Sony KDL-40W3000 - 40” Widescreen Bravia 1080P Full HD LCD TV - With Freeview
Sony KDL-40W3000 - 40” Widescreen Bravia 1080P Full HD LCD TV - With Freeview
with Integrated Digital Tuner
Customer Review: Colour Like No Other!! Simply stunning!!
I had been researching LCD panel TVs for a while before finally deciding that i should get this one. As a rule of thumb, i never leave any stone unturned.
It’s predecessor the W2000 seemed to get brilliant reviews everywhere i looked, with an average rating of 9/10 in each magazine or online reviews. But as it was being discontinued, i initially thought that the picture and quality could not get better as it was simply stunning. But i went to a sony style store to compare the W2000 with the W3000 and it was truly breath-taking. There was a distinct improvement in sharpness and contrast, and there was no motion judder which you could get on the W2000 (I read and witnessed motion judder on the W2000 with a Blue Ray disc)
Sony have only improved. The W3000 you can get from other online stores with a free 5yr warranty included up until the 31st January 08.
Playstation 3 just looks amazing on the TV. With newer games now coming through with the 1080p resolution, I am now starting to see the benefits of this TV. Most games at the moment are 720p (HD Ready) and not 1080p (Full HD) but there is certainly a difference.
I also compared the screen side by side with Toshiba, Samsung and Philips. Philips is the closest match to the Sony in terms of quality build and picture quality, but they are expensive. That’s not to say that Sony isn’t, you are just getting more for your money with the Sony. Samsung pictures were vivid, but the only drawback is the tedious reflective screen. LG and Toshiba(which i have owned for years) in terms of picture quality were no match in terms of sharpness or picture quality.
For the extra ?150-?200 you will pay for this sony, it is a worthy investment and you will NOT be disappointed.
And a free 5 yr warranty, surely it costs about ?300 by itself.
I now understand what they mean by Colour Like No Other.
Customer Review: Go on you know you want one!
I must say that having spent the best part of a month searching the net and reading all the magazine artilces I could I am more than pleased with my final choice of the Sony.
Yes the other 40″ contenders from Toshiba, LG and Samsung are good but all have one or two small niggles the Sony doesn’t, although I appreciate its around ?200 more expensive.
I don’t have Cable or Sky but connect through inbuilt Freeview a Panasonic HDMI HDD Recorder and a PS3, and the picture is tons better than my old (5 years) 32″ 100Hz pixel plus Philips CRT which is still better than many other CRT models.
Yes setting up the picture can be a trial but no more than my mother and mother-in-law’s Samsung and LG 32″ LCD TV’s they recently purchased.
The build quality is typically Sony and visibly better than the 2 above mentioned sets.
To sum up, its a bit more expensive than some of the competition but does provide one of the best SD and HD pictures around, 3 HDMI ports and all this tied up in an attractive sleek quality built surround with decent sound options.
Go along to John Lewis and see all the main contenders together and make your own comparison as I did, in the end I purchased mine from Sound and Vision with just a 3 year guarantee and saved around ?120, if you want 5 year cover then John Lewis is as cheap as anyone online.
-
Daewoo DR8100P 160GB HDD Multi-region Capable DVD recorder 
Amazon Price: ?202.90
Customer Review: Could be better
In common with the other reviewers, the first thing I noticed was how noisy the fan is. Over the last few months the fan has been getting even noisier at start-up, but quitens a little after a few minutes. This problem is getting so bad I am about to send it back. The other issue is that I have never been able to record on the timer (either to HDD or DVD), either from my NTL or Freeview box. It works fine to record live though and I am happy with other aspects of it.
Customer Review: Absolute JUNK
I bought this based on the half decent reviews. The first unit I bought had a faulty LCD & had to be sent back (part of the LCD didn’t light up, meaning 18:00 hours always displayed as 8:00 etc). The second unit randomly freezes for no reason what all. At this point it becomes COMPLETELY unresponsive & the only fix is to unplug it & wait for one minute before powering back on. Nothing else works. In addition, it’s completely failed to record programs via the timer. The first & last time I buy anything from Daewoo. Avoid this junk at all costs.
Philips DVDR5500 - DVD Recorder With Freeview 
in Black
Amazon Price: ?109.99
Used Price: ?119.99
Customer Review: Good picture quality and easy to use but has recording problems
I was pleased with everything about this DVD until I discovered that mine had a couple of faults (not sure if these are common faults). When recording, it often doesnt switch off after the selected program has finished recording and so it records the next program until it uses up all the disk space, then the disk keeps spinning and gets hot, and you can only stop it by switching it off at the mains. Also there is no way of knowing how much room you have available on the disk and it will accept a recording request when there is not enough room on the disk. I’m afraid to say I will be taking it back.
DVD Recorder HDD Panasonic DMR-EH775EG-K black 
Philips DVDR3450H/05 Hard Disk / DVD Recorder 
Amazon Price: ?240.33
Used Price: ?157.99
Customer Review: Very nasty product
I have had this machine about 6 months and it’s just about to go back to be repaired again. Even when it’s working, it’s so painfully slow that you end up pressing the button several times thinking it’s not doing anything. It takes about 2 minutes to warm up for a start. The most annoying thing for Sky/cable viewers is that it never remembers to default to the scart socket on startup. So you have to go through an agonisingly slow process of selecting ALL the other possible inputs in turn before being able to select the main scart input. Pretty irritating when you have to do that every time. Frankly it’s rubbish and Philips should be ashamed of themselves. I’ve had one of their microwaves for 20 years and the bulb hasn’t even gone yet. Something’s gone a bit wrong with their quality since then it seems.
Daewoo DH6100P Multi-region Capable DVD Recorder with 80 GB Hard Drive 
Amazon Price: ?175.12
Used Price: ?99.99
Customer Review: NTSC Compatible?
I just bought this and it seems pretty good, but although I followed the multiregion instructions helpfully provided here by M Crouch, it still doesn’t seem to be fully NTSC-compatible - so it does play region 1 DVDs, but with flickering lines across the image. Is there another code that can deal with this? I’d be grateful for advice if anyone can help!
Customer Review: It’s a dream to use
I had an initial problem trying to make it region free but once I had sorted that out I was off! It records really easily, converts hard disc recordings to disc at the press of a button & allowed me to convert all my videos to DVD with ease. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
