Philips LCD TVs ReviewsPhilips LCD TVs Buying Guide , Cheap Philips LCD TVs , Discount Philips LCD TVs.

Nice picture, no analog audio out jack
Great deal at 00, lots of picture adjustments, but useless for my home theater as it only has one digital audio coax output, which my newer audio reciever doesn't have. Philips just trying to cut corners- parent company LG's equivalent 47" LCD has audio outputs of digital coax, fiber optic, and L,R RCA which most home entertainment centers still have. Unfortunately there's no compatibility with any type of box for converting the audio signal from digital to analog.

Beautiful picture!!!
This TV is great. The picture is beautiful. I shopped around in stores and on the internet. Get this TV, you won't be sorry. The HDTV channels are stunning. And, the Standard Definition channels are good. It seems that technology has surpassed technology with HDTV. I was talking to a TV salesman the other day and he stated that three years ago he had five HDTV channels on his TV, today direct TV has over 90. I believe by the end of the year their will be more. The tecnnical specifications on Amazon list this TV as having 8ms response time when in fact it is 5ms. The blacks are really black and the brightness is great. Buy this TV!!!

GREAT DEAL! GREAT PURCHASE!
The reason why I love this television is 1. It received great reviews on CNET.com 2. Eco-friendly and if I'm not mistaken most of the parts are from biodegradable materials.
Technicalities: I am pretty tech savvy, and the setup is extremely easy to use. As well as the attachments necessary for other components in your audio/video fields. The only issue I may have is that I need to find the code for my cable remote control, so that I don't have to keep using the television remote for volume and on/off function.
I haven't gotten the hand as of yet in programming the style of television viewing; whether I like widescreen ratios or regular ratios or zoom features, and color schematics, but that will come with time.
In the meantime, if you're thinking about purchasing this item, I'd say yes. I am not the only one this year who has purchased this item, and a good friend of mine works in IT for a large corporation, and has purchased this item as well. So there you go, if IT purchases this, then you should too!

Obama in HD!
We bought this TV just so we could watch Obama's inauguration in HD while being as caring and compassionate as we can about Mother Earth. This TV carries Al Gore's signature of approval, having been imported from a foreign country, to eventually be disposed of in the same foreign country - thereby restoring America's claim as the happiest shiniest beacon on the hill, the envy of eurotrash throughout the world. However, we have had to explain (several times) to our neighbors that the U.S. is not YET a socialist country, and that the communal "borrowing" of the set for extended periods of time is not chillbilly. They can cling to their guns and religion all they want - but hands off the HDTV. One other positive note - the TV appears to have a glitch when attempting to access FOX News - every 30 seconds or so it mysteriously flips back over to MSNBC. So we give this television a 4 out of 5, the set having lost one star due to the passage of Proposition 8 in California. Not entirely the TV's fault - but it feels good to blame someone other than the urban homophobes who showed up to vote for Obama.

Wonderful TV
I purchased this TV from another retailer about half a year ago, and I have found it to be a great TV. The picture is outstanding and crisp using an HDMI cable and a PS3. The power saver mode seems to 'dim' the picture, making it less bright and vibrant. When I'm watching the news or just flipping around, I tend to use this mode. I also use it at night when my significant other is sleeping or going to sleep (or vice versa.)

The edges do not glow, and the TV doesn't look light blue in my lighting conditions. Pretty much looks black to me.

The sound is pretty decent, if you aren't going to hook it up to anything. I was actually mildly surprised by the quality of the sound. I have to set about 7 inches from a wall and the speakers are in the rear of the TV. (obviously) I think if you are going to have it in the open, the sound might suffer.

I use comcast cable (Hunterdon County,NJ area) and this TV was ablt to pick up ABC, NBC, CBS, CW, My Network TV, and FOX's HD feeds from my regular cable connection. Which is nice at no extra charge. I also get some others, like USA as well.

I really am pleased with this product and think that if you are in the market for a flat panel LCD TV, you should check this TV out.

