Customer Reviews

Toshiba 42HM66 42-Inch 720p DLP HDTV

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

 

 

It is January 2007 and I have used this TV now for about one week. I was going to wait longer to post a review, but since there are none up here, I thought it would be useful to potential buyers to have it now.

I bought this TV for my mother as a Christmas gift and my budget was $1000. For that amount of money the HDTV choices were: 27" to 37" 720p LCD; 32" to 35" CRT- based sets; and a few 40-42" DLP sets. Given that the set was for a living room, size was an important priority. So that meant examining most seriously the DLP options.

Most DLP sets I looked at in the stores had a pretty decent image when viewed straight on, but like most other rear-projection TVs, rapidly fell off in brightness when viewed off axis. One exception was a 56" Toshiba DLP set which looked better than the others. Try as I might, I was unable to find the 42HM66 in a store, but what finally convinced me to buy it sight-unseen, was the Consumer Reports article which had Toshiba sets taking all of the top positions in the December 2006 ratings of DLP TVs. Though Consumer Reports did not evaluate DLP TVs smaller than 50", I noted that the 42HM66 was of the same series number as one of the best-rated Toshiba sets. So I decided to take a chance. Next the results.

Having viewed it about 20 hours I have to say the picture is truly excellent for a 720p set. Colors are bright and the screen has a difficult-to-describe luminous liveliness absent from my new 40" Samsung LCD. Outdoor HD nature programming is particularly stunning. A nice surprise was the good off-axis performance. Though straight-on is still best, the image is quite bright out to about 45 degrees from perpendicular, much better than most other DLPs I have seen! Consumer Reports rated the larger Toshiba DLP sets with their highest picture quality rating. I would second that high rating for the 42HM66, it truly delivers the goods. I prefer its picture to that of my new Samsung LCD, which is also 720p, not the latest 1080p, and the Samsung cost 40% more. Image quality = a well-deserved 5 stars.

Where the 42HM66 shows its limitations is in the sound subsystem. The speakers are weak with little bass response. When using digital input sources one needs to turn it up nearly all the way. Analog channels don't seem to have this problem. So when switching between analog and digital sources, one often needs to step the volume up and down, a recurring annoyance. I think most would find the sound performance seriously lacking, but this is easy to fix if you have a stereo receiver or AV sound system to plug into using the available line-out jacks. Sound quality = 2 stars.

Now for convenience and user-friendliness. It is equipped with only one HDMI jack, so if you want to plug in 2 digital sources, like an upconverting DVD player and an HD cable box, you will have to plug one into the component or S-video input; but for a price of only $1000 this is not surprising.

The TV was also not quite as simple to setup as my recently purchased Samsung. The auto-program feature was difficult to find, so if you are giving it as a gift to a technically-challenged person, make sure they get some help. I found the remote disappointing for it had small equally-sized buttons and the control layout was not very intuitive. But once you learn how to get into the menus and where things are, it becomes acceptable. Sadly it could be so much better with just a few minor changes. Kudos to Samsung for their excellent remotes. User friendliness = 3 stars.

Now for the bottom line. I didn't expect the 42HM66 to be perfect all around, but in the one area which counts most... picture quality... it is a top-notch performer. Weak sound is easily remedied and the remote works OK once you learn it, but a bad picture cannot be fixed in any way. This is a GREAT choice if you need 40+" in screen size and don't want to sacrifice image quality on a budget of only $1000. My mother is simply blown away by the picture and I am VERY happy with this purchase... and Amazon's free shipping made it just that much better. The set has yet to accumulate serious viewing hours, so I will not comment on its reliability, but if I run into problems down the road I will revisit this review. For now... my bottom line overall rating: A solid 4-1/2 stars.

P.S. The free Amazon shipping via Eagle was great. They called in advance, came when they said they would, were courteous, and the package was delivered in excellent condition. Kudos. I felt like giving them a tip :)

UPDATE - May 5, 2007

Last week the set blew out the projection lamp after 4 months of use. Replacement under warranty was simple, I just called Toshiba and they quickly sent out a new lamp without any fuss. The lamp comes in a cartridge that is easily removed from the left side of the set. I asked about lamp life and was told that 8,000 to 10,000 hours was the average and that mine went prematurely. They also said each replacement lamp comes with a 6 month warranty independent of the set. Out of warranty the lamp costs about $200. One needs to be aware of this issue with DLP HDTVs and be prepared to have this happen eventually. Still love the TV. The picture is SO good I would buy it again despite this quirk.

Be prepared to pay the "DLP Tax" annually. That is one lamp each year. Toshiba knows that these lamps will not run 6-8000 Hrs. 2000-3000 is normal. I have spoken to 3 different Toshiba Authorized repairs centers and hey all verify that a year is the average lifespan of these lamps.

