Customer Reviews

Philips 42PFL3603D/27 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

My Sylvania 27" analog TV finally bit the dust after 6 years. Thanks to the federal government's tax stimulus check, I decided to be a good American and help the economy out and purchase a new flat screen TV. I grew interested in the Philips because it was a new model, looked great in person, and was very affordable. I purchased the TV from a major warehouse retailer where you have to pay for an annual membership. It was only $999 online, and I got free shipping and a 2 year extended warranty. If I have any problems, I could just return the set. Only problem is sales tax and it came out to $1086 (CA charges 10 electronics waste fee).

I got the TV last week and it works great. I get about a dozen HD channels over my antenna and the picture looks amazing when its a true HD signal. In fact its even sharper than my DVD player. I'm getting a Phillips upconvert DVD player this week, so hopefully the DVD's will look better. If not, I guess I'm going to have to a 1080p recorder.

The picture looks great. I'm not super-picky and can't tell some of the picture quality differences that other reviewers can. Most of the times, when i compare at the store, the brighter TV looks better to me.

Anyways, the side/off angle viewing is not as good as a Samsung. Even though its 178 degree viewing, the picture loses some luster at the extreme angles. If you plan on watching the TV from 160 degrees, you might want to get something else. The menu is okay, and the tv changes channels more quickly than the 46" Samsung 1080p and does a much better job with managing the audio levels.

It looks nice in person and is much better than what I used to look at, so I'm pretty happy with my purchase. With the extra money I saved from not buying a Bravia for $1600, I could get a 27-32" LCD and put it in my bedroom or alternatively, buy a PS3 and a few games.

This is a fine, but not perfect, HTDV for the price.

Pros: Price, 4 HDMI 1.3a inputs, true 1080p, bright, high-contrast picture, handsome unit.

Cons: Remote lacks some features, some loss of detail in dark areas.

Summary: If you seek a 42" 1080p LCD by a major brand name and don't need all the high-end features (e.g., PiP, fancy upconverting, powerful surround sound), this is a handsome choice with fine picture quality and is among the very least expensive (under a thousand at the mart of Wal).

UPDATE: It seems that the TV has a total of four HDMI inputs, not three (as specified). Though I haven't tested all of them, I see three HDMI ports on the back and one on the side, and the menus show four separate HDMI choices (in addition to the various other inputs). That's a very good thing!

But this bonus is balanced by several minor annoyances, like too few buttons on the remote, forcing you to go through the menu system for simple, common operations that older TVs handled with a single button push. For example, turning closed captions on and off is a multi-step process; also, there are no dedicated buttons on the remote for each input so you must go through the menu system to switch -- and you cannot easily program a different remote to simplify this because the TV's menus start at a different spot (your last selection) each time.

But overall it's still a fine TV for the price. Brightly-lit HD scenes look simply stunning. And one more small (positive) detail: if your A/V receiver lacks HDMI, you can send the digital audio signal from the TV back to the receiver via the TV's coax audio output; this is great because, for copy protection reasons, most hi-def sources like DVD players will not output digital audio (like Dolby Digital, for surround sound) on any additional connections if you're using the source's HDMI connection. But with this TV's digital audio output, you don't have to choose between using the source's HDMI output versus having good surround sound through your receiver -- you can have both.

We bought this 42" LCD Philips TV at Target 6-month ago. The model number is 42PFL3603D/27. The TV was working fine. It delivers good HD pictures and sound, but it broke down after 6-month of usage. The TV could not display the picture, but sound is still available. When TV is on, all we can see on the screen is the vertical stripes. The catalog calls out that this model is warranted for 1-year from the date of purchase at page EN41 of TV catalog.

Then we called to complain to Philips Consumer Lifestyle. Philips sent the contract service to our place to physically look at the TV. The final decision was "crack screen by damage and it is not covered under warrantee". This is actual false statement since we did NOT do anything related to the damage of our 6-month old TV.

The cause of this issue is NOT from impact damage. If there were an impact from outside (by us), the screen surface could have shown scratch, dent or impression. The outside surface is now pristine, smooth and showing no impact from outside whatsoever.

Bottom line: Philips is failure to honor service under the terms of warrantees to avoid replacement cost for defective TV. If you plan to use this LCD TV for more than 6 months, my advice is "DO NOT TOUCH THIS PRODUCT"

Maybe I got a bad tv, but I don't know. All I've heard about these things is good things, but mine has been anything but. Right away I noticed this horrible fuzz sound, it would just happen, with no rhyme or reason, and I'd have to turn the tv off and back on to fix it. After a month or so of haggling I finally got that fixed. After getting the new board put in and turning the tv on the picture was very dim, and there has been nothing we can do to fix it, and like usual Philips is taking their sweet time doing anything about it. Oh well, maybe sometime this year it'll be fixed, but so far the problem has spanned 2 years, since it started right after I got it in November, and it's January and it's still not fixed. My warranty is only good for a year, so hopefully it's fixed before that anyway. All I can say is be cautious about what you buy, and keep all the boxes and packaging, cause you may have to return it. And don't trust the company when they say they'll make it right, cause they don't care, it's not their tv afterall, they just work there.