Customer Service Warning!
42" Philips TV purchased on October 20th, 2007 from Costco.

Television began to have intermittent problems after seven months. The power would come on, then the screen would go black. Contacted Philips customer care on August 10th, 2008. The tv was still under warranty.

Philips said a satellite repair agency would contact me within a couple days.

A week later, after no reply, I called Phillips again on a friday. They called the repair agency while I was on hold and told me that the satellite repair agency would call me on Monday.

The following Friday, after no call from the repair agency, I called Philips again. They told me that the satellite repair agency said they called me, and I told them I had returned the television to the store, so I didn't need their services any longer. This was a lie. I had never heard from the repair agency.

Philips then set me up with another satellite repair agency in my area. The repair agency then called me and set up an appointment. One rep called me from there, stating they would be at my residence at 3pm. Another called the same day and told me between 1 and 2 pm. I took off work, and was at my place between 1 and 5 pm, and no one showed up.

I called Philips, and they said they would escalate the claim, and they would call me back, sending either an actual Philips technician out, or replace the tv.

Philips called me back, and decided to set me up with a 3rd satellite repair center. They called me and made an appointment. They showed up as scheduled, and had a flash drive for a firmware update. When plugged in, the flash drive would not work. The technician said that one of the other workers had some personal pictures on the flash drive, preventing it from automatically updating the firmware. Instead, he said that he would go ahead and order a replacement board for the tv from Philips.

The satellite repair center called me the next day, and told me Philips had no estimated time of arrival for the part. It took 4 weeks for the satellite repair center to receive the part. The satellite repair center came and installed the part in my home. The television was experiencing the same problems, preventing him from running the service codes on the tv, as the tv would not stay on. The technician decided to take the tv to check it out in their shop. This was a Tuesday.

I called Philips on Thursday, discussing my lack of trust in the satellite repair services ability to fix my tv, as it seemed they did not know what they were doing. Philips called the repair agency and reported to me that the repair center had had the tv working for two days in the shop. I called the repair center on Friday, and they told me they had the tv working since Thursday (discrepancy of two days), and would deliver it on Wednesday.

They delivered the television to me on Wednesday, and it worked. On Thursday, I turned the tv on, and the same intermittent problem was occurring. On this same day, Costco had contacted me regarding how the progress of the tv was going. I told them it still was not working. They escalated the problem on their end.

On Friday, October 24th, Costco called me. They called Philips customer care, and Philips told Costco, they would contact me within 48 business hours. Costco had told me that the Philips representative was surprised that Philips had not offered to buy back the tv at this point.

On Friday, October 31st, after not hearing anything from Philips, Costco called Philips customer care again. Again, Philips told Costco that they would be contacting me within 48 business hours.

48 business hours have passed, and I have heard nothing from Philips.

I am clearly getting the run around.
I have waited 13 weeks for a resolution through Philips and don't think they will ever provide one.

GREAT PICTURE, but... (Maybe I'm too picky)
I have been a Samsung TV guy for long. I just sold my Samsung DLP 42" projection TV to buy this Philips 1080p HD LCD TV.

Samsung Series 5 size offerings are 40" and 46", so for approx. the same money I was getting 42" from Philips, and more recent model with very good reviews. In my opinion, Philips has been a well kept secret when it comes to value for money, so I felt very confident with my choice.

I just finished setting up my new TV a few minutes ago, and here are my findings:
This TV has astonishing looks with its black/glass finish.
Setup was a breeze with the unit's Settings Assistant.
GREAT PICTURE, with lots of buit-in software to make standard signal look great.
Very good sound (despite what other reviewers say), with 25W it has enough power to fill the room when watching TV (typical is 10W).

BUT...

- This TV has no Picture-in-picture AT ALL. I don't feel misled, because this feature was not listed. But I guess after having 2 built-in tuners in my 4 year old DLP Samsung, I just took this for granted. This is one feature I will miss.

- The Source button scans ALL inputs, even those that have no signal, and there is no way to disable the unused sources. I find this VERY annoying.

