Hitachi 42HDS69 user reviews

Pros Great picture; what a difference with the Plasma HD,

Cons Menu is a little confusing at first but you'll learn it. Too bad the salesmen are not educated on the different features of all the products.

Summary First I purchased a Toshiba 42" Plasma t.v. I did not like it. I took it back to Best Buy on October 22, 2006 (within my 30 day take back option) and paid a $100 more and got the Hitachi. At first I was a little disappointed with the non-HD channels; some channels seemed a little blurry. Also I would set up the picture options to my satisfaction and every time I turned off the t.v. and then turned it back on later, the settings reverted back to factory settings. I called Hitachi and the technician told me how to change certain settings in the SET UP mode on the menu. The Hitachi technician also asked me for the serial number to my set and told me there was a software upgrade. They sent me an upgrade disk with instructions (no charge) It is now totally beautiful and sharp in almost all channels. It's nice to know that Hitachi will assist it's customers and they will send you the software upgrade if and when an update is available. I had no idea that the Hitachi even had the software upgrade feature. Make sure if you have questions call technical support at Hitachi as they are very helpful and accomodating.

In today's Best Buy ad they have this Hitachi for $1,499.00. I would highly recommend it!

Linda in St.Petersburg, Florida

Pros beautiful design, Great Sound, 3HDMI input, awesome picture quality

Cons you can only switch the inputs with the TV remote....so what

Summary ok, I finally got over researching for 42" plasma. I nearly bought the 06 panasonic model. but I noticd the great design and image quality of this hitachi at bestbuy store so I did my research again and this is what happend:
I fount this TV at microcenter for $1759.00 so I had bestbuy to price match them, I also got an additional $250 for getting diretv which I originally wanted to get. WOW! good deal huh? then I got the Gold plated monster HDMI cable...man...awesome Picture
the sound also is very good. I'm very happy with my purchase you should look into this if you want to spend below 2K

Pros 3 HDMI inputs

Cons have to have the TV remote to change the input selection

Summary Great Picture! I originally purchased a Philips and had it at the repair shop in 2 weeks, needless to say I returned it. My dealing with the repair shop directed me to the Hitachi product line (They recommend it by the fact they said they seldom had them in for repair). I have had this set for about a month and it has a much better picture than the Philips. Plus with the stainless steel frame it looks like a very high end set. My only complaint is that you have to press select to switch from the 5 inputs this TV offers this requires you to use the TV remote and not a TiVo or DirecTV remote to switch the inputs.

Pros Fabulous picture, Surprising sound, Great extensibility thru HDMI, Simple looks and menus

Cons PIP functionality, Incomplete Input4 PowerOn feature

Summary I have seen a lot of Plasma TVs this last year. Albeit not with an professional reviewer's eye but this TV stacks up with the best pictures I've experienced. I don't play video games on it so I haven't noticed the lag of the previous reviewer. Regular 480i cable channels are handled beautifully with the "4:3 Expanded" stretching aspect mode. It's so good I might not pay the cable company extra now for HD channels. Movies played from my Philips Progressive DVD player are stunning. I'm watching them all for the first time again! Close ups are revealing and action shots have hardly any drag at all. The Day-Night button makes adjusting to ambient light levels easy. I just leave it on Night which is plenty bright for me. The power-on feature on Input4 is great, you just put in a DVD and the TV turns on and sets to the right input. I wish it went all the way though and switched when the TV was already powered on. PIP is a bit difficult to learn and only allows HD cable channels concurrently with other inputs(however I may not be doing it right yet).

TIP: Small vendors often split their cable signal between so many TVs without amplification that the performance on all the TVs is degraded. This was the case with my purchase and the TV looks great at home; just like in the more professional stores.