Customer Reviews

Philips 32PF7320A 32-Inch Widescreen Flat-Panel LCD HDTV

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Just picked up the TV and set it up in the bedroom. We have not been able to pull ourselves away. It is amazing. I'm referring to HD broadcasts only. I was able to compare the Sharp Aquos and the Philips side-by-side at Costco. They both look amazing. Because of the millions of dollars Sharp has spent on the advertising campaign for the Aquos line many people are convinced that the Aquos is superior in every way. In many respects this is true. However if you compare specs on this Philips set with the similarly priced 32-inch Aquos you will see they are virtually identical. In fact this one is slightly brighter (according to the luminence ratio). The contrast ratios are the same.
The deciding factor over the similar Sharp TV was the fact that the Philips set has Cable-Card plug-n-play access. Meaning you don't need the bulky HD cable box from the cable company. Simply slide in a cable-card which de-scrambles the signals and allows them to be broadcast by the built-in HD tuner. The comparitive Aquos has no built-in tuner. 2 HDMI inputs on this one. Sharp has only 1. USB port on this one for pics, MP3's, etc. Sharp has none.
The Aquos line by Sharp have beautiful pictures. I just couldn't justify spending the same amount of money on the same sized Aquos and getting less features or spending considerably more money on a more fuller-featured Aquos to match what this Philips set offers.
All-in-all my only complaint is that the picture is so stunning that I find myself watching things I would have never considered watching before just because they look so damned great.
A smart Purchase at Costco for $1499.00. And Costco has a 100% satisfaction gaurantee that is not limited to just 30 days. You could actually bring in the set 6 months later for a full refund should you so desire. They are serious about the 100% satisfaction. Although, once you get this unit set-up, I doubt you'll want to part with it.

I spent months comparing 32" flat-panel television sets. I went to stores where I could watch them side by side, watched prices fall, and knew that no matter what I bought, a month later I'd find something better or the same thing cheaper. For now, though, I'm happy.

The Philips TV has, in my opinion, about as nice a picture as the Sony and Sharp sets of the same size. That's a subjective judgement - I slightly prefer the Aquos, my father the Philips, my wife and my mom can't tell the difference or don't care. The picture is sharp, the colors vivid, the blacks black. The picture is clear and bright from just about every angle possible in my living room. DVDs look beautiful on this TV. The sound is very good, though I intend eventually to run it through my sound system.

Set up was easy; ports are well-marked and logically arranged. The stand goes on easily and is sturdy. The remote is nicely layed out, feels solid, and is responsive. The set includes an HDTV tuner, while most other sets in its size and price-range are only HDTV ready and require a box.

I looked seriously at buying a Syntax Olevia; it gets some very good ratings on Amazon and the price is lower than the price for other 32" sets. I didn't think the Olevia's picture was as good as the Philips' when I looked at it in a store, and it didn't have the variety of ports available on the Philips. I played with an Olevia remote and hated it. What really decided me against it, though, was the large number of people who have complained about customer service at Syntax and their slowness to honor rebates. For the price, though, it's a tempting alternative to better known brands.

My only complaints about the Philips are a poor hard-copy manual (bad even by the low standard I've come to expect from consumer electronics manufacturers; I hate the trend to putting manuals on CD or on-line) and the lag between hitting the "on" button and getting a picture. It's not much longer than the lag I've noticed on other flat-panel sets, but I do notice it. The stand doesn't turn as smoothly as I'd like; when I get to the end of its range of motion I don't feel it. I keep turning the thing and have left some rotation scuffs on the table it sits on. I'll have to put it on a piece of felt.

Over all I'm very pleased with this TV. My parents have a very large Pioneer plasma display in their living room, and I think mine looks better when the signal isn't HD (partly a function of my set being smaller). My father has decided to go with a Philips LCD to replace the TV in their bedroom.

P.S. I wrote this review about three months ago. Since then, my parents have bought the same TV and we're all happy with it. I've noticed a couple of small things that bother me - as you enter numbers onto the remote for another channel, they show up in very small green characters on the screen and are often difficult to read; also, as another reviewer noted, there's no volume indication on the screen when you change volume.

