklet, signed (in person) by the engineer. Which is a lovely touch.

Outside of the stunning picture quality the Panasonic Smart Viera ZT60 is a 3D TV with full web browser, built in Wi-Fi and gorgeous styling. The stand itself is brilliant.

It also features Panasonic’s My Home Screen technology which means you can personalise your home screen with apps and widgets a bit like you used to with Windows Vista. Only much better.

It has a built in pop up camera that uses face recognition to load different home pages depending on whose is sat in front of it. Smart. This camera is also used for Skype.

The ZT60 also comes with Panasonic’s Miracast which means you can flick content from your phone or tablet onto the screen and the content is re-rendered for the big screen. So you can play Angry Birds on a 60 inch screen with the same picture quality as you’d get on your tablet.

Panasonic also include a touchpad remote with voice recognition so that you can tell the ZT60 what to do and the new Panasonic Electronic Smart Pen which is a drawing stylus for the screen turning it into a scribble pad or drawing board.

You can be your own Gary Neville or Andy Gray by freezing the picture on the TV and drawing all over it.

We’d like to say “well done” to Panasonic for breathing new life into plasma technology. The TXP60ZT60B is right up there with the best in terms of picture quality and the extras included like voice recognition, Miracast, My Home Screen and the Smart Pen are not just gimmicks – they really add to the experience of owning this flag ship flatscreen from Panasonic. We can’t wait to have them in store in May.

For over a hundred years now the Giles family have built a bit of reputation of being able to predict the next big thing in terms of electrical appliances.

Gerald Giles set up the business in Norwich in 1948 thinking that fluorescent lighting would bring light to thousands of homes and businesses in the gloomy post war years. He wasn’t wrong.

Then in the 50s with the arrival of a decent TV signal from Tacolneston, Gerald set up a TV rental, service and repair centre. As the number of people renting TVs in Norwich grew, so did the business. This continued until a few years later when we branched out into kitchen appliances and specifically the dishwasher, which Gerald predicted would become a household essential. He wasn’t wrong there either.

So we have a bit of a record of predicting the next “big thing”. But today that’s becoming harder and harder. Simply because of the sheer number of technical advances we experience virtually every day.

This January CES2013 was held in Las Vegas with all the major manufacturers present to show case their latest innovations and prototypes.

So what was the stand out technology at CES2013 that we think could become big. Or at least have a big influence.

Samsung are one of the smartest manufacturers around. Even Apple are starting to feel a little threatened by them. So they are good company to have a look at.

At CES2013 Samsung unveiled a phone that instead of using a glass screen uses a screen made of incredibly thin plastic. So what? Here’s what. It means that the phone is BENDABLE. You can literally fold it in half. And being bendy means it’s virtually unbreakable. This is only a prototype at the moment but could have a massive impact on phones, tablets, laptops and TV’s. Imagine sitting on the train and taking your tablet out of you back pocket and unfolding it onto the table like a newspaper!

The other bit of stand out tech that will definitely “happen” soon (by soon we’re talking late 2013) is again screen related. Both LG and Samsung unveiled TVs with CURVED iMAX style screens!

The Samsung TV was a 55 inch OLED ultra HD model. OLED is “organic” LED. See our earlier blog about the differences between LED, LCD and Plasma.

Samsung say that the curved TV screen improves contrast and colours. They also say that the curved screen means that you get a wider viewing angle. So you don’t have to sit slap bang in front of it to get a great picture.

Finally from Samsung – a fridge. But not just any old fridge. This is their huge T9000 model which has four doors and different cooling zones to keep food fresher longer.

But the really amazing thing about this fridge is that it is “smart”. Smart in that it includes a 10” LCD screen built in and packed with apps to help you stay organised in the kitchen and waste less food. We all waste a lot of food so this is really clever stuff.

The fridge can suggest recipes based on what’s inside it and tell you when you need to eat something before it goes off. The LCD also features the Evernote app which means you can create a shopping list on it, transfer it over to your phone and take it with you to the supermarket.

While you’re at the supermarket, if your partner wants to add or change something on the list they can do it at home and you’ll be notified while you’re pushing the trolley round Tesco’s. Not totally sure how well that would go down with the shopper. It might be a incredibly smart way of annoying them while they are trying to get the chores down.

So that’s three innovations that Samsung showed us at CES2013 as they continue to develop their reputation as one of the most forward thinking companies in the World.

Now you’re asking “what about CES2014”. Well you’ll just have to keep following our blogs.

Steam ovens are becoming more and more popular, once the reserve of the restaurant or just used commercially – here at Gerald Giles we are seeing more and more people buying them for their home. We stock Miele’s freestanding steam oven, their built in steam oven and their combi steam/conventional oven. We also have a Bosch built in version and a Neff combi.

Miele, Bosch and Neff are all great brands, all of their appliances including their steam ovens are brilliant.

But what is so different about a steam oven? Well the obvious thing is that while your conventional oven will use hot air to cook food, a steam oven has a water reservoir that when boiled fills the cooking chamber with a cloud of steam. It’s the steam that cooks the food.