However, since this is the TV set for my home theater, and considering its great picture quality, I believe I can live with these drawbacks.

Don't get me wrong. This is a VERY GOOD TV for the price, but probably I should have made the effort of spending the extra 0 for the 40" Series 6 Samsung.

Great TV
Looked at several different LCD HD TV's. Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, Sharp. Shopped online at Amazon, Best Buy, Circut City. Went to Target, and Walmart to check out the TV's in person. The Phillips had the best price and as good a picture as any of the others. The Sony 40 inch I saw had an outstanding picture, maybe the best, but the Phillips was just as good and several hundred dollars less. I love watching sports in HD on this thing! Great TV! Love it!

A Good Value
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.

Awesome TV
This TV is the best I've seen on the market. It's slick, audio is great, almost no latency and the picture is awesome. The remote and the menu is really easy to navigate. I recommend it.

Great TV for price!
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 9 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 86 (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 00, I could get a 27-32" LCD and put it in my bedroom or alternatively, buy a PS3 and a few games.

Great TV for a great price!
I've helped 2 friends buy & install this TV. Both have been thrilled with it.
Great picture & easy setup make this model a winner!

Excellent tv..
Bought this for my husband. Now we have to watch everything in HD it drives me crazy but the picture is incredible. We also bought the Peerless mount and mounted it to the wall it looks great.

Excellent Picture, Excellent Design, Excellent Price
I purchased this TV two months ago at a popular warehouse retail store. I had spent one month researching and shopping around. At the start of my research, I was leaning toward a 42" Plasma. Throughout my research process I determined that the LCD technology was equal to, and probably surpassing the plasmas. I decided to switch gears and only focus on LCD's. I had also been told by MANY of my peers that, "whatever size you are thinking about, go one higher assuming you have the space." I took their advice, and have not been disappointed.

My ultimate decision to purchase this Phillips model was in large part due to the cost; however I spent a considerable amount of time in the store fine tuning the picture on the floor model to make sure that I could achieve results that I was looking for. I found that within a short amount of time I could get the picture to look at least as good as all the other floor models, and better than the majority of them. The menus are not as easy to navigate through, as some other brands, but I see this as a non-factor. Once I set up the picture and programmed my favorite stations, it's simple to use.

I'm an Architect so overall set design was also important to me. I have to say that the Phillips, by far, was the best TV to look at, regardless of it being turned on. The TV stand, is very geometric, and constructed out of simple materials, without plastics. In my opinion the set would fit very well in any "contemporary" room. I recently hung mine on the wall with a peerless, tilting, wall mount, and concealed the cables. I'm slightly sad that I had to moth-ball the stand, however now the room looks like it has another piece of art on the wall. I couldn't be happier with the purchase. A great way to spend the Tax Return!!!

Amazing Picture Quality, Great Features for a reasonable price
I have had this TV for almost a month now and it is absolutely amazing to watch HD programming on this television.

Please note the model number when looking at a Philips TV. Walmart and SAM's club both sell Philips 1080p 47" TVs but the models are different. I bought mine from SAMS and this one had HD Pixel Engine, while the one at Walmart doesn't.

Anyway, back to this TV. I am one of those people who like to do a lot of research before a purchase. I had the following requirements for a TV:
- Great Image quality. I still remember looking at some Plasmas and hated the fact that the you couldn't see anything on the screen if you not directly in front of them. I know Plasmas have gotten a lot better, and in my humble opinion LCD's are better. I can actually watch this TV from my kitchen which is atleast at a 45 degrees angle.
- Good for at least 5 years. This where the 1080p part comes in. Most programming today is either done in 720p, or 1080i. Only your blu-ray, or HD DVD player will actually be able to utilize the full capacity of 1080p. But I am sure that in future, 1080p programming will be available and I wanted to be prepared.
- Great brand, reasonable price. I love Philips, but I love SONY more. The problem with SONY however is that there products always cost a lot more for comparable set of features. This TV has some amazing features like SONY, just not the dazzling price.

