Philips 42PFL7432D/37

Philips 42PFL7432D/37

42PFL7432D/37 Review, by Lincoln Spector September 20, 2007

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• Reviewed by: ewalton1st

  Strengths: Clear Picture, loved the ambient lights while they lasted

  Weaknesses: poor customer support, when replacing newly purchased TV Philips will send a refurbished unit that will barly last past the original warrentee

  Overall: I purchased a 42inch Philips from Circuit City in March of 2007. In September it had issues with blue speckles in the upper corners. After talking to philips customer support they determined that it was a defective unit and shipped a replacement, (I found out today that the replacement was a refurbished unit). The power supply on the replacement unit has gone out one month past the original purchase date. Philips is telling me that there is nothing they can do, and referred me to an authorized repair shop. The repair shop quoted $600 or more to repair, if he can get the repair parts. This unit is built by Samsung not Philips, so repair parts are being used to build new units not repair broken ones. I spent alot of money to watch T.V. for one year. Don?t buy Philips they don?t stand behind their product, and will bait and switch with replacements during the warrantee time.

• Reviewed by: metalcoat

  Strengths: Clear picture, great warranty support, Ambilight, Case is a good looking polished black surface with glass polished stand.

  Weaknesses: No optical out (digital coaxial). HDMI 1.2a (not 1.3) Loose cable from control board to panel, but technician came within 3 days and fixed it

  Overall: A quick comment, Ambilight is not for everyone and can be turned off with the hit of one button on the remote. 3 HDMI ports work well with a Xbox 360, Cable Box, Dvd upscale.

• Reviewed by: navigatoris

  Strengths: Ambilight feature is awesome.

  Weaknesses: Sluggish settings menu, delay switching channels

  Overall: I have this TV for two weeks now, I set it up on its stand on my room and it looks great specially when watching shows at night, it has two different bulbs to the side on the back, that can display two different colors depending on the color of the edges of the picture you are watching. I found the TV a little bit heavy, and the box is thick. However, it all fit in my Ford Focus backseat. If you watch a lot of action movies or sports, I recommend getting a Plasma instead as it gets blurry on fast movements. Still is 5 response time and 8000:1 Dinamic contrast ratio but my best friends Sharp 42" 64U looks better than mine, picture wise. Overall, a good buy if you get a deal. I got mine on sale.

• Reviewed by: klrdude

  Strengths: Picture quality, Inputs, Size, Ambilight, Finish, Sound, Software update

  Weaknesses: Menus, Buzzing, Heavy, Remote delay, Component inputs location

  Overall: I purchased the Philips 42PFL7432D/37 in October of 2007 from Sears. As others have said, I spent a LOT of time researching this TV which was a replacement for a LG 1080P set that the audio fried on in the first 10 minutes of operation.I will expand upon each of the strengths and weaknesses I noted above.------------------------Strengths-------------------------- - Picture Quality - Overall picture quality of this set is very good. The longer you have the set the more you start to understand the old garbage in, garbage out saying. If you feed this TV a high quality source you will get a high quality picture. The over the air picture can vary from great to so-so and even the same networks can get it right on some shows and screw it up on the next. The good news is that it should only get better as the broadcast network engineers figure out their new equipment. The picture as delivered by HD-DVD is really great in my limited experience. Side note, I encourage you to look at the Toshiba A3 HD-DVD player even if you don't intend to buy HD-DVD movies long term. It does such a great job of up-converting regular DVDs with this set and is very inexpensive. Computer images also look very good. - HDMI Inputs - Not a lot to say here other than I am happy to have three HDMI inputs versus the two that are included on some other sets. - Size - You wouldn't think that you would notice the difference between a 42" and 40" panel (as used by Sony/Samsung) but you do. - Ambilight - The Ambilight feature is one of those things that you just become attached to. I had purchased a Samsung 42" 1080P LCD at the same time I had the Philips and although I could have have kept either for about the same price I chose the Philips. It was the main factor as to why my wife wanted to keep the Philips as well. - Finish - I consider the fact that only the rectangular border of front bezel is gloss black a big plus. The reason being that gloss black plastic is EXTREMELY easy to scratch and it is nice to have somewhere to put your hands when attaching/removing the set from the wall. While the all gloss of the Samsung I had was slightly more classy, I can't imagine how scratched up it would be by now. - Sound - Some (not necessarily on Pricegrabber) have commented that the sound is not that great. I think it has very good sound considering how small the speakers are. - Software update through USB - This is definitely a big plus and has already improved performance of the set in a few areas.----------------------Weaknesses--------------------------- - Menus - Note, menu functionality is very good but I have to admit that I am a fan of the transparent menus I have seen on the Sony's and Samsung's. I guess you can't have it all. - Buzzing - There is a relatively low level buzzing that I can hear when the volume is at low settings. It really bugged me at first but hardly does now (note, my wife could never hear it). It is my understanding that this did not occur on all sets but should be fixed on any set built 11/2007 or later. Another note ; the Samsung also had a buzzing though I believe it was not quite as noticeable. - Heavy - This set is definitely heaver than some others out there. Don't get me wrong, it is not "Plasma heavy" but it is definitely on the heavy end for an LCD. - Remote Delay - There is a delay of approximately 30-40 seconds after you start the set that some remote functions just won't work (i.e. volume). It is my understanding that the delay has been reduced to something much more reasonable in all new sets and is something that I will likely get fixed under warranty. For reference, it is related to the IR receiver in the TV, not the IR emitter in the remote. - Component Inputs Location - Don't think that it is going to be easy to plug component/svideo cables into this set after it is mounted on the wall. The challenge is due to the component/svideo jacks being perpendicular (strait out) the back of the set. You can still use the side jacks if you just need to hook up something for short term viewing. FYI, the HDMI jacks are easy to connect when the set is wall mounted as they are in a recess in the bottom of the set pointing down. You really should use HDMI anyway.

• Reviewed by: joeynation

  Strengths: Great picture quality, 3 HDMI ports, easy to mount

  Weaknesses: Had to have warranty work right away to tune up display

  Overall: I spent quite a few hours reading about 42" 1080p LCDs and I decided on this one because of the satisfaction many owners who posted about it had. I got color settings from AVSforum.com and my picture and colors are perfect after I made a couple slight changes to my preference. Having 3 HDMI ports is great because my satellite box and upconverting dvd player will take up 2 of them right off the bat. The only negative part of my experience was a slight egg shaped discoloration in the middle of the screen whenever the scene was deep black. The egg shaped discoloration appeared a lighter shade of black. I had to call Phillips, and they had an independent service company come to my house. They had to take the tv back to their shop and it turned out that it just needed some type of tune up which was covered by the warranty. So I had to go without the tv for 6 days. I'm told this is a very rare occurance, but even if I knew I was going to end up with it, I'd buy this lcd again. There are so many options and opinions on tons of things having to do with lcds. I just wanted to get a quality set with great picture quality, so I focused my research there. In hindsight, I'm extremely happy with my strategy and choice.