I am extremely happy with this TV.
it says on a lot of sites that this TV has an 8ms response time, but when you look in the owners manual it says its 5ms.

I think watching SDTV on this TV is great. I work for the cable company, and that being said, I have seen A LOT of pricey/cheap whatever price range of TV, look like crap when it comes to standard def programing. its not really something you want to see after spending X amount of dollars on a new TV. this one pulls it off very well.
honestly its not spectacular, but it pulls it off very well.(and I have it in my bedroom sitting 5ft or less away from it)

I also have an upscalling DVD player(samsung) works great with it. but not ALL movies I watch get put into 1080P. like, I put in AC/DC Live at the Donington today, and it looks a little worse than my cable SD. but that's ok with me. I put in Batman: the Dark Knight. it looks F-ing amazing. I also checked out a couple other movies like Kung-Fu Panda and The Simpsons movie: they look great too.

as for games, I really have only played GTA:IV on it once and I was playing it with the AV cables rather than the HDMI/component(whatever 360 uses) and it looked ok. looked better on my SD tube tv than it does on this TV, but I am hoping to get the HD cables for my 360 soon.
if I am able to update this later, I will.

and for the HDTV: its great. picture looks better than it does in the store.
its too bad I only get 1080i off of cable, but it still looks amazing.
this TV is just flat out amazing for the price. this is worth more than I payed for sure.

now as for the title "be carefull what they give you in the store"
the model I asked for at the store (which was the TV I REALLY wanted was the 42pfl7403d) that one had the computer connection that I wanted on the back, 120Hz, 2ms response time, and 30W audio output. which is what I really wanted for the sports, action movies, and high speed games.
but honestly the 42pfl3603d is just perfect already, other than the computer connection I wanted.

there is no blurring when it comes to fast picture.
I love this TV. its great.

**UPDATE**
I picked up component cables for my 360 yesterday after I wrote this review.
after I plugged it in and checked it out, looked a little better, but still a little crappy. but after a few setting changes on the 360 and TV itself, it looked great. just as good as I thought it was going to be.
(I tested out GTA4 at full 1080p)
**UPDATE**
I have only had this TV for about a month at this point.
several white (large) dots have shown up randomly. I counted about 39 messed up pixels. they come and go, seems to show up more when I am watching HD. after about 20 minutes they may go back to normal and come back 20 minutes later. very annoying, I am returning this TV and getting a Samsung.

Looked at several different LCD HD TV's. Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, Sharp. Shopped online at Amazon, Best Buy, Circut City. Went to Target, and Walmart to check out the TV's in person. The Phillips had the best price and as good a picture as any of the others. The Sony 40 inch I saw had an outstanding picture, maybe the best, but the Phillips was just as good and several hundred dollars less. I love watching sports in HD on this thing! Great TV! Love it!

This TV is the best I've seen on the market. It's slick, audio is great, almost no latency and the picture is awesome. The remote and the menu is really easy to navigate. I recommend it.

We purchased this tv in March of '09. We were SO THRILLED to have our very first LCD big screen HDTV and for a fairly decent price. We purchased this tv on sale for around $700. The quality of the tv seemed to be okay until just this past year. Since about 6 months ago, it has been losing it's picture for no reason whatsoever. The power is still on and the sound is still working but the picture is completely black. Trying to contact Philips to report the problem is almost IMPOSSIBLE! We are not within our warranty coverage time frame any longer but from what I've learned, they don't honor them very well regardless. PLEASE look at ALL reviews-GOOD OR BAD-before you purchase your television! Chances are, the model you are considering purchasing is new, so there may not be reviews on THAT particular model. Look at what brands LAST over time! Look at what brands have good customer service so that you know purchasing a long-term warranty is worth it! I SURE WISH I HAD!

I spent a lot of time shopping for a quality HDTV and a reasonable price and finally settled on this one. Great contrast, brightness, sound, and design. Works well with directv. This is one of those purchases that leaves a lasting good feeling.

This TV far surpassed my expectations!! I scoured the market for the best features vs. price, and this TV could not be beat. Has HDMI, AV, Componant, coax, 1080p...everything you could ask for. Bright, vivid picture and color, no ghosting, HD looks great, SD looks as good as it can. This TV has autoscaling and Dynamic Contrast, but both can be disabled if you wish. I don't like my TV changing my settings on me.

It does NOT have VGA, however. That can easily be worked around though, seeing as how most computers today have HDMI out. Even if they don't, there are DVI to HDMI adapters..I have one and it works fine. Another thing thats missing is PIP, but who uses PIP??

The picture is great, brightness and contrast are easily adjustable and can be perfected with time and patience.

One thing I noticed was a slightly brighter spot in the top left corner, but only noticeable on dark screens. It's easy to ignore and you will probably only notice it if you nitpick like i do. Most won't even see it.

Bottom line: Unbeatable TV unless you want to double your price for improvements so small you probably won't even notice (which makes you wonder if they are even improvements in the first place).