Philips 52PFL7422D/37 52-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV

Review by K. Cunningham for Philips 52PFL7422D/37 52-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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First of all, this is my first HD LCD TV. I’ve done research for the last year trying to find the right TV for the right price.

After looking at Sony, Samsung, Sharp LCD’s and the Samsung LED DLP, I stumbled upon the Philips 2PFL7422D on the web. After doing some research on this TV I found that it had all the pro’s of the other big name brands but with out any of the con’s, such as banding(Sharp) or clouding(Sony)(Note, this information was gathered from other reviews, I had not seen either of these phenomenon’s my self).

I’m very happy with this TV. One thing I really like it the screen isn’t shiny like Samsung’s high end models I was also interested in. My TV is in a very bright location with lot of windows and a shiny screen was a really turn off even though the Samsung’s LCD’s review very well.

Some things to be aware of is the refresh is 60hMz (120hMz is the current high mark) and the HDMI is 1.0, not 1.3. Also the remote feels cheap but is easy to use.

I’m not a audio/video buff by any means, but I do understand the tech. I have a Xbox 360 and Wii hooked up, both through component cable, and they work great. I played Guitar hero 2 and didn’t notice any delay between picture and sound. I also connected it to Comcast Digital and the HD looks great. Watched football this weekend and didn’t notice any blur.

If your looking for high quality at a great value, check this TV out.

Review by bg for Philips 52PFL7422D/37 52-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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This is an excellent TV. Excellent picture quality. Sound is good, but with such a tv, surround sound is a must to maximize value.

The only problem is it weighs a bloody ton at 117 lb. By comparison samsung weighs only abt 65 lbs.

Review by Marliss A. Rohrer for Philips 52PFL7422D/37 52-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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We bought this TV right before Christmas, 2007. It had a nice shiny, black look to it. The picture quality was awesome, but unfortunately the color kept fluctuating. The rich reds and flesh tones would fade to pale, pasty images a couple of times a minute. Phillips said the problem could not be the TV if the Menu screen did not fluctuate. The Menu screen displayed in only blues and greys and we never saw fluctuation in this screen.

In order to give the TV the benefit of the doubt, we switched from cable TV to DISH. We even replaced all the coax cable running from the satellite to the TV without success.

So we called Phillips again and were transferred to a Magnavox division who had a service company call us. This company told me to call an 800 number for another service company as they were 45 miles away in Fresno, California, and could not afford to come to my house based on what Phillips paid them for service. Apparently, the repair shops in Oakhurst where I live were not contracted with Phillips.

At this point we took the TV back to CostCo as it was within their 90 day return period. We bought a Sharp Aquos and the colors are fine.

Another problem we had with the Phillips was the limited viewing angle. We understand that LCD TV’s are supposed to have 176 degree viewing angle, but unless you were pretty much in front of the TV, the image and the colors degraded pretty badly.

My husband never did like the remote. When you picked it up and pointed it at the TV, it was always backwards.

Honestly, if the TV had worked right out of the box, we would have loved it. The picture quality and the colors (when they weren’t fluctating)seemed very natural. I liked the ease with which you could change from one format to another.

Review by Sean Lancaster for Philips 52PFL7422D/37 52-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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i bought this television about a month ago. i bought a refurbished from the manufacturer for a greatly reduced cost ($1,400) but that’s beside the point. the television is great for the cost even if you buy it new from Amazon — a nice price as well. the first thing i’d do is go to AVS forums and search for this television to get the various setting codes for the picture. that’ll save you a lot of time. next, get a surround sound system as the speakers on this television are barely adequate (i went with Onkyo and am happy). a universal remote is a must (Logitech Harmony is the way to go — again, i bought a 659 refurbished here on Amazon for about $40 — great remote).

i sit about 11 – 12 feet away and we play the Wii from about 8 feet. both seem just right. i watched the NCAA tourney in HD last week and the Master’s Golf tourney this week. i notice that the standard definition channels don’t look very good. in fact, i think my old television upstairs looks much better on standard definition. so i am only watching HD programming on this LCD. if i had to watch a lot of standard definition programming then i probably wouldn’t have bought this television and i might have given it 3 or 4 stars instead. on the other hand, the deal was too good to pass up and HD looks just terrific.

