8 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
This TV is a pleasure to watch.
Date of Review: Feb 3, 2006
The Bottom Line: Highly recommended. The best picture I have ever seen on a CRT television.
I have owned this television for over a year, and I am still periodically amazed at the picture it is capable of producing. Four factory presets (Movies, Sports, Multimedia, and Weak Signal) provide for a good range of viewing conditions right out of the box, but one of this TV's major strengths is its extensive control set. The controls are responsive, with a wide range and plenty of overhead, so that even old washed-out movie prints from the 1940's, for example, can be made to look surprisingly vivid, saturated and sharp.
The video adjustments, available from the remote, are:
- Brightness (100 visible gradations)
- Picture (aka contrast. This tube is capable of excellent contrast, I set this as high as 90, depending.)
- Sharpness (a little bit goes a long way here)
- Color (aka saturation. This control is sensitive and has saturation to spare. Mine is set at 26.)
- Tint (Red/green skintone balance. Needs +/- 3 at most.)
- Color temperature (Warm/Normal/Cool. Similar response as for color temp settings on quality CRTs.)
- Contrast+ (On/Off. A high contrast mode that makes blacks display really black. Combined with high brightness and low-to-mid sharpness settings, this can generate a superb image from a strong signal, such as from a DVD.)
Brightness, Picture, Sharpness and Color all respond across their entire 0-100 range, which is what makes them so effective. If you are a TV tweaker, you are going to enjoy playing with these controls.
I can't speak too highly of the adaptability of this television to varying broadcast and subject matter quality. My only quibble is that Philips provided just one custom preset in which to store settings. Even with digital cable or satellite, some channels are going to arrive consistently overlit, or too soft, some have poor white balance (e.g. the occasional yellow faces on C-SPAN) and it would be handy to have a preset for each.
AUDIO
This section will be relevant for average, living-room sound levels. If you like to listen at high volumes, your mileage may vary. But for very quiet to medium-loud listening, the audio is quite good. There are a couple of enhancement features for bottom-end bass and stereo depth that make even low level listening sound fine. The controls are somewhat less responsive than those for the video, but that's to be expected from small, built-in speakers of any stripe.
All audio controls are accessible from the remote:
- Treble (Boost this if you have carpet. Seriously, turn it all the way up and then back it off until it sounds good. You might be surprised.)
- Bass (Turn the UltraBass on first, then adjust this one to fill in the higher bottom end.)
- Ultra-Bass (Boosts the extreme bottom end, even at low volumes. Adds depth to the sound. I leave it mostly On.)
- AVL (a compressor/limiter function that "evens out" the audio levels, so, for example, when a commercial comes on, it doesn't blast you with a sudden increase in volume. It's better to turn this off when watching a DVD so that the original dynamic range is preserved.)
- Standard Stereo vs. Incredible Surround (Yes that is a cheesy name but it does literally add dimension to the normal stereo signal. A subtle effect, but definitely widens the audio.)
- Standard Mono vs. Spatial Mono (Spatial Mono is a simulated stereo signal derived from the straight mono. Hard to describe the effect here, but sometimes I will intentionally switch to Spatial Mono to make voices and dialogue stand out if the incoming audio is muddy or poorly mixed. Works like a charm.)
The audio has 4 presets: Voice, Music, Theater, and Custom. The first three are useable general-purpose factory settings, but as with the video, if you want to make this TV really shine, take command of those controls. It's worth it on this unit.
SURFING EFFICIENCY QUOTIENT
Another useful feature is what Philips calls QuadraSurf. Basically that means four dedicated buttons that you can set up to go directly to any single channel or to cycle through any combination of channels, which are easily added or subtracted from any one of these four buttons, as you surf.
For example, my remote currently has two weather channels on the yellow button, Sci-Fi and Discovery on the green button, and the TV Guide channel on the blue button, which leaves one button to spare, for temporary setups. A very convenient feature that I use constantly. Too bad there aren't 8 of these handy surf buttons instead of 4, but then they'd have to call it "OctaSurf", which doesn't have quite the ring, and plus sounds a bit dangerous.
MISCELLANEOUS
Another reviewer mentioned the sproing sound that this TV makes when powered up. Mine does that too. It's apparently normal, and actually I rather like it, it's an interesting sound. My old Zenith made a similar power-up noise, as does my Dell CRT, albeit much softer. So don't worry, this is just the Philips saying, "I Am Waking Up and I Am Strong."
As with any electronic device, I would recommend buying locally if possible, for easy exchange, as Philips probably has the usual quality-control "issues" of every other giant tech manufacturer. What else can be expected from random spot-checking? TV's really should be left powered on, each and every unit, for several days before ever leaving the factory. Now that would be quality control.
Ah yes, I almost forgot .. my girlfriend just reminded me to include this fun fact in the review: there is one button on the remote that seems to have no function whatsoever. You press it, and the LED on the TV blinks once, but that's it. We call it the "Omega 13" button. (Those of you who have seen that excellent movie Galaxy Quest, will know what I mean.)
IN CONCLUSION
If you like good TV and need a mid-size flat screen for bedroom or living room, you're not going to find a better one for under $200. Buy it now and enjoy!
