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“I had a fairly old Philips 4:3 29" tv blow up and it...”

written by andythebrave on 18/12/2003

Good Points
Sensational picture
Excellent on board sound

Bad Points
Constructing the stand takes a fair bit of artistic licence and a lot of patience

General Comments
I had a fairly old Philips 4:3 29" tv blow up and it was replaced with a Philips 32PW9618 with Pixel Plus & DD.



Lucky me, or so I thought until the delivery chaps half demolished the stand in the street whilst failing to construct it and somehow managed to scratch the TV screen too.



Complained and elected to swap for the Toshiba 36ZP38 for very little extra.



Whilst waiting for stock, that bane of the electronics age consumer, had a good chance to check out Pixel Plus. Well, it's great, provided you're not trying to watch anything with any serious movement on screen when it just looks weird (and, yes, that's with Cinema Plus too). Sound was ok.



Well the Toshiba arrived and the guys took away the Philips after failing to build the Toshiba's stand correctly and then plonking down the TV on to it without having fixed the locating pins on the stand first. Guess that that's how it's going to stay as there's no way to lift this TV, it's very very heavy and then some.



But it doesn't look big. Scratch that; considering it's a 36" true flat widescreen CRT TV it's darn titchy. It's not nearly as obtrusive as the Philips was and the ugly silver and insubtantial feel of the Philips' finish has been replaced by a truly classy black surround and proper metal stand sides instead of the cheap 'n' nasty coloured MDF (?) of the Philips.



Auto tune is easy, didn't even bother with the manual as it was so obvious from the onscreen menu.



Hooking up DVD and Freeview STB a cinch.



Had a little trouble getting the DVD audio setup right until I actually read the instructions (Moral - don't run before you can walk) and everything is now fixed nicely.



The picture with DVD is sensational. Blacks rendered at least as well as the Philips, no motion artifacts at all, excellent colour rendition and all this on the factory presets. Guess if I tinker a bit with the settings it could get ever so slightly better but why should I bother. There was a slightly tilt to the picture out of the box but this was (very) easily corrected by using the 'Geomagnetic' correction slider in the menus. 'Geomagnetic?' I hear you cry, yes, something to do with the Earth's Magnetic Field and visiting creatures from a Galaxy far, far away. OK, I was joking about the last bit.



Haven't got round to fixing the (supplied) rear speakers yet as have still to convince wife that a pair of wires running round the skirting boards is a really neat idea. However, listening to the (supplied) extension main L&R + using the set's onboard speakers as a centre was a revelation and will be to anyone who hasn't heard what a modern TV can do these days.



Honestly, could not tell the difference between this set's sound and that of a full blown separates set up. I do have a very small lounge so I suppose that may have a levelling effect but then so do most people these days.



To sum up, this TV comes with everything onboard, looks fantastic, doesn't cost a bomb (provided you shop around that is - you can get a deal for around £1250 or £1450 with DVD and VCR), sounds as good as you'll ever need a TV to do, doesn't have any failings that I can find and feels solid enough to last far longer than the majority of the consumer disposable silver plastic monstrosities that currently plague our high street electrical retailers.