In the end I am pretty satisfied with everything, or may be I am just trying to justify spending 00 on an idiot box , who knows.

Here are some issues that you should be aware of before you buy an HDTV:
1. Regular programming looks worse. This tv does an excellent job of resizing the image automatically, but it is still a low resolution picture on a huge screen. Remember you don't want horizontal or vertical black bars while watching 4:3 programming because it can cause burn-ins. I know some of you will jump up and say that LCDs don't have that problem. To them I say, READ THE MANUAL. It's available on Philips' website.
2. Burn-ins. I know I covered that in my last point, but again, the manual says that burn-ins can occur, so be careful. I'd rather watch a little stretched out picture than mess up my TV.
3. You have to get HD programming to actually utilize the potential of this mammoth. I am a comcast customer in Florida, and they have a decent selection of HD channels. Remember directv might have more HD channels, but Comcast offers NBC, ABC and all the local channels in HD. It's not how many channels you have in HD, it's how many good channels you have in HD that counts. So before you buy this TV, make sure you have GOOD HD programming in your area.

I hope I could help some poor chap out there looking for a little guidance.

Nice picture, no analog audio out jack
Great deal at 00, lots of picture adjustments, but useless for my home theater as it only has one digital audio coax output, which my newer audio reciever doesn't have. Philips just trying to cut corners- parent company LG's equivalent 47" LCD has audio outputs of digital coax, fiber optic, and L,R RCA which most home entertainment centers still have. Unfortunately there's no compatibility with any type of box for converting the audio signal from digital to analog.

Beautiful picture!!!
This TV is great. The picture is beautiful. I shopped around in stores and on the internet. Get this TV, you won't be sorry. The HDTV channels are stunning. And, the Standard Definition channels are good. It seems that technology has surpassed technology with HDTV. I was talking to a TV salesman the other day and he stated that three years ago he had five HDTV channels on his TV, today direct TV has over 90. I believe by the end of the year their will be more. The tecnnical specifications on Amazon list this TV as having 8ms response time when in fact it is 5ms. The blacks are really black and the brightness is great. Buy this TV!!!

... BUT needs backlight controls
I purchased this from a club store for 600 shipped and we are satisfied with the picture quality, multiple input connections and attractive frame (edges has clear plastic surround).
I think the one thing that this unit needs is backlight controls, since
too much of backlight affected some images that contrast and brightness
cant fix. I have to use light sensor to fix the issue.
.

Good TV, good price
I recently purchased this Philips 32" TV, and I am very pleased with my purchase. After looking at different models of 32" televisions available, the different brands and specs had me a little worried about making the right decision. However this TV has great picture, looks modern and stylish, has plenty of imputs, and is easy to use and program. It looks great for movies, games, and hd and regular TV programing, it even cleans up analog channels somewhat. I have also used a 32 inch samsung and I certainly could not say that it was is any better than this, in fact i think i prefer the philips. Also, as far as looking at specs when buying a tv, do not be worried if you are considering this television: considering its size and price range it is very competitive. I was a little worried about its 8ms response time considering samsung and some others have 6ms or even 4ms, but i cannot tell the difference and from what I have read there are differences between manufacturers when it comes to measuring such things; it also has a 26000 dynamic contrast ratio which is impressive i guess, but who really knows. The bottom line is this: picture looks great, movies look great, and video games look great, everything I needed from an HDTV; and it was easy to set up, just letting you select from different picutres to determine what type of settings you want. hope this was helpfull.