On the plus side, I bought a Samsung DVD player with HDMI output. HDMI was no improvement on S-video output, and for other reasons I decided to stick with S-video. When my cat chewed through the cable, I bought component video cable on a whim. I was stunned by the improvement in the picture. It was beautiful before, but now it's breathtaking. I've read technical discussions of the limitations of HDMI and why it doesn't improve the DVD picture with some equipment, but the improvement with component video was a revelation. The cat earned himself some extra catnip for this one.

I compared lots of 37" and 32" LCD TV's over the past months and I decided on the Philips 32PF7320A because:

**The picture is comparable to Sharp. Many on the AVSForum will debate this for hours/days/months and may favor the Sharp in the end, but for us plebeians that want to just watch great TV, this set for the price is it...IMHO Sharp is the only competitor that even compares (I ruled out Magnavox, Polaroid, Syntax, Maxent almost immediately, and then Sony, LG, and Panasonic IMHO didn't measure up in picture quality after more detailed scrutiny)

**The feature set beats everything out there, even Sharp. Namely, 2 HDMI ports, CableCard slot, USB, just these two options give this set a leg up.

**It looks great (i thought better thanthe long and narrow Sharp) in its silver/black two-tone look.

**After using for a month the picture is fantastic. The USB port allowed for easy firmware upgrade (a plus!!!, and with anupconverting DVD like the winderful OPPO heer on Amazon you can see your current DVD selection in HD...WOW!

**Robert's thought above about buying at Costco is a good one, but Amazon as well has served me well with returns when issues arise...I have seen no issue with this TV.

Hope this was helpful, and happy watching.

I purchased a 32" LCD television last month to hang on my wall in the bedroom and was excited since your 32PF7320A/37 product was advertised to support a cable card. I considered several other manufacturers, but chose Philips based on the fact that I could use this TV in the bedroom without a cable box.

I received the TV and hooked it up and the picture was great. I was very happy with my purchase and even told some friends how good the quality was.

I then had the cable company come out to install the cable card. The technician tried for about an hour to get the television to recognize the cable card to no avail. I figured we had a bad cable card and he would need to try another. I then remembered that the Samsung DLP TV I have in the family room accepts a cable card, so we tried it there and it worked fine. We then tried it again in the Philips TV and it still didn't recognize the card. I told the cable company to take the card back since it looks like a problem with the TV. I did owe a $45 fee for the service call to install the cable card.

Next I called Philips to get the TV fixed. They had me try some things and nothing worked, so they gave me two service center phone numbers. I called the first one and they said Philips had so many problems with cable cards that they wouldn't want to accept the TV until I made further progress with Philips. I then called the second company who said they wouldn't know how to fix this problem and were going to call Philips for support. They called me back stating that Philips was aware of the problem, and only suggested using a cable box instead of the cable card. This was totally unacceptable since the whole reason I purchased the TV was for the cable card functionality.

I then called Philips tech support again to find that they knew about the problem and were not willing to do anything to fix it. They said I can wait to see if they ever come up with a firmware solution, but they were not even sure if the problem was actively being worked on. I thought this was horrible customer support and asked what other options I have. Would they swap the TV, refund my purchase price or pay for the cable company to attempt several cable cards in case one worked. The response was basically, that they scammed me and now I am stuck with this TV that I cannot use as advertised.

Basically the TV was marketed as supporting a cable card and there was no mention that the TV was incompatible with the largest manufacturer of these cable cards. Philips now takes a position that they know they have an incompatibility, but choose to continue to deceive customers and offer no support to customers that fall victim to this scam.

Luckily I was able to stop my friends from purchasing the Philip's sets I recommended. I would hate to tarnish my reputation by recommending a faulty product with such poor customer support. I will continue to recommend against all Philips products in the future and am very disappointed in Philips stance in this matter. I hope Philips would reconsider doing the right thing and taking responsibility for their lack of information in the advertising material. At minimum, the product brochures should contain a note that not all cable cards are supported by this product and they should contact Philips for a list of known supported cable cards.

I don't want to discourage anyone from buying this particular LCD-but its likely that this set has been plagued by quality control problems.

The $1299.99 price tag that this TV was selling at Costco during the Thanksgiving Day weekend was a bargain that I couldn't find anywhere else.This was an impulse buy by the wife, and all my research on the set started after we got it home. I was actually happy that we got a good deal.

