Customer Reviews

Philips 40PFL3705D/F7 40-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV, Black

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Multiple EDIT sections added, Philips fixed the lag issue in the latest firmware release.

If you don't want to read the whole review: This TV is pretty good for movies and TV, but is unusable for video games. EDIT: The latest firmware update fixes the lag issue! Thank you Philips for listening.

Postive features :

The image looks very good. It is a 120Hz 1080P TV with anti-judder. It does an excellent job of anti-judder or "digital natural motion" as they call it. It produces good contrast (for an LCD) after calibration, and after some painful calibration color can look OK as well. There are 3 HDMI inputs, composite, component and S-video. There is coaxial audio out (more on this in a moment). I had some friends over and they all agree it looks great. EDIT: After using DNM for a while now I actually prefer it off, mostly because it makes film look like video. You may want to take this into consideration before buying a 120Hz over a cheaper 60Hz tv

Missing \ Lacking features:

There is no vga input. There is no digital audio in - other than HDMI. There is no optical audio out. There is no full resolution 1:1 signal to display (image is always overscanned in 1080p). This means there is no way to get all 1080 pixels width on the screen and the image is cropped between 2.5% and 5%. Note that 1:1 is available when a non-HD or non-SD resolution is passed over HDMI. This issue is minor, only noted for completeness.

There is only one user preset, and if you change any display setting after selecting a preconfigured preset (game, movie, sports), you overwrite your user preset, so you have to remember or write down your calibration settings. This too is a minor issue.

There are limited user configuration options: you cannot set gamma, you cannot control the level of digital natural motion, you cannot turn off dynamic contrast, you cannot set HDMI black level. Most people won't understand those settings anyway. A TV calibration professional will have access to more calibration options using the maintenance mode where they can set white balance and cut-off levels.

Negatives:

Lag. Even with "Game" preset, or with 120 hz turned off and virtual surround turned off there is substantial lag. This makes it unusable for most video games. Philips is working on this, so I hope a future firmware update will resolve this issue. EDIT: Philips did resolve this and I am glad to report that the game mode and even slight modificiation of the game mode (to create a personal profile) has minimal lag. 120Hz has unavoidable video lag due to the fact that the TV has to "see" the frames before it can process the inbetween frames.

Even though there is lag in 120Hz mode and in games (EDIT: after firmware update lag in game mode is negligable) you do not notice it on movies because the audio is re-synched, but this forces me to use the coax audio out to my older receiver ([Device -> TV -> Receiver] instead of [Device -> Receiver -> TV]). The alternative would be to use a receiver with lip sync functions. Philips tells me a receiver with HDMI 1.3 should sync correctly.

If you have to use and older receiver, like me, then be aware Digital audio out is only Dolby Digital. A DTS bitstream passed to the TV seems to be decoded and ouput as stereo. Chances are that if you have a receiver that handles the new DTS formats then it will also do audio sync for you anyway.

If there is a firmware update from Philips that addresses these issues I will come back and alter this review (looking forward to that). EDIT: Thank you Philips for fixing this issue.

Bottom Line:

If you do not intend to play video games then I can recommend this TV. EDIT: Firmware update fixes the video lag. I can recommend this TV.

I bought this TV as a second choice when the Vizio I wanted was out of stock. As most reviewers have stated the picture quality on Blu-ray and my now defunct HD-DVD movies are spectacular! It makes watching a movie a new experience as the high def and natural motion feature gives the movies an almost 3D realism and pop, very satisfied with that! View from angles produce slightly softer picture but overall still solid.

I havent experienced any of the sound fluctuations that other reviewers have talked about so far but I have noticed that if you hookup a sound system through the component cables there is a noticeable lag between the sound and picture so it looks like your watching a Kungfu movie :( I'm going to see if using a sound system through HDMI solves the problem (I'll update this review if I get any results).

Now to the meat and potatoes: I see everyones been complaining about videogaming on this tv. I first had this problem myself but ONLY on my Xbox 360, PS3 games play magnificently on the TV with no lag or screen distortion. I have found that if you turnoff Natural Motion 120hz and use an HDMI hookup instead of Component the lag will no longer affect gameplay. (Dont put Game Mode on as it will switch 120hz back on without you knowing which will cause the distortion and lag again) I'm VERY HAPPY I found this out because Im a huge gamer and I almost took this tv back before I made this discovery.

