Philips 42PFL3603D/27 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV

Review by Y. Yoo for Philips 42PFL3603D/27 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
Rating:
My Sylvania 27″ analog TV finally bit the dust after 6 years. Thanks to the federal government’s tax stimulus check, I decided to be a good American and help the economy out and purchase a new flat screen TV. I grew interested in the Philips because it was a new model, looked great in person, and was very affordable. I purchased the TV from a major warehouse retailer where you have to pay for an annual membership. It was only $999 online, and I got free shipping and a 2 year extended warranty. If I have any problems, I could just return the set. Only problem is sales tax and it came out to $1086 (CA charges 10 electronics waste fee).

I got the TV last week and it works great. I get about a dozen HD channels over my antenna and the picture looks amazing when its a true HD signal. In fact its even sharper than my DVD player. I’m getting a Phillips upconvert DVD player this week, so hopefully the DVD’s will look better. If not, I guess I’m going to have to a 1080p recorder.

The picture looks great. I’m not super-picky and can’t tell some of the picture quality differences that other reviewers can. Most of the times, when i compare at the store, the brighter TV looks better to me.

Anyways, the side/off angle viewing is not as good as a Samsung. Even though its 178 degree viewing, the picture loses some luster at the extreme angles. If you plan on watching the TV from 160 degrees, you might want to get something else. The menu is okay, and the tv changes channels more quickly than the 46″ Samsung 1080p and does a much better job with managing the audio levels.

It looks nice in person and is much better than what I used to look at, so I’m pretty happy with my purchase. With the extra money I saved from not buying a Bravia for $1600, I could get a 27-32″ LCD and put it in my bedroom or alternatively, buy a PS3 and a few games.

Review by Roy Eassa for Philips 42PFL3603D/27 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
Rating:
This is a fine, but not perfect, HTDV for the price.

Pros: Price, 4 HDMI 1.3a inputs, true 1080p, bright, high-contrast picture, handsome unit.

Cons: Remote lacks some features, some loss of detail in dark areas.

Summary: If you seek a 42″ 1080p LCD by a major brand name and don’t need all the high-end features (e.g., PiP, fancy upconverting, powerful surround sound), this is a handsome choice with fine picture quality and is among the very least expensive (under a thousand at the mart of Wal).

UPDATE: It seems that the TV has a total of four HDMI inputs, not three (as specified). Though I haven’t tested all of them, I see three HDMI ports on the back and one on the side, and the menus show four separate HDMI choices (in addition to the various other inputs). That’s a very good thing!

But this bonus is balanced by several minor annoyances, like too few buttons on the remote, forcing you to go through the menu system for simple, common operations that older TVs handled with a single button push. For example, turning closed captions on and off is a multi-step process; also, there are no dedicated buttons on the remote for each input so you must go through the menu system to switch — and you cannot easily program a different remote to simplify this because the TV’s menus start at a different spot (your last selection) each time.

But overall it’s still a fine TV for the price. Brightly-lit HD scenes look simply stunning. And one more small (positive) detail: if your A/V receiver lacks HDMI, you can send the digital audio signal from the TV back to the receiver via the TV’s coax audio output; this is great because, for copy protection reasons, most hi-def sources like DVD players will not output digital audio (like Dolby Digital, for surround sound) on any additional connections if you’re using the source’s HDMI connection. But with this TV’s digital audio output, you don’t have to choose between using the source’s HDMI output versus having good surround sound through your receiver — you can have both.

Review by Anthony J. Austin for Philips 42PFL3603D/27 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
Rating:
Maybe I got a bad tv, but I don’t know. All I’ve heard about these things is good things, but mine has been anything but. Right away I noticed this horrible fuzz sound, it would just happen, with no rhyme or reason, and I’d have to turn the tv off and back on to fix it. After a month or so of haggling I finally got that fixed. After getting the new board put in and turning the tv on the picture was very dim, and there has been nothing we can do to fix it, and like usual Philips is taking their sweet time doing anything about it. Oh well, maybe sometime this year it’ll be fixed, but so far the problem has spanned 2 years, since it started right after I got it in November, and it’s January and it’s still not fixed. My warranty is only good for a year, so hopefully it’s fixed before that anyway. All I can say is be cautious about what you buy, and keep all the boxes and packaging, cause you may have to return it. And don’t trust the company when they say they’ll make it right, cause they don’t care, it’s not their tv afterall, they just work there.