I Like
Very satisfied with the TV just wish I went bigger.
Jay

I am very happy with this tv!
Hi,
This is the 3rd hdtv lcd I have purchased this year but the 1st one I am happy with. I purchased a Samsung earlier this year after reading all the amazing reviews, maybe I was expecting too much but I felt disappointed when I had it at home. I then purchased the HP Media Smart 42" with the wifi, it is a nice lcd but it is way overpriced because of the useless wifi which is impossible to setup anyway. Took that right back to bestbuy the next day. Now for the Philips. I was debating whether to get the Sony Bravia L or this Philips. Even though this is more expensive I went with the Philips because of that gut feeling I had everytime I was disappointed with an lcd I told myself I should have got the Philips. Well I finally did and I am very happy with my purchase. I got it for 1 at Sams Club. As soon as it became available I ordered it. I have had it for 3 days now. As soon as I opened the box I liked the glass stand. The lcd itself has a very nice elegant minimalist design which I love. The remote is very simple I like it as well, one thing that would truly make it better would be some sort of backlight, but after a while I will memorize the location of the buttons anyway. When I plugged in all my equipment, just the cable box and the Cambridge Soundworks i765 which I use as my dvd player and external speakers for the lcd, I powered it on and it walked me thru the setup which is very simple. Instead of the usual numbers to calibrate the settings, it walks you thru sets of pictures, half of the screen one setting the other half the screen the other, you select which half you prefer, then the lcd knows what you prefer and it is all setup. It does the best job of analog of any of these newer hdtvs I have seen or had, that makes me very happy. It is also great for dvds and hdtv. All around and for the money it has me very happy. The reason I did not get the 42" is because for my room the 42" is just too big that is a big reason I returned the HP Mediasmart lcd besides that I realized that I overpaid for useless and complicated to setup wifi. So for anybody looking for a well priced lcd hdtv that is great for both analog and digital video this is a must buy television.

AMAZING
Very happy with this TV I have only had it now for 2 days. It is a the best LCD TV I have watched. Even 480i SD looks stunning thanks to the perfect pixel HD engine in this beast. The only con I can say so far is when an Ipod is hooked up it is very hard to pick out the songs. and I havent figured out playlists. But its a small objection compared to the tons of pluses of this TV. I have gotten tons of compliments on it from every friend that has seen it which is cool. I really am impressed in this TV.

Very nice TV
Pros:
Great picture and sound with the speakers that are with the TV. I use my own surround sound system right now though. It has enough input ports for all of my Gaming systems, (Xbox 360, PS2, Wii.) I get full 1080P with just my Component Cable with my Xbox 360 and the picture is great no problems with the action looking jumpy.
Cons:
Only con that I have so far is that it does not come with a normal analog stereo out connection. My surround sound system only uses analog stereo connection and this TV only has 1 coax Digital out.

Too Good For TV?
I'm still playing around with this thing so there may be updates to come. I'm not a technophile and bought this monster mostly because of the upcoming digital transition - my plan is to watch mostly off-air hdtv signals, dvds, and some old video.

And this IS a monster, BTW. At almost 80 lbs it's close to the upper edge of my lifting range. Eventually it'll be permanently mounted to the wall, but meantime I'm holding it up while the female of the species meditates on furniture arrangement! I know I'm losing weight, but maybe disks as well...

The menus are NOT right-sized for a 47" tv; they're absurdly huge and unnecessarily obscuring. However the real problem, for non-cable me, is the slowness of the channel-changing. And it's not like you see channel 6.1 until channel 6.2 appears three seconds later - you see a completely blank screen, not even the channel numbers in the upper left-hand corner.

HDTV looks FANTASTIC on this set, though it took a couple of re-channel-formats - and turns of the antenna - to get all the hdtv stations. A fair bit of picture tweaking was required to get an image that doesn't look like shot-on-video: however I now have rich blacks AND stunning detail, despite what the review at NEC (which is of the 42" set) says. The internal speakers seem fine to ME - ok, my previous set was 20 years old...

Non-hdtv looks AWFUL. Judder, artifacts, pixillation - maybe that'd be true of any screen this size. I'm not criticizing Philips, necessarily. However if like me you plan to be watching a lot of old stuff into the indefinite future, I'd strongly recommend a smaller screen!!!

The best value for the size and quality
This is a really good TV. It looks and sounds great. Connection is easy. We installed it with a wall rack that fit no problem. I waited 15 years to upgrade my TV but I wanted a good one that was reasonably priced. This is the one.

