I mean, what more could one want?

A review on PHILIPS 29PT4824 

Written on: 25-Jan-2001 

Pros: Too good! 

Cons: No in-built signal-amplifier :( 

And I really mean it ... what more could one *ever* want from the good ol' boob-tube, now-a-days more a part of the family than many family-members themselves? Large screen? At 29", it makes Shah Rukh's pimples in 1-2-ka-4 look larger, fuller and redder than the real thing. 

Great picture? The equation for once is really simple: Great contrast + great brightness + great colours + noise reduction + sharpness control + a world-renowned brand name on the tube = Great, great, great picture. Anytime. Anyplace. 

Great sound? 400 thundering watts, surround­sound speakers, that great Philips patented invention The Incredible Surround mode, Auto­Volume Leveller, treble and bass control, ultra bass, another great Philips invention The Cinema Surround .... any more features and one'd forget the list (and forget to use it anyway). Misc. features? Digital-tuning, child­lock, auto-surf (a very handy feature), auto­volume leveller, sleek cabinet styling, the works. Sales and service? We're talking about *Philips* here, man! Not some cheap johnny­come-lately from the upstart far-east. 

Now onto non-features...

Dolby? Tell me frankly ... can you distinguish between a system with Dolby Prologic and one with Philips Incredible Surround blindfolded? Yes? Then you must be a double-PhD-in-audio­DSP-technologies sitting in some anechoic acoustic chamber in some research labs nestled somewhere in the Austrian Alps with like 4 decades of experience in sound sampling only. For everyone else, in every other real life scenario, the two are indistinguishable. Moreover, no number of PhD's can make Shah Rukh's "K .. K ... Ki. .. Kiran" sound like the Big-B's "Daddu Tum?" 

Flat-screen? Really ... you're not planning on watching the telly from anything beyond the normal 100 - 110 degrees viewing angle, are you? You are??!! Then you must be sitting pretty towards the edge of the 700-inmates-in-1-TV-room crowd at Tihar. Better learn to bully your way to the centre. Or you can send a requisition through the jail-warden of your cell to Kiran Bedi for a truly, really, perfectly, pool­table-like, 180-degree-viewing-angle, fully flat, fully square screen TV. And costing about twice the normal TV, to boot. For any other scenario, there's the Philips 29PT4824. 

Built-in signal amplifier? Hello? Are you from Philips? This is (the only one) on my wish-list. 

- Rajesh 

Would you recommend this television to your friend?: Yes 

How was the Picture Quality?: Excellent 

How was the Sound Quality? (output,clarity .. ): Excellent