Originally posted by: BrokenVisage
There was long running post over at FW for a Philips refurb wholeseller, not directly from Philips like this TV but they go through Philips with warranty and crap so it might as well be. I decided to jump on the older model of the one in this post and got it for ~$360 in the end and here's what I think about it so far...
Ok people, I got my 30PW8402 yesterday and will record my initial reactions and picture observations about it. The TV was not doubleboxed, but it was filled with packing foam that was very well placed and obviously did it's job as the TV is cosmetically almost perfect. This is just a small quibble but I was a little dissapointed about the lack of documentation in the box, it came with 2 sheets of paper with the TV's specs which I already knew by heart and a registration card, nothing on how to use the remote or an instruction manual of any kind. Yes folks, this tube is heavy and bulky so expect to need 2 people to place it on your stand. Ok, now here's where I start praising the TV I promise. I decided to use the HDMI port for my digital cable box but had to disable something like 4:3 OVERRIDE to make the HD work on that input. After everything was connected I started watching some baseball and college football in HD, sports being the genre people were having problems with on this tube due to horizonal overscanning causing lines. While I won't say it was non-existant, the lines were very rare especially during football which some people said the lines made impossible to watch. The games were however very impressive and a treat to watch. I also popped in a LOTR DVD as you can see in the hyperlinked picture which looked nice as well. I'll give my impression on the sound here, because it was the biggest surprise in the box. The speakers are very clear and have good imaging to them for being built-in's, they also get very loud if needed. The menu system was very intuitive, not many options on the main menu but it's simple to navigate through and change things. I wrote down the PQ defaults and will probably play around with them later today. I do experience a delayed screen turn on when I power up the tube, but that is really no big deal since I'm gonna try not to turn on/off the unit more then 3 times a day. The channel delay while flipping around some people also said to have is not noticable for me, it takes a little less than a second to switch channels on my digital box which is what I got on my 19" POS TV I had before anyway. Lots o' inputs and outputs, right now I'm using HDMI for cable and component for DVD, but might experiment with S-video and such later. I don't know how to look up how many hours were logged on this before refurbishment, so if any of you could tell me how to look that up I'd appreciate it.
Now my thoughts on ElectronicsNation.com, PilotAir, and the overall process I experienced to get the TV to my door. First, EN.com isn't exactly Insight as you can tell, but it's good enough for the job it does. Tracking never worked for me and sometimes it was a pain to navigate on, but the thing that made the experience worth while was Brain keeping in contact with me over email. Since halfway through the process I wanted to get the 8402 instead of the 850H I needed him to help me work it out, and at one point gave me a call to tell me it could be done and we had a nice conversation. He was polite, prompt with replys to email, and gave me the tracking information as soon as my TV was on its way. The only problem I had with this process was the length, I ordered the TV back in August and am just recieving it now so the 5-7 day shipping must neglect the actual time it takes to place the invoice order to their warehouse, but I won't get on Brian for that since I'm sure he had lots of orders from many of us all at once and on any other given day when his site isn't posted on FW would be business as usual. Now my impressions on the shippers, PilotAir . It took them about 3 days not counting the weekend to ship the TV from Ohio to Philly's distribution center, which isn't too bad. The tracking info was not very detailed, but it didn't really have to be like Fedex or UPS in this case. The guys who brought my TV in were friendly and careful with carrying it and came right when they said they would timewise, much appreciated. Wow, that's alot of words so I think I'm done now. Overall, this is my first big FW buy and first HDTV buy, it could have gotten to me quicker but right now I'm happy with the experience and plan to purchase the 2-year warranty to make sure it lasts me until I'm ready for a big living room set, might even go with Philips if this baby lasts 2 years. Thank you FW, Brian, and PilotAir for the information, help, and shipping.
Pictar
Facebook
Twitter