Akai PT4299HD 42-Inch Widescreen HD-Ready Rear-Projection TV

by Akai

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 100 pounds
• Shipping: This item can only be shipped to the 48 contiguous states. We regret it cannot be shipped to APO/FPO, Hawaii, Alaska, or Puerto Rico.
• ASIN: B0002VLVAA
• Item model number: PT4299HD
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #291,694 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Turn your dreams of big-screen sports and lifelike movies into reality with Akai's surprisingly affordable PT4299HD projection TV. This giant, 42-inch set offers a widescreen image perfectly formatted for the latest high-definition broadcasts and your favorite DVD movies. The screen accepts full 1080i HD images from DTV set-top receivers and offers stunning, 15-watts-per-channel stereo sound with BBE sound enhancement.

A progressive-scan converter brings standard interlaced (480i) signals--such as those from VCR, non-progressive DVD players, and other devices--to progressive (480p) resolution. Progressive scanning, referred to as 480p for the number of horizontal lines that compose the video image, creates a picture using twice the scan lines of a conventional picture, giving you higher resolution and sharper images while eliminating nearly all motion artifacts.

The PT4299HD's three-line comb filter enhances resolution by removing blurred edges between colors and reducing dot crawl (tiny, moving dots of color along a sharp color separation in a vertical line, as in a depiction of a character's striped T-shirt).

Connections include 2 HD-capable component-video inputs, and a translucent onscreen display simplifies setup, even when your program is already in progress.

What's in the Box
TV, a remote control, remote batteries, and a user's manual

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sleek, slim, great price!, May 3, 2005

By 

LilOrphan67 "lilorphanannie" (Avon Lake, OH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Akai PT4299HD 42-Inch Widescreen HD-Ready Rear-Projection TV (Electronics)

When the cable guy walked past our nearly decade old Magnavox 27 inch tv and nonchalantly announced its impending demise, it was time to venture into the brave new world of tv technology: crt, plasma dlp, lcd...hearing about all the new "idiot box" advances made me feel like I was on lsd. As if that weren't bad enough, whatever we bought had to fit in the Arhaus armoire (last year's tax purchase) that's only 21 inches deep. Finally, we found the Akai. With its 42 inch screen, it's a big upgrade from the old set, and a nice transition set while waiting for DLP, Plasma and LCD to get lower in price and iron-out the kinks. At $799 through HH Gregg and Circuit City during sales, it's not gonna break the bank, either.

Pluses: fits where others don't, tweaking the factory presets results in a picture quality that rivals its more expensive, big name counterparts, intuitive menus and remote, no glare. Basically a rebadged Samsung, without PIP.

Minuses: none of the traditional necessary inputs for HDTV. If you want to get HD, you'll need a tuner or digital cable box with built-in tuner, no lenticular cover (the lens screen is particularly fragile and needs careful cleaning), should be on matching stand for best light distribution, sound quality requires a home theater set.

But if you're happy with a larger screen that offers crisp, clear, bright and detailed images when using prog scan DVD players or watching channels like HBO that are truly digital, the Akai's not a bad choice. Especially for the technophobic and budget-minded.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Liked it at first, March 16, 2006

By 

Da Riddler (San Antonio, Tx United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Akai PT4299HD 42-Inch Widescreen HD-Ready Rear-Projection TV (Electronics)

I got one just like this at Conn's but it was the 52" model. I was really impressed when I got it home. The HD through the component input is beutiful. But here is what you need to watch out for BURN IN in on the side bars if you watch it in 4:3 mode and I am talking less then 3 months with only occasionally watching it with black bars on the side. Akai put in small print on the front page of their manual that they will not warrent any type of burn in. I did call them anyway and they won't do a thing. If you do buy this TV make sure you always watch in 16:9 mode or you too will get side bar burn in.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great size & excellent HDTV & DVD picture for the price, April 9, 2006

By 

Boss band "Bob" (Worcester, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Akai PT4299HD 42-Inch Widescreen HD-Ready Rear-Projection TV (Electronics)

Looked at Plasmas & LCD's -this Akai has much better contrast and blacks and half the price. It's a rear projection CRT-no bulbs to change like DLP's. If you have the room, it's not bad looking either. Only 21" deep and 89 lbs is not bad compared to large 200lb. direct view CRTs. TV should be at eye level or slightly above and 10 -15' from viewer with low or no lights on for best picture. I put it on a sturdy coffee tabe. Akai was known in past for high quality audio components like reel to reel, may now be made by Samsung. Color saturation & balance was excellent out of box. 4 picture modes are available, I found Custom & Standard best to tweak picture with, I found cutting down on sharpness & contrast got a nicer, smoother picture. Hooked up to Charter HD cable box with monster DVI cables & DVD with component cables- gets excellent HDTV & DVD picture, from side angles as well. Hoping for more HD channels to become available as analog (non HD) picture quality is lousy when in DVI input mode as it has to be in "stretch mode" on cable box to fill the whole screen. These 480 or lower broadcasts show 4:3 black bars on side which worries me for burn in problems. I heard that the first 100 hrs of use are most critical to avoid burn in on RPCRTs. Using the TV as the tuner rather than cable box and using its "panorama" option fixes this better though and significantly improves an analog- source picture to "good." Watching sports or anything else in HD is awesome though as monitor displays 1080 input from most of those. Picture seems to get even better as the TV warms up. Very good remote as well. It's S-Video input is essential for decent VCR use. Kmart is clearing these out now for $810 and a very reasonable extra 2 yr protection plan for 50$. For about $900 total with taxes, combined with my surround sound system ( built in sound from TV is very good, by the way), I have a pretty decent theater in my basement!