HDTV Reviews

My Philips 15PF9936 15" LCD TV is a dud. The screen worked for a brief time before dying on me. It's electric board was replaced and it worked beautifully for a whole twelve hours before blacking out and dying once more - I had good enough sound but no picture. Perhaps someone should inform Philips that Tvs are for viewing as well as listening. I am seeking a refund. I will not buy a Philips set again.

I bought and returned two samples of this set due to a failed screen. This occured in both sets after only two weeks of use. They are made in China and quality control is nonexistent. I bought the set because of the great features and it did have a good picture (while it worked) especially with Progressive DVD. This was my first purchase of a Philips TV and will be my last. After the second return, I purchased a Panasonic 14" and have had no trouble. The Panasonic has much higher quality of construction (made in Japan) and is very reliable.

I purchased my Phillips thru Amazon and got the same set made in China that others have had problems with. I picked the set because of its compact size for a kitchen countertop. It has been a flawless performer and the picture is first rate. Others who have seen this set operate have purchased similar sets with no issues. While this is my first Philips set it will not be my last. Besides, try to find electronics not made in China or Taiwan these days!

I decided to try the Zenith model when we replaced our Sony - not because it wasn't working fine, but because it could not handle our newer "accessories." I did not check this review site but saw this model in the store and liked the quality. This Zenith lasted six months and one day would not turn on. Was then in the shop for 3 months while they replaced the entire board. Now is back, but not the same. With an expensive antennae system, the TV cannot pick up local channels not offered through cable. The old Sony has no problem receiving them. ...local[store] has been horrible to deal with, the only thing that saved us was the corporate office after working hard to find someone there. The 1 star rating I found here is appropriate.

Nice Tv except if you plan on playing a DVD using the component video inputs and your surround sound receiver. There is a delay in the video. Its like your watching and old Bruce Lee movie the lips move then you here the sound. It is most noticable when you use the TV speakers and your surround system at the same time. There is an echo first the sound goes through the TV then your system. I did this by accident the first time its pretty weird. There doesn't seem to be a problem when using the s-video input. Maybe a slight delay. This TV is fine if you plan on using the TVs speakers only. I asked Zenith about this problem and there very vague answer was "Thank you for your e-mail. That's a compatible problem between the unit and the surround sound". Be careful Home theater buffs.

I just bought this tv, C36V23 yesterday, and I must say I am more than happy with it. I shopped around for several weeks, looking at all kinds and brands, LCD, Plazma, Flat Screen, HDTV ready, integrated etc.. First of all, I must say that I hardly ever stray from Sony when it comes to TV's infact this is my first non-Sony tv and I am very happy with it. It comes with the HDTV tuner built right in, which is a nice feature, it picks up off-air digital channels and hdtv broadcasts beautifully, regular analog cable isnt the best quality picture, but that is expected and normal on all tv's. I cant wait to get digital cable or directv, I couldnt imagin all my chanels being as clear as the off air ones that i get now. It is very easy to use, i figured out and set it up in no time without even looking at the manual. I like the look of Sony's on screen display a little better, but the Zenith is very nice also and all in all had the same features if not a little more actually, it had an excellent picture and great style. I haven't experienced the delay problem the other writer mentioned in the audio and I do use component video cables with my progressive scan dvd and it sound and looks fantastic. Overall, I would reccomend this tv to anyone who wants a great package deal, easy to use and if you shop around, you can't beat the price for the quality.

I purchased a Zenith r50z26 new and the TV was stuck in HDTV and could not choose standard or DVD format. I called Zenith and I was very rudely told to call a local TV repair shop. I did so to find out the local TV shop that Zenith recommended knew nothing about HDTV's. I called Zenith back and was referred to another local TV shop. The repair man came out and said there was a bad chip in the TV that they had to take it to the shop to be fixed. It has now been 2 weeks and the repair man told me it should be 7 to 10 days. The repair shop still can not fix the TV. So I called Zenith back to ask how long I would have to wait and I was told "You have to wait as long as it takes" I replied "Why do you customers get such poor service" and I was hung up on.