All in All, I am very satisfied with this TV and would recommend it to anyone especially for its affordability and the fact that it performs so well in spite of the cheaper pricetag. Just be sure to make a few adjustments to your setup in regards to your picture and sound as well as your gaming setup. Hope this helps anyone on the fence about this HDTV, now back to Call of Duty lol

I have this television, I will be honest it was a nice buy, but has anyone actually read the manual. I use mine as an addition monitor to play wow and dont get me wrong its a great picture, but through HDMI this tv maxes out at 60hz. Check the specifications page ppl. picture enchancement is full hd 1920x1080 @ 60-120 hz the Hdmi is full Hd 1920x1080 24hz-60hz . If you play video games or use this as a monitor, look for a 120hz hdmi capable tv that also does not lag.

Pros:

The Picture and video quality is great!
The sound is great!
It has and energy saving Mode.

Cons:

Even with the firmware update, the amount of input lag is still unacceptable. Moreover, when the 120hz refresh rate is turned on, this particular t.v. produces ghosting and blur artifacts; especially during fast or even normal movement in video. Evidently, this t.v. doesn't have any image blur reduction technology. I suppose the 120hz refresh rate only reduces motion jitter. Furthermore, this t.v. doesn't have a VGA input!!!

If you're buying this t.v. because of the 120hz refresh rate and/or you plan on playing video games on it, i don't recommend purchasing this T.V. You'll be sorely disappointed.

I bought this TV a few months back, so far I've had no problems, the previous TV I owned was a 32" RCA, huge upgrade for me. It looks great playing my ps3 on as well. Really the only thing I find to be a small problem is the sound. I find myself sometimes having to keep turning the volume up and down. But, anywho I recommend this to anyone.

Very pleased with the Phillips LCD TV. Picture quality is very good, and sound too. I have basic and expanded Cable but not digital cable or box. The TV is picking up about 40+ digital stations without having to pay for digital cable. I can choose to watch most channels in basic or digital mode on another channel. It is also picking up all the extra 50 or so digital music chancels and others that I could not get before. Excellent.

Amazon.com's handling of the sale , delivery was very pleasing and the free shipping is always a bonus!!

I had tried to purchase the TV about 2 weeks prior but could not be there for it's delivery so waited. The price had gone up by $30 by the time I could purchase it. On the day of delivery an email came from Amazon showing the price to be again $30 less. I called support and asked if they could refund the $30. They did without any protest. I Think I got the email because I had forgotten to take it out of my 'wish list'. As you can imagine I was very happy to get it at the lower price. The price had still been the best at Amazon, even with the increase than I could find at any other trusted website.
My only complaint is that amazon has very skimpy information on products, the detail are minimal. Thus I have to go to various other sites to get the full specifications on anything I buy at Amazon. Whish they could remedy this as it takes too much time to find the nitty gritty information and you have to know what you are buying.

JK

the product is fine it's just the way that it arrived that is not fine because the box was wide open and the parts were all missing like the power cord and the screws for me to hook it on to the stand but with that aside the tv is a great value i mean as much as i would like amazon to send me some compensation for their shipping issues i think over time i can let that go it still bugs me that the power cord was not there i mean what kind of crap is that but anyway the tv is fine on picture quality it's great for movies but gaming is not the best on this set you cannot play with the 120HZ on it will cause a serious jitter in the screen and lag between the controller response to the character on the screen well in most games anyway but yea that's about all i have to say about that i do have a video of me opening it but i don't feel like uploading it right now maybe later. just leave a comment if you want me to upload some videos of the tv and the unboxing and stuff

Good color and contrast. However you cannot play fast-action video games due to a lag of 33 milliseconds. Xbox Black Ops is unplayable. Click (wait) and see your gun fire a split second too late.

Tech support says turn off 120Hz and update to the latest firmware to REDUCE the lag to 33 milliseconds. They are still working on the problem. I am going to return this and buy a different model.

Its a great tv for watching blu ray or HDTV but dont plan on playing XBOX 360 on it there is a lag in the tv, but i have done some reading and it looks like almost all
TVs with 120Hz has the lag. so if you not a gamer this is a really nice TV.

The tv has a very amazing picture when connected to a bluray player, but once connected to xbox360, thats a different story. the image becomes real blocky around what ever image is moving on the screen and it is horrible on image lag time. you can turn the controler like normal but it takes half a second before it actually does anything on the screen. would not recommend for gamers, video is great.