Note that even at the current $1499.99 price tag, this is a great bargain, if you can still find a set that works without any problems.

Since a lot has been discussed about this TV on avsforums, I will list only the CONs here and the troubles I had with this TV:

Limitations:
1) PIP works only with HDMI source
2) No elegant on-screen display of volume control


Problems:
a) The first set(Nov 2005 production batch) I bought was great. Everything worked fine- however, a week or so later, I started noticing a darkened arc in the center of the screen at the bottom. This would not be visible all the time. But, it would be obvious when watching movies with the black bars on the top and bottom. I wonder whether this is due to some pressure applied by the stand or any other part on the display.

Also, some other issues- I'm not sure if these were specific to this set.
b) I wasn't able to get the slideshow feature work after inserting a USB thumb drive.
c) Also, I wasn't able to get my Canon G3 digital camera connected to playback video or pictures or use it as a live source. My 21 inch Sony VEGA CRT can do this with ease.

I kept the TV for nearly 3 weeks, and then reluctantly exchanged it for the only other piece my neighborhood Costco had in their inventory.

The second set(Oct 2005 batch) had a different problem altogether- this time it was the audio. There was a high pitched audible hiss on channels (AV2, AV3,SIDE) that were not connected to a source. The hiss was also audible when changing channels. I tried isolating the problem, but noticed that even after removing all the input sources, it persisted. It went back to Costco the same afternoon.

I don't think a firmware upgrade would have helped in either case. I was reluctant to make any changes to the set as I was worried that I might run into more problems.

I would rate this a 3.5 if amazon allowed a .5 rating

Like many others we got the Philips at Costco (purchased January 2006). I'd been pretty skeptical about the need for HD and in general tend to intentionally lag behind these new techonologies. That said, I'm loving the hi-def, the picture really is amazing.

I haven't had any problems with the Philips -- the picture quality and color is quite nice. Sometimes I think the blacks could be a little deeper and i see some greens in flesh tones, but overall I'm really happy with the quality (though I'm no video-phile). I love the variety of connections it offers including the two HDMI (using a DVD player with it). The set is easy to move and the inputs are easily accessible along one edge.

A couple minor annoyances -- the remote isn't too great, a bit cluttered. At some point, I'll probably get a universal. Also, a volume indicator doesn't appear onscreen when you adjust the volume, which is a little bit annoying (you can actually turn it on but it's some "full display" setting which also means the channel is always displayed). I should check the firmware to see if this has been addressed, it's no big deal but occasionally annoying (am I turning down this loud commercial or not?).

Other than that recommended to those looking for a mid-priced entry in the world of HD!

I've had this LCD tv for about 6 months now. My goal is to slowly put together a modestly priced but solid home theater system and this TV fits the bill. It's a solid performer with good picture quality and a wealth of input options. Best of all I really appreciate that Philips has been putting out a steady stream of firmware updates that improve the performance of the TV and address some user interface complaints (more on that below).

Here's my take on some issues you might be considering:

Is 32in big enough? - in this era of 50"+ behemoths, is a 32" TV big enough? That's a matter of personal preference of course but here's my take. I wanted to get a TV that would be fun to watch movies/sports on but wouldn't take over the room. 32" suits me well, though I could possibly go 37" given the space I have. For me the 32" sets are currently in the price/performance sweet spot. I'm putting the ~$300 difference vs the 37" towards a great set of speakers from Ascend Acoustics. YMMV.

Picture Quality - The picture quality is very good under progressive scan DVD playback (480p) and is outstanding for HD broadcasts. I got this TV shortly before superbowl sunday 2006 and my friends who came over were raving about the HD picture. The NBA finals started last night and as I watched the HD broadcast I couldn't help but marvel at every little bead of sweat and the level of detail on the players faces and uniforms.

Sound - the output from the 2 x 15w side speakers is OK for normal TV listening but you'll want to hook this thing up to a good receiver/speaker combo to get the most out of movies. But who puts together a HT using the TV speakers anyhow? Again, take the 300 bucks you saved over a 37" set and put it towards the rest of your system.

Remote - the remote that comes with this set is simple and intuitive to use. Nothing fancy. It does support other Philips components but since the TV is my only piece of Philips eqpt that doesn't do me much good. I'll eventually get a Harmony remote from logitech that will handle every component of my system.