BEWARE
G .GILL
(VERY UNHAPPY)

I was very tempted to buy this unit, almost clicking the "Add to Cart" button, when I noticed the reviewers had listed it as 1 star. Quickly reading the review posted by a very helpful purchaser, I decided not to buy this unit. Now back to the drawing board!

Excellent TV Never thought a projection TV could be so clear. I use a S-Video cable for our DVD and Cable box. The picture is awesome. When friends see the TV they can't believe it's a projection monitor either. Set up is easy and with the rollers anyone can move the TV.

I don't know whay happened to the other owner of this TV but I've had nothing but good luck when talking with Zenith.

5 stars for this baby :)

The picture displayed is an X1 and not an X2 the X1 is a different projector. The lumens for the X1 is 1100

There is no Faroudja DCDi processing in this new device. So please change your information about the machine.

I bought this TV directly from Panasonic. Got a great deal, the picture is sharp although there is some shadowing I can't get rid of completely.

I would not recommend this TV however. I have owned my TV for 11 weeks and it has not worked for 6 weeks of that time. It has spent more time being repaired than it has working. The TV has had multiple failures and Panasonic refuses to replace it. They want to continue fixing my current, obviously seriously flawed TV. At a very slow pace might I add. Panasonic customer service has been horrible, I would not recommend this TV or any Panasonic TV to anyone.

The picture quality of this TV is excellent and the tv is cheaper compared to the similar version of Sony. I bought the first same TV from circuit city and bought the second one from amazon.It has been 10 days and amazon has not shipped my order.

When it worked it was fine. But when it comes to use the warrenty you are up sh** creek. I had this TV for less then a month and the tube went out. I called customer service and that's where the nightmare started. I could not understand the Indian staff but it will take over a month to fix his TV. It would have been cheaper to send me a new one (even the repair man said that)$200 for a new tube plus $60 hr labor for 5hrs, which includes field diagnose then pick up and return then the for the total cost of $540. The tv is only worth 3
$350 at best buy. Plus you dont have a tv for a month.

Going back to Sony!!!!!

Ive been very happy with my 563S t.v. Although its not high def. I still have a fantastic picture thru my "s" video connection. Colors are bright and well seperated and the 32' screen is just right for my room. It has composite, "s" viedo and componet conections for dvd and such. It also has front a.v. inputs for games or a camcorder. The internal menu can be adjusted to quite a few settings and the t.v. has four pre-set modes for certin things like movies or sports. Although its sound settings can be adjusted. I recomend playing movies and such through your home theater. I have digital cable and the picture is just so clear I really cant belive it. The remote is just a standard deal it controls two other devices. The design of the screen gives you the feeling that the screen is flat, especially when viewing staight on. Quite a nice analog set. Recommended.

First the good:
-the picture quality is good, the colors are rich.

Now the bad:
-the speakers produce distortion
-you cannot save settings associated with different inputs. This means every time you switch from one type of feed to another (watching a movie on DVD to watching regular TV via the satellite), you have to change the relevant settings. This gets to be time consuming and tiresome.

Now the unacceptable:
From the day I purchased this TV I have had sound synching problems. Sometimes the sound is off by as much as a second. My experience with Toshiba Customer support is very similar to the experience other reviewers have had: Toshiba tech support arranged for a local shop to examine the TV. They reported the problem to Toshiba and nothing has happened. I have had the TV almost two months now. Worse is, every time I call Toshiba to check the status, they cannot tell me anything, not even when they expect to repair or replace the TV.