Review by N. Pitrone for Philips 52PFL7422D/37 52-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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I have had this tv for about a month now and love it. It is a really good deal. I had to tinker about with the picture settings and found exactly the settings I wanted. This LCD does NOT have a glossy screen. That is GREAT for me because I have a window behind the television. Do yourself a favor and buy this.

The remote is a tad awkward, I suggest you get a Harmony Remote. I am also using an Onkyo system as my surround sound. Really sweet T.V.

Review by Gabriel Baptiste for Philips 52PFL5704D/F7 52-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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After owning this set for over a month, and spending a lot of time researching the best bang for the buck in the 50 inch and larger category, here are my impressions:

The only real compromise you will make in purchasing this TV versus the more expensive models is the contrast ratio, it just doesn’t get as truly black as other far more expensive models. There are a few occasions when you will notice this: on letterboxed super wide screen Bluray content, and on some graphics on broadcasts and playing some parts of video games. But that’s it…the dynamic contrast of this 52″ Philips/Funai is certainly adequate for 98.3% of all other content.

Also note that the picture right out of the box is in no way representative of what this set can achieve. Out of the box settings are way too bright, the color is hyped, and the resolution was set to a mode that created scaling artifacts on a 1080i input. As soon as these were adjusted to more realistic levels, and the picture set to “unscaled”, the screen quality came to life.

There are many controls for how the image is displayed, play with them to get close to what pleases your eye, and then write them down when you are happy. From there you can tweak up and down to achieve close to perfection.

I like my picture somewhat on the dark side (akin to the movie theatre experience) which also lowers power consumption. Here are some settings you can use as a starting point (Firmware version 13). Try these before calling in the expensive home theatre guy to calibrate your set:

Contrast 38

Brightness 67

Color 33

Tint 0

Sharpness 3

Temperature – Warm

Dynamic Contrast – On

Digital Natural Motion – On

Noise reduction – Off

MPEG noise reduction – On

Color enhancement – On

Picture Format – Unscaled

Vertical and Horizontal – Adjust to fit your source material so that the image fits perfectly into the screen.

Something no one has mentioned here is the ability to display your digital photos from a USB flash drive…the quality is phenomenal, the ultimate slide show!! You can also play music files from a flash drive.

Also, please note that this set has upgradable firmware. There is information on the Philips site for the latest version (correcting many of the issues that have been brought up in previous reviews) and the instructions for upgrading the firmware are in the manual. The set I purchased was already up to date as it was unboxed.

Review by Mir T. Ali for Philips 52PFL5704D/F7 52-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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I was able to find this HDTV, under a 1000 buck, and for the price this is truly a bang for your buck. It have 4 HDMI slots which is quite adequate, plus it got the standard audio and video slots. The Picture quality is quite amazing. The 120 Hz of video processing gives a very sharp and clear picture, and personally, its hard to discern the difference between the 240Hz HDTVs and this one, so its a smart buy. It was quite easy to install, and make sure you got an adequate stand for this, cause the Tv is huge. The speakers are pretty good, but don’t expect surround sound from it.

The Remote control is alright, not really a great fan of it, but it gets the job done. Otherwise this TV is a great purchase.

Review by Tony Crosby for Philips 52PFL5704D/F7 52-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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We received this television for Christmas. We haven’t even purchased an upconverting DVD player yet and we are blown away by the picture quality from a component connection. Playing Wii games and now with our newly installed HD satellite, we couldn’t be more pleased with this television. Contrast and response time seem great.

Review by W. R. Ogden for Philips 52PFL5704D/F7 52-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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We got this at a club store for under $1k.

Also got a blu-ray player and the latest Star Trek Blu-ray.

It’s really incredible how awesome the picture quality is on this. It takes a little getting used to the individual whiskers/pores showing on actor’s faces. There is a very distinct awareness of depth. It’s not 3d, but just a simple awareness of depth.

I also tried my old Firefly DVDs. And again I was blown away by the detail and clarity.

My last TV was a 42″ LG plasma. So it shouldn’t be that much difference, but it is.

Then I turned on regular programming. Pixelation all over the place…Took me until the end of the first quarter of the big game to find the OUTPUT RESOLUTION setting on the HD cable box. Once I had that set to 1080i, the quality of picture was near perfect. Cable doesn’t come in 1080p around here.

The blacks are as black as the TV’s case. I’ve noticed an occasional digital blur, but for the most part the movement is not blurred at all.

I’m not a sound guru, but the TV sounds good to me.