Update New Bulb purchased September 08 This will be Bulb number #4 since purchase in 2005. Now they tell me I need a new Ballast. Am going to Sony Bravia.

Good picture, good features, great price. I have satellite, HDDVD, and VCR. all working great with system. Did purchase a Logetech 880 remote could not get all the remotes to work together.

It was shipped quickly, but did have to help get off truck.

We have had this TV for 3 days now and are very pleased thus far. Amazon had an amazing deal (which they unfortunately no longer have) through TigerDirect and we managed to purchase this for $779.99 flat with free shipping.

The picture and image quality are phenomenal and comparable to the LCDs and plasmas we looked at in Circuit City and Best Buy. The colors (especially the reds, blues and greens) are extremely vivid and sharp, especially with nature shows. The image seems to get a bit grainy when you have dark scenes in movies, but nothing worth crying over. Standard def programs don't look that great, but I think that may be a factor of our digital cable company and not the TV itself. HD programs, however, are SPECTACULAR. We upgraded our digital cable box from Time Warner to HD and set the output at 720p and we are hooked watching even the most crappiest of HD shows.

Viewing angle is good. We agree that you lose picture at around 45 degrees. But for our small living room, we're usually watching head on so it's not a problem.

For gaming purposes, we hooked our XBox360 up using Monster HD component cables and it is STUNNING. Better than an arcade and in the comfort of your own home. Marvel Ultimate Alliance went from something where you didn't know if you were beating up your fellow team members or the enemies on our old reliable 19" to Spiderman and Captain America running around in your living room destroying Doombots.

Sound quality is not on par with the picture quality, but acceptable. Again, in our small confines, we didn't even need to hook up to our speakers and it was fine. Nothing to complain about.

Remote doesn't look cool, but is easy to use and allows you to switch inputs, which is nice. TV itself is nicely designed, and is actually not that bulky for a 42".

Connections are mislabled as other users have pointed out: composite (1 in), S-Video (1 in), component (2 in), HDMI (2 in) - ONLY 1!!!, RF (1 in), PC VGA (1 in.) - NONE!!! There is something that looks like a VGA input that is not addressed in the instruction manual, but we checked with Toshiba and we think it is an output for updating firmware/servicing.

The PIP/POP/PDB options are great and vast. You can switch audio between your 2 sources to whichever you like. You can have XBox on one screen and a TV show on the other. Only thing is you will need to purchase a separate HDMI cable to use PIP (one source must be HDMI, the other can be any of the other sources).

Delivery took approximately 1 week and came by special truck freight. They called in advance and were courteous, but there was only 1 poor guy to do the work, so my husband had to lend a hand.

Again, we are very pleased with this purchase. Our only concern now is about the DLP lamp blowing after a few months of usage. The 50" model have a few negative comments on Amazon about lamp reliability, but overall good reviews.

Short term review - 5+ stars. Long term review - only the future will tell.

After doing an EXTENSIVE amount of research on all of the different possibilities for a budget of around a thousand dollars, I decided that DLP would be the way to go. I was considering both this and the samsung 46" model. Once I saw the excellent reviews on this product along with the amazon price-drop to $799 including shipping I had to jump on it.

I have been VERY impressed with the TV so far (have had it a couple weeks). Compared with what I saw at Best Buy when I was still looking, the picture rivals if not exceeds, the picture on most mid-high end plasma/LCD screens and will blow any CRT out of the water. I use this TV primarily for HDTV watching and XBOX 360, both of which look amazing on it. Excellent black renditions give a very vivid picture. As for the viewing angle there is little to no loss all the way out to a 45 degrees. Even past that it still isn't bad.

The sound quality is pretty average. Nothing to complain about but it isn't that great either. I turned the bass up all the way and that seemed to help a little. I will probably end up buying a surround sound system.

WARNING: Amazon has mislabeled the inputs. The TV only has ONE HDMI input and ZERO VGA inputs. However if your computer has DVI output, you can buy a cheap converter cable to put it into the HDMI port. It is mislabeled in this way on most other sites as well. It still has 2 HD component inputs which are almost as good as HDMI.

To those of you who are worried about the rainbow effect, I can see it when there are very bright objects against a dark background. It doesn't really bother me though and I am the only one out of my 5 roomates who can see it (they think I'm crazy), so chances are it won't bother most people.

The remote is pretty good because swtitching inputs is easy and it was easy to program for my digital cable box so I only have to worry about one remote now.