My hoped for outcome from this will be that I will be able to return the TV and I will then purchase another brand, probably the highly rated Panasonic TH-42PA20U

We loved this TV for one month. Then a bright red line appeared from the top of the screen to the middle. Toshiba tech support arranged for a local shop to examine the tv. The repairmen determined that the line was from a failed circuit board. They said this "happens all the time" on Toshiba plasmas, something I never noticed in doing my due diligence on this product before I bought it. So here is a warning for anyone thinking about buying this or any other Toshiba plasma. Try another brand! By the way, since Amazon refuses to accept returns on any large tv, if you buy a lemon (like I did), you could lose thousands of dollars. You should not even consider ordering a large tv from Amazon. JUNE 11 UPDATE: after waiting 2 weeks for a service call and another 6 weeks for Toshiba to get the parts to the repair shop, the repair crew was unable to fix the problem. Toshiba now says it will send me a new set, but they can't say when this will happen. JUNE 16 UPDATE: Although Toshiba promised on June 11 to promptly replace my defective tv, today it said it had no idea when this might happen. Meanwhile, we have an unwatchable tv. For $5000, I expected customer service to be considerably better than this! Don't make the same mistake, buy any plasma tv other than a Toshiba. JULY 7 UPDATE: Finally, we have a new plasma tv and are rid of the old one. We should be glad, but we're terrified about having to deal with Toshiba's terrible customer service if the new one is defective, too.

I have looked at all the HDTV Plasma in 42". This is the best model out there. The picture looks crystal clear, the colors look natural, and the image is very bright. J&R has this model next to the more expensive Sony Wega Plasma. If you have seen those two TV's side-by-side, you wouldn't pay $1000 more for the Sony Wega model.

The furniture company delivered the television to me, and not one hour later, the television had mysteriously developed a dark band running vertically down the right-hand side of the screen. This was not always noticeable, depending on what the on-screen display was, but against bright colors (the sky, etc.) it showed up as a yellow stripe. This did not improve "The Matrix," it just made it seem as though Neo occasionally was jaundiced. As if this wasn't bad enough, the quality of the image itself was poor. I would describe it as out-of-focus and as grainy. My DVDs looked like VHS tapes on this television. In fact, they look better on my old 27", non-HD, non-projection Zenith, and when the furniture company came to retrieve this Samsung turkey from my house, I told them my old set would be just fine.

Don't waste your money on this one.

I love the look of this TV and it fit perfectly in my living room but after trying twice, I'm scared of getting that third one. The first one worked for four days and then started flickering. Then it just went blue (no cable signal) but the dvd worked fine. I got the second one and it didn't even turn on. I did notice a faint burning smell for a few seconds... I must now decide if I should go with the third. I think the previous reviews have convinced me not to. Better go with another brand!

I bought the 4216 (platinum) in November and have had nothing but problems. Delivery driver unpacked TV only to power up with no picture. Amazon would not allow me to return TV and made me call Samsung for warranty repair. I would think twice about buying on-line for this reason. 1st warranty company came out to repair and had to take TV to shop and replace tuner. Returned TV and regular picture looked fine, but HDTV was blurred. 1st warranty company would not come out to adjust, so I had to call 2nd company and they came out and adjusted lines. It is now May and TV just popped and fizzed and now no sound or functionality. 3rd repair service in less than 6 months. I too heard Samsung had improved their products, but I do not see it. The picture is great when it is working, but for this $$$ I would go with the Mitsubishi if I could do it over again.

Monster Cable makes a lot of great cables. I think they are most known for their stereo cabling which is of much higher gauge than generic speaker cables, and they have great cables for the RCA in and out jacks as well. These are all ANALOG signals, and the extra quality can (and does) make a huge difference.

On a digital connection, ambient interference is automatically filtered out. I don't own this item, but had to say I did in order to write a review. Cheap IEEE1394 cables are just as good. If you want to line the pockets of Monster Cable, replace that junky speaker cable you bought at Radio Shack!

I have just returned the Monster IEEE cable [...] after comparing it side by side with an inexpensive [...] cable. It is all marketing hype as far as IEEE link is concerned. {The less expensive} cable worked as good as the Monster Low Noise, Gas injected etc. cable. So do yourself a favor save some money.

Do not be fool by marketing and pay 4x more for the same result. Monster Cables are great for all ANALOG signals. You do not need gold connectors for DIGITAL data. A $10 cable will do exactly the same. Do not worry about noise on a 6-foot wire unless you are planning to loop this on a high voltage power wire. Technology is moving away from Monster Cable.