Quality High Definition for the Economy Price
I've been selling this particular model for about three months and I've been very impressed with how well it has held up against not just constant demo usage but from customer feedback as well.

First off I must warn all potential customers that with any high definition television you MUST HAVE A HIGH DEFINITION SERVICE if you want your channels to look as awesome as those televisions on the show room floor. Televisions do not magically take a cable signal from a coaxial cable and make it high def. That said, with the 1080P picture quality you can also enjoy the high definition if you have an up conversion DVD player, a Playstation 3, or an XBox 360 Elite/Halo 3 console so long as you have an HDMI cable to transfer the signal. Sadly, the Wii console only sends out a maximum signal of 480 which is not high def.

To compliment the 1080P picture quality is the 29,000 contrast ratio. Most economy-class televisions under 00 sport around a 2000-8500 contrast ratio, which is OK but let's face it; like the song by Queen you want it all and you want it now. Samsung A3 series typically sport around 8500 contrast while economy-priced Sony Bravias are even less, making the Philips 29,000 far superior.

On top of that, the quality and endurance of the Philips 47 is top-notch. In my eight years of selling screens, Philips is one of the longest lasting if not the longest in the economy-class. They don't use cheap parts like Emerson, Sanyo, or RCA but have the same (if not better) picture as a Samsung or Sony. I hardly see any Philips returned and if they did, it's usually because they want to upgrade to the 52-inch.

The sound isn't bad for a big screen but, like any other, it is designed to be complimented by a surround sound. Nonetheless, depending on the acoustics of the room this model can operate fairly well without one although don't expect a true Pro-Logic II experience.

All-in-all the Philips 47 does something few other screens can; give the economy-class shopper a screen that dominates in picture quality making it affordable to all who want to experience true high definition.

smart move
After much on-line research of available large screen lcd's, settled on this Philips. Very pleased with this product. Delivered fully assembled including stand. Install took less than 10 minutes. Audio and video both very good.

Best Hd i have ever seen
My phillips was stolen about a week ago
i "thought" i would get an upgrade by going with the 52" sony Bravia
w4100 i was wrong wrong wrong my wife is very upset she had gotten used to the real life looking hd of the phillips and to downgrade to the bravia made us feel like we had bought a SD TV i want my phillips back

Great... for those that don't have a picky eye
We bought this TV against my better judgement, because of the price. The set itself is rather good looking, and the set-up is relatively a breeze. I can see that this brand and model are geared more towards people who aren't to be bothered by complex features and advanced menu functions. I, however, am.

While this set may boast some of the same technologies as other, higher-quality sets, the technology isn't quite the same. The 120 Hz HD "Natural Motion" feature just isn't as refined as it is on other sets. But the worst is the HD "Pixel Perfect" feature that is supposed to make everything sharper. Unfortunately, this is like going into a remedial photo editing program and using the Sharpen Image tool about 5 times too many (if any of you have played around with editing your photos, you may know what I'm talking about). The result is that a lot of times, you get the dreaded "halo effect" around edges. Sometimes this benefits the picture with bolder, simpler images, but when there are lots of smaller details, this actually ends up making the picture worse. Pixel Perfect has actually made certain DVD text impossible to read. That's completely unacceptable. I have to say that the contrast in this TV is pretty poor.

The one plus about this TV is that the sound system is OUTSTANDING. They are probably among the most powerful speakers ever to be mated to an LCD TV.

With all that said, this set will suit you fine if you just want a just-capable-enough set with a big picture and impressive sound, but those with a more discerning eye will definitely need to look somewhere else.

Bring TV viewing to life!
We bought this television from the Navy Exchange in April 2008, before it really went into production. We waited 4 months for its arrival, and it was worth every minute of that wait. The natural motion processors make the picture so realistic that it's like you're looking through a window at real people. The perfect pixel system gives you a picture that's so clear, you won't ever be able to watch a plain tv again. There are enough personalized settings that, no matter what your taste, you'll be able to set the picture up exactly the way you like it.

