They paid attention to details
Written: Jan 15 '03 (Updated Feb 07 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Well designed, well built with attention to details
Cons: Image scaling capabilities missing unable to adjust 14:9 format to fit screen
The Bottom Line: Open the box and you'll find a no disappointment. Its all there,and it works perfectly.
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| mjdart's Full Review: Philips LX3500D Theater System |
I bought a Philips 60" HDTV and the LX3500D was included "free" as part of an incentive package. It normally retails for $349. I mailed in the rebate to Philips on 12/5 and it was delivered on 1/13, not bad! Now when you get anything for free you don't really worry about its capabilities and features as much as when you fork over some hard earned cash. Its a progressive scan unit which was my only real had to have feature.
The box was opened and I quickly found out the Philips people really pay attention to details. The instruction book is thick and in all mandatory languages. Those large picture type instruction pages were also included in three languages as well. Let me tell you, you don't need instructions to set this up, its that well labeled.
First off the DVD unit is of the newer slim, stream-lined design. It is very attractive unit in an silver color with the pre-requisite tinted window running down the middle with electronic lights and such. The unit itself is actually heavy! It feels like those old VCR's from the 70's did, only on a much smaller size scale. I don't know what the inside looks like, but the use of plastic components must have been kept to a minimum.
The sub-woofer is large and very attractive very much like the DVD unit. The five speakers gray tone colored come with "techie" yellow covered speaker grills installed, but Philips also includes a much toned down grayish set for us "older buyers". The grills can be changed out on all 5 speakers in under 2 minutes! The design and method for doing this is engineered and executed the right way. This is beyond the call of duty and much appreciated.
Philips includes every cable and wire you could possibly need. Now about those speakers and wires. As you turn the DVD unit around and look at all those connection possibilities you begin to panic. But wait each connection including the ones for the speaker wires are color coded and labeled. Guess what, each of the speaker wires have a color coded marking that matches the DVD player and also the color coded connections on the back of the speakers. The speakers also have clearly printed text which tells you where they go, "ie center, left front, right rear". I positioned and wired up each speaker with out looking at the directions, Philips made it that easy.
There is a clearly marked switch on the back of the unit that allows you to turn off progressive scan if your TV is not capable. The remote control unit gives you individual buttons for volume control of the center, rear and sub-woofer speakers. The overall volume button controls all at once. You can also access many menus for setting up volume delays on the speakers in mili seconds for exact tuning of your system. There is also a test button which sends a tone around to each of the 6 speakers for you to test the system. There is also a on-off screen saver for you pause a DVD during playback. I've only begun to explore the sub-menus as they are plenty with this unit.
Now the one item I'm unhappy about, scaling. My cheapie ($49) Apex AD-800 progressive unit I've been using allowed me to alter the image size sent to my TV. In other words I could stretch the image from the X or Y axis of the picture. This was most welcome when the image on my widescreen TV was still in letterbox but not filling my screen due to its 14:9 ratio rather than the 16:9 widescreen format. It might somewhere be in the capabilities of the Philips system but I haven't found it yet.
But in the end I'd like to thank the folks at Philips for producing a well designed, well engineered and well built system.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
mjdart
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Reviews written: 27
Trusted by: 1 member
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