PROS:

- Amazing picture

- Low price tag

- Good viewing angles

- Relatively easy to use

- Visually appealing casing

CONS:

-Average sound system

-Only one HDMI and no VGA inputs

-Small percentage may notice rainbow effect

OVERALL: At about $800, this TV is a STEAL. This combined with the great picture quality more than makes up for the few little nuances that may bother some people. I have been very happy with my purchase.

Okay, i like many others out there decided to move up do HDTV, but have end up searching for something affordable for 10 weeks. After first targeting an affordable 37" Lcd I talked myself into going larger with something in 42" size. I worked it hard but found Lcd and Plazmas of this size and in the $900-$1000 price range to be virtually nonexistant, especially if you desire a built-in tuner. I had kind of shyed away from Dlp because of the viewing angle, but when I saw the fantastic price of $799 with free shipping on this toshiba I gave in and ordered. I had been jacked around once by one of these internet drop ship sites that get all the awful reviews so the amazon name being connected to the sale made me feel more at ease.

It took about a week to arrive, and after my long search that didn't seem to long. Each day that has gone by since it arrived I have become more and more pleased with the purchase. The screen size and appearance looks great in our family room 14X15. I found the set up to be very simple and once I got the HD running by adding component cables, I have been very pleased with the picture. THis TV produces sharp images with good contrast and I find the remote and menu system to work very well, providing a pretty good range of adjustment for contrast/brightness/color/ tint etc. There are presets for sport/game/vivid and then there is an adjusted setting saved as user. You can flip between those settings pretty easily and with some pictures coming on almost to colorful I have my user settings toned down a bit from the presets. The picture for nature shows is stunning and the NCAA tournament has looked great. I also am newly enthused about hockey because the picture is so good.

As mentioned by others I would say the sound is not on par with the picture. For me its mostly a volume issue, but when turned up high it does sound good and is actually an improvement to my old tv.

Finally I would say that i have been pleasantly surprised by the viewing angle. Our tv is placed in the corner of a room about 15 ft square. It seems that we get a good picture from most views in the room as long as you ar not looking up/down at the Tv from close up.

If you were saying to yourself, "I'll give up a little bit if I can get a good price on HDTV", then I think you will be very happy with this tv.

I've had this television since 2007. I bought mine at Sears. When I bought my first TV at Sears, it lasted for 6 days before it wouldn't turn on anymore. I took it back and they gave me a new one. I also opted for an extended 3 warranty at that time since I already had trouble with the TV.

Almost 2 years go by and I am totally happy with the TV. Picture is awesome, internal speakers are decent.

At the beginning of 2009 the fan started to make loud noises. A tech came out and diagnosed the fan as bad. While waiting for a replacement fan to show up, the bulb got too hot and blew up. The fan and bulb were replaced.

About a month after the bulb and fan were replaced, there was no picture again. They sent me a new bulb, thinking that was the problem. But the TV still had no picture. A technician came out and diagnosed the whole light engine as bad. They took the light engine to be repaired since there weren't parts for this TV anymore. A couple of weeks after that, they called me and told me that they couldn't fix the light engine and would be giving me a replacement TV. I replaced this unit with a Panasonic.

All-in-all... If I did it over again, I would not buy this television and I would have spent a little more on something with a proven track record.

I wish I knew before I bought this TV for my dad. I think I paid $799 for it just 15 months ago and the lamp has to be replaced. Until this point I was happy with Toshiba products(I have a 42" LCD and two HD-DVD players) but now...How can you justify a TV that costs $1000 retail having to have a $200 part every year? Of course the warranty expired 3 months ago. An extended warranty may have covered the new bulb but you have to make sure, for $50 bucks or so the 2 year warranty would cover 2 bulbs at this rate and save about $400.

I have a Toshiba 42HM66 Model # TV. We like the picture quality of the television but the sound is lacking - can't increase the way you want. The one major problem is we have had it 13 months now - and have to change the DLP Lamp - which costs over $300. This television we figure has about 2800 hours of usage on it. These lamps are advertised usage over 3000 hours - that's so false!!! I am so upset and know that i have to purchase a new lamp every year - i think not - I think i am going to sell this television and buy a SONY!!!! oh yeah - the customer support ith toshiba was no help either - good luck!

I bought this tv almost three weeks ago and I have been pleased ever since. The 1080i display is as good as any plasma displays that I have seen, as well as my parents 1080p dlp tv, and the for the size of the tv you can't beat the price. However, I bought it from tiger direct for only eight hundred dollars. The tv has all of the connections that you can want; including hdmi and dual component connections. I bought the tv for my PS3, and the graphics look amazing. The picture clearity is impressive from all angles but above, but since no one watches a tv from above, the picture always looks good. If you want the clearity of a high priced plasma tv without paying thousands of dollars I suggest you buy this tv.