Came in a box, pulled it out, pluged it in and turned it on. That simple. Amazing picture quality. Been looking for a HDTV for two years and am totaly happy with my choice.

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I bought a 47" Philips LCD TV about a year ago and was very happy with it. When the time came to re-do the bedroom (her wish) it was time for a new TV (my condition). I bought my first one around 4 months ago and installed it up on the wall in the bedroom (with the mount I used I did it myself, but it was a workout).

Picture - The first thing I have to say is there are times the picture is spooky good. I was watching a regular DVD of 'Stargate Atlantis' on it and remember when the dead girl crawls out of the TV screen in the movie 'The Ring'? It looked like the actors were coming out of the screen at me. 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' in 3D? Man is it hard to duck in bed! I think part of that is the upgrade to 120 Hz. The 'Power Saver' mode is nice in the bedroom because it darkens the picture when someone wants to watch TV but someone else wants to sleep. One annoying thing, it's minor and I only mention it because the 47" Philips I own does not do it, but when you turn this TV on a black screen goes to a brilliant bright white screen with 'PHILIPS' in blue across it. Not really necessary or appreciated in a dark bedroom 1st thing in the morning.

Sound - This TV hands down has the best sound for a LCD it's size that I've come across (I've installed about 10 LCD's' so far for friends and family). Controlling the sound environment for this TV seems to be driven off of the picture mode you select. Example - If you select 'SPORTS' for the picture, along with a change in the picture the surround effect is enhanced greatly so the crowd noise increases. There are multiple picture modes to play with though so it's not hard to find one that's pleasing to your audio and video tastes. I also wish it had an output for a subwoofer. It has a 'S/PDIF' output for a stereo but no other connections that go out other than a headphone jack. It does have equalizer settings that you can tweak.

Other - Upgrading to newer software is slick. D/L the newest version from Philips onto a USB drive and plug it in. Read the directions the first time though to explain what you'll see. I've done it once on my TV with no problems. The remote is well laid out, but is not backlit and the buttons are not raised like most TV remotes I've seen. That makes it a little harder to tell what you're doing. I liked the TV enough and thought it simple enough to operate (though Vizio still wins that category IMO) that I bought my 80+ year old parents one of them for an early Christmas present. No complaints so far. They're out in the country and get their HD from OTA stations. Spectacular picture and they are at least 40 miles away from the nearest tower so the built-in tuner is no slouch either. Philips has a winner on their hands with this TV.

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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)

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Great deal at $1300, lots of picture adjustments, but useless for my home theater as it only has one digital audio coax output, which my newer audio reciever doesn't have. Philips just trying to cut corners- parent company LG's equivalent 47" LCD has audio outputs of digital coax, fiber optic, and L,R RCA which most home entertainment centers still have. Unfortunately there's no compatibility with any type of box for converting the audio signal from digital to analog.

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Philips will not produce HDTV any longer for the US and has sold the division to an obscure company that will takeover the production.

This set has created a lot of buzz when it went out because there were a lot of issues. What good about that will you tell? the good thing is that they have fixed the issues (banding, problem with format, auto power off).

One point that has never suffered from any problem was the image quality largely on par with the top brand (even better but i dont want to get flammed by samsung owners).

So this is now a flawless 120hz hdtv with a superb image quality (black are superb). I especially like the image you got using the power saver mode. This version does not have the ambilight ( that i dislike, i have seen many of them in Europe where Philips is a well know brand)

it fits perfectly with a ps3 (yes it does 24p) and the set is beautiful. so buy it when you still can.


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I have been using this TV for two years without any problems. I use it mainly as a PC monitor, but also connected it to an antenna to get local stations. The picture quality is great for both PC and TV. No dead pixels ever found. One more thing worth mentioning is the TV and PC button on the remote. It's so easy to switch between TV and PC monitor.

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I've had this Akai 27" for over 1 1/2 years now, so my review is based on extensive use and long past the factory warranty.

It's just as good as described by all the happy customers who've posted their comments here.
I don't know what to add, except that after 20 months it's still going strong.

The DVD player works fine, except of course it's not as good quality as the more recent DVD players that have come out during the past year. Still, the convenience is wonderful, and the quality is as good as anything I've been watching for the past five years on DVD.

My only complaint would be that the sound cannot be turned up to a loud volume: small room volume only.

This TV/monitor is being used about 8 hours every day, and I could not be more pleased.


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