Top deals on CNET here
- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 28 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
-
18 out of 18 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"The best HD plasma I found to purchase"
Pros: Colors, features, connectivity are better than I saw in other sets
Cons: Well, nothing that worries me so far
Summary: I submit this review because I feel that the cnet editorial review does not represent this set correctly. Of course, the authors can write whatever they feel right (and so can I - as I do it below). But my impression was that first they selected the Panasonic model as the Perfect one. Then, everything what deviates from it they regard as shortcomings.
As anyone out there I compared 42pf9630a to Panasonic and others, and this set is a winner for me. Why would I buy it otherwise? It is a long term investment, the existing price difference is not a serious issue here.
In my opinion the colors of Philips, including and particularly green (I am watching football and soccer a lot) are natural. In comparison, Panasonic's are not - they appear to me cartoonish (sort of you are watching Shrek all the time). This reason was enough for me to reject Panasonic (as well as some other Japanese models) outright.
Another feature of Philips is outstanding connectivity AND the cablecard. So, you don't pay for the cablebox, no need for the HDMI cable for that (and hence no loss of signal), plus you can add a dvd-player with dvi output, even if you use the cablebox.
The editorial review says that dvi and component ins are of the same quality. Maybe, for their player. BUT, and it is a very big BUT - the dvd-players can have very different quality for the component and dvd outs. For example, many have a special scaler (Faroudja) via dvi only. If you have only one dvi/hdmi input and no cablecard, and use your only dvi/hdmi in for the hdtv box, you are screwed. You can through such multithousand display into the garbage!
(Keep in mind that they say that in the future only HTCP-HDMI will carry a tru hd signal - youneed more of these then!)
Also, for a fixed-pixel display like plasma the digital input like hdmi is principally better (for the right sorce) as any analogue as component in, I believe.
Via this output Philips allows any formatting you want, even for not anamorphic dvds at 480p. A nonanamorhic letterbox with 720p and Auto(format) also gives you the right proportions. This means all your dvds become anomorphic and WS!
The menu is very natural to me - you just move cursor to the right up or down, left or right to the desired line and click on it. How it can be not natural? I am lost here? One should be careful when relying on these people's opinion after that?
I did not try to select different setting for my inputs, but I read that other owners can do it. This contradicts to the editorial review. Also, I believe that you can select and modify any of several preset settings and use it for any input (as on other Philips sets).
Software on Philips is easily upgradable, which is unique feature.
But again the picture quality and connectivity make this set a clear winner for me at this time!
Well, I am confused with this situation with Panasonic products - most (if not all) ``hard'' publications (HT, HTchoice. PCWorld and similar) consider it as one of many, sort of average with many principal shortcomings. These publications change their winners all the time. And there are quite a few web only reviews that consider it perfect, sort of the only shining star ... How Panasonic does this to them?
