HDTV Reviews

First got this and was really dissapointed. This repalced a 27" Sony Wega - non HDTV. Watchung tv, and dvd's with a progressive scan dvd player, well, the Sony was just as good or better with the picture. I then ordered HD through my local cable company. Iwas stunned at the results...although only a handfull of theit offerings are in HD, the few they have look real good. Buy this TV, sign up with VOOM tv and get a Samsung HD DVD player, you may never leave your house again.

i've had this tv for almost 5 months, and i love it. for those of you trying to decide between widescreen (16x9) and normal (4x3) tv's, do yourself a favor--get the widescreen, you won't regret it. the tv gives you different viewing modes for 4x3 material--letterbox, stretch (uniformly or nonuniformly), or crop. i usually stretch the 4x3 material--for the first day the images look wide, but you stop noticing after that.

i love the component inputs, and that the tv will accept progressive scan materal. i haven't done any hdtv viewing, but 480i, 480p, and 540p material looks great! you'll definitely want to pair this tv with a progressive scan dvd player like the toshiba 5109 or 6200.

it's definitely worth getting the set calibrated by an ISF professional--they can adjust overscan, focus, colors, etc. if you're daring, you can look online for sites that will tell you how to do this stuff yourself.

the only two shortcomings that i have with this tv are: that it doesn't accept native 720p input and that the reflective screen makes it hard to watch tv in a bright room--sometimes it's like looking into a mirror. you'll need to get yourself some drapes or you can remove the reflective layer yourself (not for the faint of heart).

beware, though, there is a new toshiba model that replaces the TW40X81--the new model is the 40H80. i think for most people the differences are not significant.

Great picture. Only complaint so far is that you have to use the remote to chance from one video source to another. There should be some way to do this on the set itself. Sound is OK but you really need home theater setup do get the most out of audio anyway.

I looked at many TV's and read many reviews before buying this TV and think the picture quality of this one is among the best. Another important and uncommon feature of this television is that splits into two pieces for easier moving. These 57" rear projection televisions are huge, and if you ever plan on moving them, this feature is important. It's not always possible to get the T.V.s that don't split into some apartments. I was orginally getting a Sony, but the delivery guys couldn't get it into my apartment.

I've had it for a few weeks and am very satisfied so far.

This TV is a strong solid performer. It's Consumer Report Magazine's #1 ranked projection TV. It has all the up to date features a HDTV needs ... it has the DVI option for HDTV, has Component Inputs for your DVD player, has S-Video for your satellite or similar, has several standard A/V inputs for your VCR or game system, etc.,. It has everything you need for your basic entertainment system. Additionally the picture quality is one of the best for a projection system. But be weary of that concept, this TV is huge...57", and with this amount of size, the picture quality on "smaller" objects is not going to be super crisp or sharp using even a satellite digital feed. But that holds true on all TVs this big...I think. So for example when watching basketball and you get the half court view the players are not real super sharp ... you can't really see those little details like face features, etc.,. You know it's KOBE but you can't pick up the eyes, etc.,. But for "regular" shows that usually don't have such small images, it's wonderful. Toshiba has made the remote and TV use very easy and user friendly. You can easily access video 1,2,3,4 etc.,. for the various electronic components you have. So all good. BUT ... one drawback was the amount of time it took for delivery from Amazon. It took a month although the initial advertised estimate was 1 to 2 weeks. I notice now, though, it says 1 to 2 days, but I notice it's coming from J&R not Amazon and the shipping jumped like $200 so maybe that isn't an issue now. Bottom Line: An overall high quality, full featured, 57" HDTV.

I have had this tv for about 2 weeks. I was leary after reading some people having problems with this model, but I said what the heck and got one anyway. To say this is a great tv would be an understatement. The picture is the best I have seen compared to other models in this price range. My 8 & 12 yr old can run the different features on the remote. (still teaching my wife). I do not regret getting this model one bit.

Update on 7-15-04: Lowered to one star. Still do not have a remote. They told us they closed the entire month for June for inventory so they are not playing catch up. We might have it by the end of July we're told but they would not guarantee anything.