Firstly – they are healthier. More of the nutrients are retained when steam cooking meaning you get more goodness from the food. That’s particularly true when steaming vegetables.

Next, the food also retains more of its flavour and texture. And it’s nice and moist because of the steam.

Like a micro wave you can’t brown a chicken in a steam oven but you can pop the bird into a conventional oven after its cooked to do that. Or get a combi like the Neff one.

At a recent Miele steam oven demo, the chef cooked a salmon main and poached pear desert – at the same time, in the same oven! She did this to prove that the fish taste and smell didn’t taint the lovely pear pudding. It didn’t.

She also cooked the cake pictured at the start of this post. So you can basically bake cakes in a steam oven. Which we thought was pretty amazing.

A few other advantages – cleaning is easy, they cooking times are shorter and compared to a conventional oven, steam ovens are very energy efficient.

We think that the free standing version is a great addition to any kitchen and if you’re planning a new kitchen then you should think about including a steam oven in your plans.

You’ll end up using it more than you think and certainly more than the George Foreman grill or the sandwich toaster that are tucked away in a cupboard, unused and feeling sorry for themselves.

This is a very frequently asked question here at Gerald Giles. So we’re going to attempt to answer it in a clear jargon free way – none too easy in an industry littered with acronyms, abbreviations and just general geek speak.

Here goes. First up – LED, LCD and Plasma TVs are all what is known as HDTVs – or High Definition TVs. This simply means that the picture quality is supposed to be good.

These are some of things you’ll need to be considering when you’re thinking about buying a TV –

This is basically about how the screen is lit up. With plasma TVs the phosphors light up themselves. So they don’t need a separate light source.

LED and LCD TVs do not light up themselves so they need a separate light source to produce the image.

This is a bit complicated so read carefully. Both LED and LCD TVs have LCD screens. The difference is in how they are lit. LCD TVs use cold cathode florescent lights (CCFL) like the florescent tubes you have on the office ceiling. Whereas your LED TV use light emitting diodes (LED) to illuminate the screen.

So the difference between LED and LCD TVs is not the screen but how they are lit. One (the LCD) uses CCFLs and the other, uses LED.

To judge the quality of the picture we normally look for really black blacks and white whites which gives the widest gamut of colours.

And the LED wins on this score. The plasma generally outperforms the LCD but as you’d expect LED is the most expensive and LCD the cheapest.#

Because these flatscreen TVs are getting so thin, there is simply no room for decent speakers – so oddly whilst picture quality has been improving, sound quality has taken a Bose Digital TV sound system

bit of a dip. Generally the slimmer the TV – the poorer the sound. LEDs tend to be uber slim – so the sound is not the best. If slim is important then you should think about the Bose SOLO digital TV sound system which is an immense bit of kit you simply stand the TV on the top of, plug it into the back and the sound is amazing. If the Bose doesn’t take your fancy, check out our soundbar range, where you will be able to find a variety of soundbar options for any TV.

This is easy. According to our friends at Which? a 42″ LED is going to use (on average) 64 watts costing (on average) £17 a year. The LCD will use 107 watts and cost you £28 a year and the plasma is going to munch through 195 watts and cost £49 a year.

So in summary the LED is the most expensive type of HDTV but it is also the best. Coupled with a Bose SOLO – you’ll have a brilliant cinematic experience.

This week we had the chance get our hands on the new Sony W9 TV at the UK Sony Centre headquarters. And we’ve got the photos to prove it. Firstly, there remains a little confusion over whether this will be called the Sony W9 or W90 – we’ll have to wait and see. No then, this is a really impressive LED TV which will be available with 40, 46 and 55 inch screen around May 2013. The imaging on the screen is amazing and uses Sony’s latest technology – Triluminous Display which Sony say gives “the widest spectrum of colours ever” and it’s difficult to disagree with that claim.Triluminous is a filter that ensures true to life colours, with no bleed and coupled with X-Reality Pro processing the Sony W9 delivers amazing image detail. Some of the best we’ve ever seen. The design is great too. Sony have added a quartz edge aluminum bevel which has a blue tint when the light catches it. They’ve also made the frame thinner as is the current trend, made the stand round and reworked the Smart on screen menus making them really user friendly. But the real wow factor and we do mean WOW here is the way that the W9 uses Near Field Communication (NCF) to enable effortless sharing of video and pictures from your phone to the screen. NCF is the technology employed to the “wallet in your phone” that means you can pay for stuff just by waving you phone at a chip and pin device. Well substitute that chip and pin for the W9’s remote and whatever is on the screen of your phone comes up on the TV meaning you can wirelessly browse through pictures and stream video straight onto the TV or use the apps and play games. We yold you it was WOW didn’t we. The new Sony W9 LED Smart TV truly is smart and with it’s great picture quality, gorgeously simple menu system and effortless sharing of video, games and apps makes it a real contender for best in breed. We can’t wait until it’s released later this year!