Customer Reviews

Toshiba 32AF42 32" TV with FST PURE Flat Screen

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

 

 

Great picture, stereo sound, a flat screen so images don't distort, you just can't beat this price. When you turn the "mute" switch on the set it automatically goes into closed caption mode so you can read what everyone's saying even if you can't hear it.
The remote is a luminous light-up, easy to manouver, it's all good. Just don't try picking up this set by yourself. It's as heavy as ten of your huskiest chums!

The set had the best picture in every store I looked at (still the best way to SEE the quality). The picture and sound quality are great and the input/output jacks service all kinds from the back of the set, plus a set of inputs on the front for a camera. Also, the speakers are in the front, not sides, for better sound in a wall unit. And it does weigh a ton!

It's simple. The latest Consumer Reports review on TV's (spring 2003) gave this TV a rating close to the ones reserved for the HDTV group. Not even the Sony had a picture as good as this one. If you go to the electronic stores, take a good look at this tv and compare it to others. But there's a trick you need to watch out for!

The big stores have all of the HDTV's & projection tv's in a darkend area, with the units at eye level and with a direct digital feed. They do this so that the projection and LCD units have a good picture as they tend to wash out under harsher lighting. They also give you plenty of room to step back and observe the picture form a distance (who ever watches a tv from 2-3 feet away!).
The standard tv's will be in their normal area, under harsh lights, on metal shelves and very little room between the isles. They also will usually have a standard, non-amplified feed. They get all the glare, may or may not be at eye level, have a feed that has been split 30 times (reducing the resolution) and you are looking at them from 3 feet away. The net result is that the HDTV's and others look lightyears ahead of all the others (with a price to match!!!). The regular tv's sometimes look worse than the 15 year old set you want to replace.

Take my (and Consumer Reports) word for it and you will be glad that you bought this set. The picture is unbelievable and at this price it is a huge value. You'll save between $100 - $200 over the electronic chains.

Gerat set - fantastic price. We got ours delivered from Amazon yesterday and we stayed up late just admiring the picture.

Oh - and it has great sound to - you'll love it!

I had bought a Sony KV-32FS100 which got returned. This is the set that replaced it. It has none of the convergence problems the Sony had, and other than a slight trapezoid image (narrower on the right side - the Sony had this also) the geometry is quite good. Both the Sony I returned, and the Sony display model where I bought this set, had serious geometry problems ....

... I ended up getting the Avia Guide to Home Theater DVD (also highly recommended), and using that to adjust the picture settings - now the color looks great (hue is set to +20 - that's how far into red the standard setting is). My wife and I both prefer the (bluish) red phosphor that Toshiba uses to the (orangish) one Sony uses (we were both fans of Mitsubishis when they still made direct views). There is a downside to all of this - it shows how variable the quality of our cable signal is.

This set also doesn't make the huge "WHUNG..." sound the Sony made when you turned it on. And while the bezel around the screen is still too wide for my tastes (and silver to boot), it looks downright small next to the Sony, which was too wide AND too tall AND silver.

The only thing I wish this set had is the multiple user adjustable video settings that the Sony and other brands have. This set has only one user adjustable setting - the others (Standard, Movie, Sports) are locked in presets. In fact, if you make the mistake of trying to adjust one of the presets, it will automatically replace your user adjustable settings with the ones you are adjusting, so it's not a bad idea to write your settings down somewhere so you can recover them.

All in all, I'm very happy with the set. It's not perfect - as I mentioned in the review title, I'd give it a 4.5 if I could. But as the deficiencies have to do with features and configuration rather than performance, giving it a 4 would be damning it with faint praise, so 5 it is.

I am disappointed with the picture setting menu and the factory automatic reset feature, in particular. Why would contrast be set at 100% in stead of mid range. I find it necessary to continually adjust color, tint etc.as I move through channels. I have three other tv sets and none of them ever require fussing with the picture controls. Once I finaly get a combination that seems to provide consistant quality among channels, the set automatically goes back to factory reset if I try to change color temperature or picture preference, (sports, standard, etc.)

I bought this set for my Mom and inherited it in her estate later on. We love the sound and picture quality. The only drawback is the weight - it is really ~ 150 pounds. Be sure you have some helpers around when you hook it up or if you ever move (like we did).

This TV has both an excellent picture and excellent sound. Consumer Reports rated this TV very highly, and I believe they were right. I have a very good sound system which can be used in conjunction with this TV, but most of the time I leave it off and just use the TV's internal sound because it is so good. My previous TV was a Toshiba, and it lasted about 12 years. That experience and the Consumer Reports' recommendation of Toshiba leads me to expect a long life from this unit.