Update on 6-19-04: We still do not have a working remote control, so we have been unable to use the features of this tv. The customer service absolutely is terrible. They made us mail the broken remote in and now we have heard nothing, and it's been weeks. I wish we had our money back. I have to say the picture on the tv is great. I just can't set up our components until we have the remote.

I ordered this 2 weeks ago off Amazon. As usual, I'm very satisfied with Amazon's performance/price. The tv was delivered on schedule and professionally. Huge box! They took the box away after delivery. The TV picture looks great on the default settings. Just connected my cable with an S video and turned it on. Unfortunately, the Apex remote (have to use theirs) does not work. I assume it's the remote and not the receiver on the tv. Emailed Apex, said a 48 hour response. Never heard from them. Called them twice, on hold 15 to 20 minutes each time, told to send them a receipt and they "might" replace the broken remote. Still waiting on the remote. Disappointing and no one here in town to buy one from. Otherwise, the tv pic and sound is great. Can't wait for a remote!

(...) I watched the TV in the store and it was somewhat grainy, but the salesman said that the in-store model should have been adjusted more, and that the TV really did have a good picture. They had an 47' Panasonic and a few other models with smaller pictures for around the same price (+/- $200), and he said to stick with this one. Every sales person I have spoken with has said that the Apex TV's are pretty good, but that apex DVD and VCR's aren't so hot. However, they all said that their TV's have been improving lately, especially since they started doing business in the US. Basically, Apex's sales design is to deliver more quantity, while still emphasizing quality, but doing away with a lot of the options that only audiophiles really need. For instance, this TV does not have the plug that allows you plug your home theatre into a computer (PC) based setup from what I am told. However, it hooked up perfectly fine to my surround sound setup.
Now onto the good stuff. The TV arrived, we let it warm up a bit, and then turned it on. I was going to set the cable up, but decided to go straight to DVD as I just bought a new Toshiba progressive scan player (4900 model). I put in Top Gun, and the picture was horrible! I thought to myself, what did I just buy??? Well it turns out the TV requires some adjusting. First you need to set the convergence, which requires you to be sitting in front of the TV, at the level you would normally view the TV at. Do not do this standing up (more on this later...)! It will throw the convergence off and the picture won't be so great when you're sitting down. So I performed this easy adjustment (you just use the remote buttons, nothing really technical). Then I decided to try out Finding Nemo, the animated Disney movie. Nemo has a lot of color complex scenes, with quick movement and I figured this would be a good test of the TV. Well, Nemo looked horrible still! The orange fish appeared to lack a clear border, almost as if the pixels were not where they should be. Well turns out, I initially did the convergence standing up, and when I sat down and readjusted, it was off by a good bit. So I redid that, and the picture improved considerably. However, the colors were off, and the clarity wasn't there yet. Turns out you need to set the TV to use the DVD player's progressive scan function. So I did that, and the picture got better again. Still, wasn't totally thrilled with the color and clarity, but then I turned on another option on the TV that sets it to theatre mode, and the picture looked incredible! Not a pixel out of place! Fish were swimming around the reef and the colors were awesome. I put in Gladiator and watched some of the fight scenes, and they are crisp, clear, and impressive.
Yesterday we watched the Super Bowl with about 25 people coming over, and I swear the TV got even better over the course of those few hours. Everyone there thought we had the HDTV broadcast of the game on, but we had the standard digital cable. How's that for reviews. My buddy has a Mitsubishi and said this TV looked better than his (to be fair, his is about two years old, the new Mitsubishi's are better than the Apex models, but also about twice as much). However, I am going to get the HDTV cable box, it's only a one time $10 fee from my cable company, and that will improve picture clarity even more. I'm looking forward to it!
All in all, I am extremely pleased with this TV. A few things to keep in mind: If you are checking this out in the stores are not impressed, ask the TV salesperson to tune it up, many times from being moved around they don't display the best picture. Also, the stores lighting will wash out the colors. Bring a good DVD to test out the TV's, preferably something with vibrant colors and lots of action to see how the progressive scan works.
Check to see that there is a local Apex certified TV service area around you in case something does go wrong with the TV. You can do this from the apex digital website. In my case, $100 for the 4-year warranty was the way to go. They will come out, pick up the TV, and repair it. When you get it home, make sure to adjust the settings, there is a few presets that you can just set with one click of the remote. Then, you can fine tune it off of the basic presets if you desire. I found the "movie" preset needed some color added, but looked great with that one adjustment.
The TV does feature a number of screen formats. The standard wide screen is great for movies, but many TV programs are not in widescreen just yet. So, this TV offers a few different options. Once stretches the TV picture to fit the screen, but makes some objects appear out of round. However, there is another stretch function that alleviates this problem, and everything appears in normal size again. There is also the standard 4:3:4 aspect ratio, which will place black bars on the side of the picture and display the screen as you would normally see it on a standard TV.
But you will definitely need a progressive scan dvd player, which all dvd players now on the market are. However, if you have an older model, you'll need to upgrade to even watch a dvd on this tv (or any other large screen dvd player). The one drawback to this tv is that when you see a persons face taking up the entire screen you can see the pixels and it appears "digitalized" sometimes. Its nothing horrible, and it certainly does not ruin the experience, its just one of those things that the more expensive TV's seem to take care of. I have also been asked about the reflective screen and window glare. I have the tv in front of the windows, so thats not a problem for me, but this screen isnt quite as reflective as some of the other models. I would say its semi-reflective. I am going to turn the tv around to face the windows and see if its still viewable (more on that next week)
All in all, I am very satisfied with this TV. It has all the necessary options for your typical homeowner, and the picture is very good. For the price, I don't think you could go wrong. My thoughts are that plasma's are going to come down in price, so if I have this for 3 years and turn around and sell it, I will have paid a small price for the satisfaction this TV is going to provide. Looking forward to going home and watching some more movies and I don't normally watch movies a second time!

