I haven't worked with the Panasonic, but we received our first batch of Z1's about 2 weeks ago. For the bucks the Z1 is spectacular.

Obviously it's a "dark room" projector, with 550 lumens in theater black mode. While I normally use a Sanyo PLV70 or an Epson TW100 at home, I brought home the Z1 for the first time this weekend.

First, I'd recommend a "gray" type screen (Grayhawk, Dalite Hi Contrast Da-Mat, etc.) but allowing for the idea that many people buying a projector at this price may not spring for a relatively expensive screen (although there's big news from Dalite)...

I ran the Z1 on both a matte and a gray surface, and the gray works better, but had good results even with the white screen.

Colors are excellent, I'd say that 100" diagb, is about as large as you would want to go with the Z1, 110" is a bit of a stretch. At 92" in theater black mode the Z1 sizzles.

Menus are easy (Sanyo's finally learning), and the machine is quiet.

Watched last night with the Z1 on a coffee table between our command chairs, and with less than 36 inches from projector to my head, I never noticed the fans in theater black mode. Even when I kicked it up to normal mode, the fan got louder, enough to notice, but fairly low pitched. Basically the sound system drowned it out.

Fleshtones - excellent - whites - neutral, contrast excellent for LCD, (although the TW100 definitely does a bit better - for over 2x the price).

With it's "1/4 HDTV resolution" (the stupidest name I've ever heard) of 960x540, this machine has far better resolution than any 4:3 SVGA projector, and more than any W-SVGA.

Pixels - for those who are "pixel concious" I would recommend sitting almost 2x width from the screen, or say 14 feet from a 100" screen. For the rest (most) of us, who will rarely notice the pixels, because we watch the programming not the projector, I'd say 1.5x is just fine.

We're still sorting out the optical lens shift, which on early units may be adjusted incorrectly from the factory, but I'm told should now be correct. Still just having optical lens shift is a real plus. Especially for those mounting, since so many "low end" HT rooms are odd in terms of ceiling height, etc.

Hope that helps. I have to say, bang for buck this is the best yet. For example, it is easily my choice compared to InFocus's new X1.

-art