We did have one small problem with the set: It would randomly turn itself off. The set came right back on every time, but it was a real pain. We called the support number listed on the website and were pleased to find an easy fix. Steve, the support guy, gave us a downloadable file to upgrade the tv's software. We put it on a memory stick, popped it into the USB port of the tv, and it automatically upgraded the tv without any problems at all. The problem is gone now and we're back to watching tv with a smile.

Please note that these newer tv's require software updates from time to time. You're responsible for keeping it upgraded, so check back frequently. If you do need to call the nice people at Philips, please be sure to have your model and serial number handy. It makes things a lot easier.Philips 52PFL7403D/27 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV

A whole new viewing experience
I bought this TV after my Optoma 50" DLP died on me. I was already used to viewing HD on a 50" screen, so didn't expect to see much difference. But the LCD 1080p 120Hz is something else! I've been watching old movies because the look so crisp. I watched Edward Scissorhands as though I'd never seen it before, and I could make out every line in Pacino's bloodshot eyes in Dog Day Afternoon. I'm sure that last one has been digitally remastered before it ran on HD cable, but WOW!

On the negative side, I still haven't figured out some of the controls, and it doesn't seem to be possible to turn off some of the automatic adjustments. For instance, I programed my Harmony remote to toggle all my equipment between watching a DVD and watching cable, but the TV starts wandering through inputs as soon as the DVD player gets turned off. What's worse is that it only cycles to the end of the list and quits if it doesn't find a valid video signal. It does this despite the fact that my Harmony requests the valid input. I'll be able to adjust my Harmony to work around this, I think, but it's a pain.

All in all, I'm very happy with the new TV. It may take me some time to find my favorite settings, but it's not a bad problem to have.

Surprise Purchase Turned Out Great
I dont usually write too much reviews, unless I am really impressed. I did a lot of research to buy a big screen 52 inch LCD from a trusty Sony Trinitron. I first bought a Sharp 52 inch LCD 1080p (non 120hz) after research due to the style, the narrow bezel and frame, and good reviews of the picture quality from experts. However, I had to return 2 sets, one had a white line in the middle, and the second one had no picture after a few uses. Go figure. Then I researched bigger brands such as Sony, Samsung, but this one fit my budget. However, I hesitated, due to the brand Philips, which I was not familiar with. But, due to my budget, I bought it and was a great purchase so far. The set up was easy and I had no issues after installing it. During my research, I read articles by experts that 120hz does not make a big difference and may not be cost effective. However, WOW...I was impressed at the smooth movements it produced. I mean you can really notice it. The only issue I had, if you can even call it an issue, is that since the picture and movement is soooo clear, I felt that home movie theatre experience is now gone. The pictures are too clear and smooth unlike when you are in a theatre. Oh well, Im getting used to it and its super nice and I figure this is the wave of the future.

Only cons: 1) when you choose your components using only the "source" button, the screen turns black while the source box disappears, and you have to repress the button for the source box to reappear, and so on (this causes an unnecessary lag). An easy fix is just scrowing down the source box with the arrow buttons, but I think it would be easy to just press and repress the source button for changing components. Not a big deal, but on the Sharp you can flick through the sources using only the source button rather quickly; 2) when you turn the tv on, its blue with the "Philips" logo and lags before the picture comes out (waste of time, and feels like a computer monitor not a tv); 3) when you turn the tv off, it goes black then blue before shutting off (ditto #2 - hey Philips, what for?); and 4) asthetically, I feel the Sharp, Sony, Samsung has better looks and packaging, although the Philips looks tough and heavy :(. It is thicker in depth too than Sharp. And whats with that clear plastic frame that borders the bezel. Does this serve a purpose??? Its not like it makes the tv look better asthetically or anything.

All in all, this was a GREAT purchase for the mony and thats what counts! The picture is good and smooth and the unit seems to be reliable for now. I really hope it survives for a long time. I recommend this unit.