Here's a quote from avsforum,
from this link. Which sums up the performance of the ST30 vs the ST50.
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I can't speak to the GT30 to GT50 but going from the ST30 to ST50 was a MAJOR upgrade in image quality.
I had the misfortune of cracking the screen on my 11 month old p60st30 and have had a p55st50 in my home for about a week now and it is very evident which TV performs better.
ST50 does better in all of areas below.
1. Noticeably better black levels. With any lighting in the room the black bars appear to blend into the bezel
2. Brighter screen but not at the expense of color saturation
3. Cleaner image. Not sure what it is about this set but it has a MUCH clearer image when watching compressed content such as DTV or Dish.
4. Much more accurate skin tones
5. No green or red shift like last years ST30
6. No audible buzzing from the set unless the content is all white and takes up most of the screen. Even then, you have to listen for it. The ST30 would buzz when switching resolutions or no content is on the screen. The very slight buzz you do hear if you hear it at all is a much more palatable frequency as well.
7. Built in Wi-Fi
8. Lighter and much more modern looking. Looks very similar to the PNxxD7000. Very nice form factor
9. The frame interpolation is handled much better this year. Turning motion smoothing to low does not give you nearly the soap opera affect as last years model.
10. No shifts in brightness at all when you defeat the ABL feature in Custom mode under pro settings.
11. HDMI ports are off the side rather than the back so you don't have to worry about clearance for your cables when mouting it on the wall
12. Blu tooth 3d glasses sync up quickly and stay in sync at further distances than last years model. The new 2012 3d glasses are much cheaper and much lighter and more comfortable.
13. Does not seem nearly as susceptible to IR. My ST30 had some issues with this. I have not seen even a hit of IR on this set after several hours of gaming on it. I would still recommend being careful as you would with any plasma display.
14. Massively improved anti glare filter. On my ST30 I could see reflections of the TV that were bouncing off pictures I had on the wall behind my central viewing position. Can't see this at all with this set. Really big improvement. It almost fools you into thinking you are watching TV on a matte screen it is that effective.
This set is so superior to my now broken ST30 I am almost happy the ST30 was broken. It is WAY better than the ST30 so based off this I would have to assume the ST or GT50 would be better than last years GT30.
I would go so far as to say there is absolutely nothing the ST50 does not do better than the ST30. This is how I would expect a quality Plasma to operate and look.
Hope my observations help. I have nothing but great things to say about this years models and what it does do better it does noticeably better. Huge leap in everything that counts from my observations.
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