I received this Plasma with attached side speakers from my sister,(lucky me) which was about 18 months old at the time. The only reason they parted with it was that they wanted to upgrade to a full Hi-Def plasma for their HD satellite receiver. I also received the official wall bracket also. I knew that Pioneers were very expensive units, and always scored high in performance in certain magazines. I had previously owned a Panasonic PZ70, which was a great HD set. Although the 436 XDE is not full HD (1920 x 1080p), I am very pleased with it's overall performance, i.e. picture, deep black levels and good overall sound quality. The seperate control unit is novel,(maybe not to everyone's taste)and I found this handy if you want to wall mount the plasma panel, as a mains and twin cable can easily be fed through a wall to keep everything tidy. The control unit has a standard analogue and freeview receiver built in, although freeview is now only available in my area. The panel can display an image higher than 1080p, when a Blu ray player is attached, and the image then comes into it's own, i.e. simply breathtaking, pin sharp, deepest blacks. Caution, these plasmas are prone to screen burn, image retention, don't leave logos still images etc on for hours. It's difficult to avoid logos, especially on Satellite broadcasts, including Freesat, Freeview, (why need them, we have banners and guides to let us know what channel we are on), broadcasters please take note. To avoid these, I simply adjust the screen ratio to remove these. If you do have an image that has been left on the screen, either tune into analogue, white snow, and leave this on for a few hours, or switch tv off overnight, and this should clear the image retention. I love this TV and would thoroughly recommend it. My 436 XDE is now in situe in my bedroom, as I have recently ugraded to the world of 3D.

I did lots and lots of research before purchasing this Pioneer PDP-436XDE. There were/are lots on the market. This is probably one of the most expensive, but in this case I think you get what you pay for.

This plasma is the best I have seen and you would not be dissapointed if you owned one. The colour detail is spot on and a razor sharp picture. It's not the cheapest 43" plasma on the market, but hey, you get what you pay for.