Philips 300WN5 LCD TV/Monitor

Philips 300WN5 LCD TV/Monitor

Aalaap Ghag, Jun 02, 2005 1010 hrs IST

A 30" LCD TV with a WXGA (1280x768) resolution screen

Quality is brilliant, very easy on the eyes, great color reproduction, great sound, supports most of the HDTV formats, widescreen, network controlled and PC-compatible with DVI/D-Sub

Black areas appear gray/brown, not designed for home usage (controls on the back), DVD jaggies and rainbow-color problem, PlayStation 2 games are not the best on this TV… and its expensive!

Expert Rating :

Expert Review

What is HDTV? High Definition Television is a digital format of television broadcast and display that offers you very high quality picture - somewhat like the difference between regular TV that you get here and DVDs. Even the audio is purely digital, and the picture is widescreen to complete the theater-like experience.

But there's a problem. You can't just buy an HD-compliant TV set and get the complete HDTV experience. You need an HDTV broadcast of your favorite channels, and no one in India currently offers any. Even DVDs are not HD-compliant, so all you're basically going to get is a bigger, widescreen picture. Yes, LCD or plasma TVs do look much better and are easier on the eyes than a regular CRT TV, but are they worth the exhorbitant premium?

Philips' recently launched 300WN5 LCD TV/Monitor is a 30" (diagonal) LCD TV with a WXGA (1280x768) resolution screen (widescreen aspect ratio). This TV is HDTV ready, supporting 480i/p, 576i/p, 720p and 1080i, but not 720i (interlaced) or 1080p (progressive scan).

This TV is actually meant to be used as a public display terminal at places like airports and hotels etc., which is why it doesn't have any controls on the front side of it. It comes with a remote control, but even in you can't find the remote anywhere, you can still operate the entire TV via the buttons at the back. The TV is "network ready" for use at public places - which means it has an RS232 COM port behind which can be connected to a unit (along with several other TV sets in any area) and all aspects of the TV can be controlled from a central location. You can use it at home if you like, as it even comes with a pair of stands to keep it on the desk or furniture, but you can't hang it on the wall because the control buttons are on the rear side. If your remote dies, you'll have to keep watching the same channel till you get a new one. Basically, it was never designed to be used at home. But since most of the likely customers will probably use this thing at home, that's how we decided to test it out.

The 300WN5 supports a variety of inputs and we tried everything we could - TV, DVD, PlayStation, PC - everything except an HDTV broadcast for obvious reasons. The video quality while watching regular TV was fantastic. Even though not HDTV, I just realized that the broadcast in my area is surprisingly good quality.

Changing channels one by one can take a lot of time because it takes a while to shift to the next channel. For channel surfers, this is very bad news. However, if you hold down the channel up or down button, it skips channels without actually tuning them, so it's a lot faster that way. Watching the TV with lights on doesn't create any problems thanks to the anti-glare coating on the glass. I can sit with the light right behind me, and I'll still be able to watch TV just fine.