It was finally time for me to buy a new TV. After deciding to go with a big screen TV, I found this Apex 55 inch widescreen tv on amazon.com for $1099.99. The price almost seemed to be too good. I was pretty hesitant about it because of the brand name. I thought about it for about a month, then went ahead and ordered it. Although amazon.com says it usually ships in 24 hours, it took almost a week to ship out. During this time I was almost regretting ordering this tv. The thing was, is that I wanted a tv that was that was going to last me a while. I'm not planing on getting HDTV cable service right now, and I didnt want to watch everything in stretch mode. On the other hand I didnt want to watch it in the standered 4:3 mode because I've read that the black bars can burn into the screen permanently. Before the tv was delivered I was thinking I made a bad choice and thought I should have probably ordered a standard big screen TV.

So almost a week later the delivery company calls me to set up a delivery time. The gave me a two hour window for delivery. On that day they showed up within at that time frame and unloaded the TV out of the truck. They removed all the boxing and my first reaction was, "wow!" It was huge! They moved it into my living room and I hooked it all up. Regular TV looked pretty good. The TV has a few different ways to watch tv. I have mine set on wide zoom. What that does is it cuts a little bit of the picture off of the top and bottem, and zooms in on the picture a bit. That way it fits the whole screen and looks awesome! Later that day I put in the DVD Finding Nemo(as another reviewer did). I have a Toshiba progressive scan DVD player, and the movie was absolutly amazing. I've never seen a TV that looked so clear!

So now its been about four days that I've had this TV, and I couldnt be more happier. Its big, the picture is very clear, and the sound is good. I still havent figured out the PIP yet, I'm still working on that. If I had to be extremely nitpicky the only thing thats kind of annoying is that changing stations are not instant, there is a brief pause while changing stations. But like I said, thats being real nitpicky. If your considering getting this TV, do it. Its way less expensive that almost every other widescreen TV, but looks as good, if not better.

If only it was football season....

If you have any questions about this TV please feel free to email me at: lifeandhowtoliveit@yahoo.com

I was initially very impressed by the image quality. However, as time went on, I first noticed the problem where the image would get distored at the bottom part of the screen. When the Toshiba approved repair technician looked at it, he replace an integrated circuit card. However, after he did that, characters are not getting displayed properly. They look fuzzy (as though you are not wearing your prescription eye glasses). The color and picture quality are excellent. The TV is very heavy and thereore I strongly urge you to buy the in-home service warranty. Trust me you will need this.