I promised an update. Still no TV. The customer service is atrocious. My credit card company is now trying to help me out with this problem. Buyer beware.....Amazon beware. This product/company is far to poor to be sold on this web site. I have never had a problem with Amazon. They are always curteous and genuinely want to help. Philips is full of rhetoric and B.S. No responses to e-mails, a dozen phone calls, and still no action. Next stop.......Better Business Bureau.

P.S.

Stay tuned

Like the 2 reviewers before me, I too had this set delivered, hooked it up and tried to turn it on and NOTHING! I started to freak out and was plugging and unplugging the set, pushing the remote buttons and the on off button on the TV to no avail until finally, out of a sheer desperation, I started to play with the manual channel/volume control disc on the top of the set while I puhed the on off button repeatedly and although I don't know what the magic combination of channel up, volume down, on/off button was, it suddenly came to life! The power light illuminated, the screen lit up, a picture appeared and I half expected an angel to fly out of the back end! Ever since, I've never had a problem turning it on or off and I think the reason is that this TV has about 5 "channel inputs" in the back, (DVD, Cable, VCR, HDTV etc) and I think that initially, the set was "stuck" on one of those channel inputs instead of the TV input and only manually changing the channel with the power cycled it through the inputs and "revived it" (The reason I think this is that now, when I turn it on, there is a 10 - 12 second delay before a channel/picture comes in because the TV is cycling through the different inputs internally determining which input you have currently selected.)

Now that the TV was on, and the cable was working I plugged in my Progressive scan DVD player to the back HDTV input with such excitement, anticipating the amazing HDTV image that was about to be the projected in my humble living room, awaiting the Ooohs and Ahhhs of my friends as they oogled the depth, color and clarity that is HDTV. I switched the TV channel to HDTV input, powered up the DVD and hit the play button...

The TV, now in 16:9 HDTV mode with black bars superimposed on top and bottom of the screen to simulate the widescreen experience (a mandatory sizing of the HDTV channel) began to show a crystal clear picture of high definition perfection, like the light of the pearly gates of Heaven, true HDTV started emanating from my TV screen. I gazed upon it with joy and amazement until my utter excitement was marred by a strange 1/2 inch purple and white dotted line which appeared across the top of the film image right at the upper black bar.

I adjusted the picture, DVD player, tried another disc, repowered on and off, channeled through the inputs, rechecked the monster cables, nothing would obliterate that strange, eery, pulsating purple and white demon light across my screen.

I called the Philips customer support and after speaking with many unknowledgable buffoons, I finally reached the HDTV genius who told me, "Oh yes, that happens due to the additional data tracks stored on most DVD's. It's normal for this TV to read the data track as light images and project them onto the edge of the screen between the image and the black bar on top due to the additional lines in HDTV projection. No need to return it for repair!"

I could not return the TV to Amazon, Philips told me it was normal (in their later manuals, they actually include a microscopic note on page 70 something about the mysterious HDTV light-line and that it is "normal" for this set.) (If that is normal, I'm afraid to see abnormal...) I myself, found the HDTV channel unwatchable with that horrid line, so have since, hooked the DVD player up to the regular component input on the back of the set and watch TV in regular definition. The picture and sound are perfectly clear, just not HDTV and for the $999 I paid for HDTV, I could have bought a regular Philips 27" TV for $379. Alas, I chose to just eat my losses and deal with this TV for a few years until i decide to replace it with a widescreen or LCD/Plasma TV. Until then, I shall try to remember the few brief moments of heavenly HDTV purity I viewed before the devil line took it all away...;8^)

I really can't understand how you got a tv dead out of the box and even made an attempt to repair it. That sounds fishy to me. Ok, so their service sucks. Everyone is aware now.

On the actual tv. I bought this as an open box buy so I saw my same tv working in the store. The picture is superb and you can plug a computer into the tv also via the vga input on the back. If you are buying this as a bedroom tv, the sound is really amazing and does a good job of simulating spaciousness.

Whether or not its worth the high price I'm not sure but its defintely worth the open box price I got it for.