Philips 26PW6341/37 26" RealFlat Virtual Surround Sound Widescreen TV
Worth the Money
I was looking around the internet for a widescreen TV that wasn't projection or larger than 30 inches and I stumbled upon this Philips TV.  I was a little hesitant at first since no one else seemed to have it and there were no reviews, but Philips is a well known brand and they make good TVs so I figured I would take the risk and buy it. <br /> <br />The TV arrived in a gigantic box so it was a little cumbersome to move around.  A little too small to really need 2 people, but still kind of akward for one.  I moved it into position and connected my DVD player, Xbox, PS2 and cable connection.  The firs thing I had to do was change the settings on the DVD player, Xbox and PS2 so they knew they were now connected to a 16:9 TV and not a 4:3 TV.  This is very important, otherwise the movies will look all stretched when you change the TV over to the Widescreen mode. <br /> <br />I first watched a DVD and the picture was very clear and it was nice to finally see a widescreen movie take up te entire screen.  Next I tried a game in the xbox and I couldn't believe it...the game was in widescreen too!  It wasn't stretched to fill up the screen, it was actually widescreen.  (I'm very picky about watching 4:3 shows in widescreen because it stretches the picture and it really bugs me) <br /> <br />Next was on to the cable connection.  I switched the TV back from widescreen to 4:3 and was flipping through the channels.  At first I was disappointed with the picture, but I decided it was only the cable signal at my house.  (I later confirmed this when I connected the TV to a digital cable box and had a fantastic picture)  As I was flipping through the channels I came across a show that was being broadcast in 16:9.  'Great!' I thought and used the 4:3 Zoom feature to zoom in so that the picture filled up more of the screen (Had I put it in full 16:9 mode it would have stretched a little but by zooming in I could choose how much of the screen the Image took up...Like I said, I'm picky)After zooming in, I removed the black bars from the top and bottom of the screen and enjoyed the rest of the show.  Next I flipped to MTV to test out the speakers.  The factory settings had the bass a little low so the sound wasn't very well rounded, but once you raised the bass and turned up the volume, the speakers cranked!  I had the TV connected to an external stereo, and you couldn't even tell the stereo was on because the TV sounded so good. <br /> <br />So far I haven't found any real downsides that would make me not want to buy this TV.  Some people are going to wish it was HD, but I'm not going to be getting HD for a couple years and it wasn't worth the added $500.  If you're looking for an inexpensive, smaller widescreen TV, this is a good bet!