Overall, I think that I good have bought a better TV.

This is one great TV I love it. The picture looks great as well especially with component cables and a progressive scan DVD player. This does in fact have bowing issues. I have contacted Toshiba about it and they simply state that it does not occur how's that for customer service? Any who I love this TV. Someone mentioned a diagnostic's mode? How can I use that feature? I want to fix the bowing issues as well because it does get very anoying.

... This Toshiba 36HF72 is Great! The picture quality is astounding, and combined with my surround sound, it's just a great lookin' and soundin' system! ... I'll be plenty happy with this in my front room..... Tim

I purchased a sony 36" XBR in June 2002. Almost after a year, the TV is giving me problems. Sometimes there is no picture, but audio is fine. After waiting for a day or two without turning ON the TV, it would magically turn on and after working for few hours, the picture will vanish but audio is fine.

Its very disgusting to know that after paying a good decent price for a SONY TV, I would have to face such a problem and that too almost in a year of purchase.

TV worked great for first 18 months and now picture goes black after 1 hour of viewing. Warranty is only for 1 year. Can't find tech able to fix it. Really heavy to move too!

I had this TV for about 2 and 1/2 years, and the picture just went blank. The TV shuts itself down after few seconds. I had a local TV repair service take a look at the problem, and he said that I need a new tube. He said he would do it for $1,200. I like the over all picture quality and the design of the TV set, but having the tube last only 2 and 1/2 years is not acceptable. I'm very disappointed at the reliability of Sony TV.

Purchased the Samsung 3096HF 30" widescreen HDTV monitor after MUCH shopping around, reading of customer reviews and comparisons with other models. I knew I wanted an HDTV monitor that could handle HDTV of the future and also would look great with my Yamaha progressive scan DVD player.

It came down to this model and the Samsung 32" that has the exact same features in a 4:3 picture frame. My wife talked me into the widescreen model, and I'm glad she did.

I've had the set up and running for about a week now. You've probably read the initial complaints: too much red push. Well, you're going to get that with just about every HDTV tube monitor out there. You can easily adjust the set to your own preferences in color, sharpness, contrast and brightness. It took me 2 or 3 days of tinkering to get it just right, but finally I'm really happy with the TV's picture.

No, it doesn't look as good as the comparable Sony model. But you're talking about [more $$] for the Sony. To me, it just wasn't worth it. You get a ton of great features in the Samsung ...--HDTV capabilities, 3:2 pulldown processing, a widescreen model. No, it isn't the BEST television on the market, but I assure you it's the best widescreen HDTV set you'll find for under a thousand bucks.

There are one or two little nitpicky complaints I could make about it, but nothing that would keep me from recommending your purchase of this set. Like I said, I've had it for a week and every day I like it more. DVD picture quality is awesome and great in a widescreen mode. Regular TV broadcasts through satellite are also very good; the 4:3 picture is stretched to fit the widescreen but the TV isn't so big that it's noticeable as on larger, rear projection widescreens.

I recommend the set wholeheartedly. If you have two grand to blow, then spend it on a Sony, but if you're on a tight budget like me but you still want high-end features on a direct-view, tube set, this is a good one.

For what it's worth, at [$$] I was told by a guy at one of the retail stores I visited that there was very little markup on it. Don't know if that's true, but thought I'd pass it along...

...and probably the least known. This TV is an unbelievable deal, well worth the price. It is one of the cheapest ways to get into the HDTV market, and you will not regret the leap. It is hard to justify spending [a lot of money] on a digital TV when there are little or no Digital signal sources available, but this price point makes the argument a moot point. Use it to watch progressive scan DVD's in unparalleled quality, or watch digital cable or satelite broadcasts the way they were meant to be watched. You will enjoy this well built TV for many years to come.

A great value!

OK, firstly the bad... Unit has a somewhat clumsy input selection between inputs (have to always go thru AV1,AV2,AV3 to get to Svideo), a non-adjustable and non-stored picture sizing,(wide is good for DVD, panorama stretches edges of 4:3, and 2 fixed zoom modes for letterbox, but unit always defaults to wide), a rather weak NTSV via-air tuner (needed a signal amplifier) and only 1 side mounted S-Video jack is available. These are my ONLY complaints...

