The TX-L19X10 looks like one of Panasonic's bigger designs viewed down the wrong end of a telescope.
It's a look that seems to say, this is a grown-up TV. It's just quite little. It's also as thoughtfully designed and thoroughly screwed together as any of its stablemates. The 1366 x 768 resolution and extensive inputs confirm Panasonic's earnest intent.
Playing a Blu-ray, the '19X10 downscales the signal in confident fashion. Decent black levels, high contrasts and determined motion-handling all impress, as does fine detail - and there's a pleasant impression of solidity and three-dimensionality to the images.
Only the colour balance, which clings to a yellowish cast no matter how you trim the picture parameters, grates.
Those characteristics don't change fundamentally when the '19X10 is upscaling DVD pictures. The colour balance is slightly jaundiced, but otherwise the pictures are bright and detailed, and movement is well controlled.
There's more noise than with HD, naturally, and when you switch to broadcast TV programmes it becomes even more pronounced. Edges become restless, skin-textures gain a Botox blandness and the peculiarity of the colour is very evident.
Weedy sounds
The '19X10's sound is weedy and insubstantial, as it is with all such TVs. It's also rather congested and nasal, which is piling insult upon injury.
The Panasonic is responsive with games, though, giving one of the most stable console pictures in the small screen category.
The '19X10 gets plenty right, then. The performance-related problems it has aren't fatal stacked against all the things it does well.
But this level of performance, and this degree of compromise, can be yours for a fair bit less than the cost of the Panasonic.
Follow whathifi.com on Twitter