Customer service - I haven't had any need to contact Philips directly about this product, but their website is relatively accessible and well laid out. Best of all Philips has been issuing periodic firmware updates for this and other sets. These updates sometimes address performance issues but also address user interface issues. For example, one previous reviewer wrote "-No progress meter when changing volumes.". Actually you could have the progress meter but it was previously coupled to the On Screen Display so that you had to have both the channel and volume info showing all the time to get this. Firmware upgrades have since addressed this issue. See the Philips support page for more examples.


Note to one of the other reviewers - you mention that the picture size/ratio keeps changing. It sounds like you've got it on automatic mode. You might want to change it the widescreen mode in the menus.

I also purchased a Philips LCD HDTV from Costco the day after Thanksgiving for $1299. It was totally an impulse purchase. The picture quality compared to all the other models was amazing. It was love at first sight. I couldn't leave without it.As a matter of fact, my mother also bought one the same day. Now please don't fall over laughing but neither my mother nor myself has cable or satellite. We still use rabbit ears. OK stop laughing!!!! We took the 2 LCD HDTV's home. I hooked mine up first. I was a beautiful thing! Even with rabbit ears the reception and picture quality was great (20 channels or so). I was thrilled with my purchase. Next, I hooked up my mom's. We were watching at her house for about one hour when suddenly the TV went black. The green on indicator was flashing red. The remote did nothing. I unplugged the set and let it sit for a few minutes. I plugged it in and it started working fine. It worked for about 20 minutes and went black again. No matter what channel it was on , it continued this cycle- on off on off. At this point I decided this one needed to go back to Costco for a trade. We traded it in the next day for a new one. The new one has worked flawlessly until now. I thought it was just a dud. I continued to think that until last week (one month old) when my TV stopped working. My TV is in the bedroom so I hit the on from the remote. Nothing happened and yes the red warning light was flashing. You can image my frustration. I unplugged the TV. After a minute, I plugged it in and it started working fine--- for about 10 minutes. It suddenly clicked off and the red warning light came on. I repeated this cycle about 6 or 8 times. Yes-- you guessed it-- back to Costco with this set also. After 2 bad experiences in one month I wasn't about to try for three. I got my money back. I grieved over having to leave the set without a replacement. It felt like euthanizing a beloved pet. I really loved that TV. I'm very glad I didn't get rid of my 19" Walmart special. For now we hold our breath waiting for my mom's set to die. Maybe this was a bad "batch" but it sure does turn you against Philips products. Well that is my story and I'm sticking with it. By the way, I was in bed so I didn't see the ball fall in Time Square New Years Eve. Did those Philips light bulbs on the ball work??????????????/

I'm more than satisfied with the picture quality of this unit, but the firmware is really crappy. When I bought this unit, it would "remember" my "favorite" channels the next time that I turned it on. I upgraded to the next firmware version, and I would no longer remember any changes that I made to my favorites. I "downgraded" to the original and left it there. Today I upgraded to the latest version and it "lost" half of my digital channels - I can't even access them directly. Lesson learned - NEVER change firmware on a Philips product - they have NO quality assurance.

While reading the reviews of the Philips LCD HDTV I couldn't believe how word for word, the experience was identical to mine! Guess where I am going to tomorrow? Yep...off to Costco to return the tv! Twice in one month already, the screen suddenly turns black and the red light flashes and does not react to any of the 3 remotes I use! I also uplugged it and waited several minutes before turning it back on but it continued to shut itself down and the red light kept flashing. Apparently that is some type of code for the ailment, according to the Philips technician I spoke with on the telephone this evening. He was unable to identify the problem and since it is less than a month since I have owned the tv, I have decided to bring it back since I do not want to deal with a problem tv! (Didn't tolerate bad behavior from my daughter or my pets, so why would I tolerate it from a tv?!) Now the question is whether or not to replace it with another Philips, since I have to say I really was impressed with the tv when it worked! The colors, the vivid picture quality, turned this non-tv watcher into an addict! I originally was going to purchase the Sharp Aquos and now think perhaps that may have been a better choice....hmmmm...I guess I will make up my mind tomorrow when I am back at Costco. I may give Philips one more try and hope to get a better replacement. I guess every one/thing deserves a second chance!