Otherwise, for the money, it is the best television I have ever owned. It's not a $4,000 Sony, and I acknowlege that, but it's got a mighty good picture when connected to a progressive scan DVD, or to the satellite via the S-Video input.

Why buy 4:3 when you can have 16:9, and why buy fuzzy and blotchy projection when you can have a sharp and bright direct-view flat CRT?

i purchased the toshiba 65h81 because the picture is the clearest of any tv's i have seen in this price range. if you hook up a progressive-scan dvd player, you won't belive the clarity of the picture. it is better than being at the movies. i recommend saving private ryan to truely see how great a picture this tv delivers. add the toshiba dst3000 for high definiton quality picture, true 1081i. it is unbelievable. the only drawback is that sports on this tv isn't the best, unless it is on hdnet or hd hbo, which cannot be beat.

This is by far the best TV out there. I shopped for several months and even watched others peoples wide screen TV's, like Sony's $5000.00 HD 50 something wide TV and the picture quality was very poor( I'm a very big fan of sony products but not this time) You can't beat the price on this TV. The only draw back is you need a pretty big room for this bad boy.

I did a lot of research before buying this TV. I was bent on buying a Mitsubishi 65" 16:9 until I went to a local Fry's Electronics and had them place the TVs next to each other. The Toshiba had crisper picture with well lit corners and minimal distortions (try watching movie credits roll up to look for distortions in the CRTs, mirrors, etc.)

This TV does not have the bleeding edge stuff like FireWire video, unified A/V control system (e.g., IR transcoding), DLPs, etc, but don't lose focus of why your buying a large screen TV...the large picture. The picture quality is on par with the best of them.

Also, I went out and bought a progressive scan DVD player and compared the picture quality against my old 480p model. The deinterlacing works so well on the Toshiba that I'm having a hard time justifying the purchase. Read this article for more info on 480p and 480i DVD players ...

Bottome line: big bang for the money. Everything you need without having to fund bleeding edge stuff that may never become mainstream. Enjoy.

broke down after 11 months. been waiting over 6 weeks for repair. apex customer service is a joke.

I received my tv on time. It had a nice picture for 2 months and the convergence went out. If you read one of the other reviews, my tv is just like Jons from Los Angeles. The colors are out of whack and distorted and you can never get ahold of Apex because the phone is busy. So I called a repair center and they are coming out here to fix it for free because I have a 1 year warranty. I recommend to stay away from this product.

I think I remember paying $900 + something for this television and thinking it was a great deal for such a large screen. I still feel that way... despite the problems that I have encountered.

Problem #1 - Occasionally, after pressing the power 'ON' button on (either on the unit or the remote) the green light on the front of the TV comes on, but I never get a picture. After pressing the button to turn the television back 'OFF', the little green light on the front just blinks but doesn't turn off and I still have no picture. The first time this occurred it really freaked me out, especially since it was only about 2 weeks old at the time it first happened.

Solution - Unplug the television from the wall, and plug back in. Hit the power button on the remote. Television usually performs fine for a week or so after doing this.

Problem #2 - At random times, the volume goes up a little, or down a little... even though no one is touching the remote control. Very strange, I admit.

Solution - Not known. Deal with it.

Problem #3 - Sometimes the television changes channels on its own, while no one is touching the remote. This occurs very rarely, but I have seen it happen with my own eyes.

Solution - Change the channel back to the one you were originally watching.

Despite these problems, I love this TV. The picture is bright and clear, it has lots of inputs in the back for components, and the sound is actually quite clear with decent bass. Besides, how else would a money-conscious person like myself be able to afford such a HUGE television? Other televisions of the same size cost much more than I paid. The only person that I know who paid less for a similar-sized television bought a damaged Zenith with a huge crack in the screen!

It's no secret that you often get what you pay for, and I believe that I certainly did. But right now I would rather invest the extra $1000 in an IRA, or use it to take a vacation and get away from the TV for a while.