Customer Reviews
great TV for a good price 
2008-06-09
great TV with very good resolution (must have blu-ray player, blu-ray disk, correct HDMI cable) 1080p; price was reasonable.
Awesome HDTV! 
2008-06-03
Pros: Stelthy sleek styling, Vivid picture quality, 4 1.3 HDMI ports, Low power consumption.
Cons: Speakers can use some help, Remote control is very basic
I 'm very happy with my purchase of this Eco HDTV. It has some great features & uses less power than any HDTV in its class today. The images look crystal clear while watching DVD's & TV. Playing games on the Xbox 360 is a blast! Can't wait to see what the PS3 looks like! This 42" runs extremely cool too! It doesn't create heat like most others do it its class.
Great TV, great price. 2008-07-06
We did a bunch of research before buying this TV, and to be honest, the eco-tv power-saving features were the factor that closed the deal for us. I figured that we'd trade a little picture quality for the savings in power, but that it would be worth it in the end.
I was wrong! The picture quality is terrific, even with the power-saving mode turned on. The main difference is that without the power-saving mode on, the set is extremely bright. With the power-saving mode on, the set has a normal brightness level. As far as I can tell, the power-saving picture is at least as good as the regular picture on any similarly priced LCD that I was able to see.
I use the set for gaming (xbox 360), and have been very pleased with the performance so far. I haven't used the speakers, so I can't comment on them.
The pricing seemed very reasonable to me, and the TV works great. Save money, great picture, help the planet-- why not? I'd buy it again in an instant.
WOW 2008-07-04
I have never taken time to write a review before, but after getting this TV I had to. I have shopped TVs for 2 months before buying this and I'm glad I did. The picture is amazing. I hooked it up to my digital cable box that is not HDTV and thought Wow great picture, but when I played a DVD on my 1080 upconvert player through HDMI I was speechless. Its like looking trough a window. The sound is good from TV but through a tuner its incredible. As a matter of fact I just ordered a new 7.1 tuner to really do it justice. In my opinion it is a great TV at a great price. And with a name like Philips you know it is a quality product with outstanding support. Several years ago I had a Philips TV stop working after only 2 months. I called the 800 number and they had it picked up the next day. As it turned out, even though it was hit by lightning, they covered parts and labor 100% - even overnighted parts and I had the set back in 3 days. Made a believer out of me - (also taught me to make sure surge suppressors are properly grounded). 18 years later and the repaired set still works - my nephew has it in his dorm room.
TV was delivered a day earlier than their shipping estimate. Amazon Delivery driver called 3 times to schedule delivery and to let me know where he was so I didn't have to hang around all day waiting. He was very courteous and helpfull, unpacked TV and helped me hook up cables Etc. I will not hesitate to buy anything from Amazon ever again.
great TV 2008-06-30
Everyone that I know has a samsung, so I wasn't sure about this product. I finally decided to buy it and I don't regret it at all. The TV looks great with the plastic frame and sounds even better. For the price I think it is the best TV out there. It has a lot of different features that most TV's don't have. Overall you will not be disappointed in your decision to buy this awsome TV.
Excellent picture quality and very power efficient!! 2008-06-29
This tv is amazing, it picked up my HD channels right away and the picture quality is very impressive! We've been watching so many movies and it's been such a treat. The sound on the TV isn't all that bad either, it was a big improvement compared to our older CRT tv... but for movies we have sound coming from a receiver/theater speakers.
I connected my killowatt meter to measure the consumption in power saving mode and sure enough, it consumes between 65watts to 75watts. I looked at CNET's charts that compared power consumption and this beat all other LCD's and Plasma's by a HUGE margin in power consumption (even screens that are much smaller than this). I didn't notice the picture quality go down w/ the power saving mode, it just got slightly dimmer.
The video processing features are nice too, though I disabled the natural motion option (it made movies have a weird appearance to me, kind of like a reality show... hard to describe).
I definitely would recommend this 42PFL5603D LCD TV.
Here's the average power consumption details that I tested for each TV mode (mine is usually set to Power Save):
Power Saving Mode = 72 watts
Sports = 227 watts
Standard = 140 watts
Movie = 140 watts
Game = 210 watts
Solid LCD for the price 2008-06-13
I had done a considerable amount of research before I purchased the Phillips 42 and I have to say I am quite pleased with my choice. I have owned the TV for about a month now and here are some of my findings. Hope this helps.
After reading a few conflicting spec reports, the Phillips 42 does in fact have a 5ms seek time. Some sites you will see have it listed at 8ms but this is incorrect. The 5ms is amazing when watching sports or playing games. There are roughly no 'trails' or inconsistent images.
The trim around the TV does not glow or light up as some earlier reports suggested (before the release)
Software like the 3D engine and HD Natural Motion is very stable and looks great when watching HD content. Infact it takes a bit to get used to it, being that image panning is very very smooth.
Software like Dynamic Contrast and Active Control were kind of useless to me because when these features are active you can actually see the screen adjusting. It seemed annoying to me and at first and I thought there was something wrong with the set. However they are easily defeated (turned off) and it worked fine after the adjustment was made.
The software also gives you a setup assistant feature which quickly walks through the setting up of the color. It shows you different split screens and asks your opinion on which looks better. After a few of these are answered the TV automatically adjusts itself according to your choices. I think this is a nice feature for those who do not like to 'tweak settings' over and over again. The picture was close to perfect in my opinion after running the setup assistant.
If you are not planning on mounting the set to a wall the stand is very cool. It allows you to 'swivel' the TV up to about 30ยบ in either direction. My TV is located in the middle of the room however my couch is off to the right side. So having the ability to rotate the TV so that I am looking at it in direct line of site is very handy especially when playing games! :)
Fit and finish of the Phillips is superb and as the marketing swill says, it really does look great in any room. My wife was concerned that it was too big for our space however once it was set up she really enjoyed the sleek and subtle design features.
The Remote is pretty basic and cannot be programmed for other devices. I also found that off axis operation (when not pointing directly at the TV) causes inconsistent results. My sense is the remote does not send out a high enough powered IR signal because the issue goes away when I use my logitech universal remote.
As far as power consumption goes, all I can attest to is the fact that it does not get very hot which leads me to believe the power levels are clean however it is hard to tell without proper test equipment. There is a 'powersaver' mode which drastically ramps down the contrast and is only really good in a very dark room. I rarely use this as I prefer my color settings. Even the lower contrast one I created for 'movie mode' still performs better then the preset powersave mode.
Overall quality of the sound is pretty good and in my opinion completely adequate for most situations and/or users. I used the TV for over 2 weeks before setting up my surround sound system and never felt I was missing out. The speakers are not terribly loud so if you are someone who is looking for that full movie experience with explosions so real the cops are called, well, then you will definitely want to invest in a 5.1 or 7.1 surround system. The built-in subwoofers are rear firing so you may want to be careful about judging the resonance in the next room if the rooms share a wall or if you share a wall with a neighbor. The subs don't have too much power so in most cases it should be fine but should be considered.
Amount of Inputs are great. It has 3 HDMI, 2 component and 2 composite. It even has a USB port so you can plug in portable media and display photos and things however I have not used this feature. The only thing I wish is if it had a Digital or Optical sound in but I am sure Phillips felt if you needed that kind of quality you would use it with a Surround System.
Overall a great TV and solid buy for the money. Hope this helped. Good luck!
