Home > Consumer Reviews > Philips 23PF5320 23-Inch Flat Panel Widescreen LCD TV

I bought this TV primarily because it is lightweight which meant I could get a state of the art TV without having to pay more than twice the price of a cheaper analog tv for a piece of furniture sturdy enough for it to sit on. That being said, I already own a 17" Philips LCD TV that I use as a computer monitor/tv. I was confident I could expect the same quality when purchasing another Philips LCD TV and I was not disappointed. There are a few differences. For instance the 23" has surround sound and probably because of the enhanced sound features I can't use the satellite remote to change volume or turn the monitor off (Of course I did it myself without reading the manual so maybe there's a trick to it).

I have had no regrets about this purchase. The onscreen menus are easily accessible and rather intuitive for the programmer. Consequently, I had the Philips set up with in 15 minutes of taking it out of the box. The sound is so rich and resonant I find myself using the lower volume settings when I'm actually in the living room with the TV. The factory settings for picture quality have been great except for a minor change I made from cool to warm tones. Another plus, there are numerous connections for a/v equipment on the back of the TV. I connected a DVD player a few weeks later, also without having to use the manual.

This TV is not too big, and definitely not too small. This TV is similar in price to countless 20" TVs, with an added bonus of 3" and twice the resolution! The picture and sound are great! I did a lot of searching for an LCD TV around 20" for under $700.00 - this was the best value.

I purchased this tv because of price, Philips reputation, and other reviews listed. The previous reviews were right on the money. The pros: great resolution, lower price for a 23" tv than other competitors. The cons: small channel indicator on screen (its difficult to see); a one second delay as you move from channel to channel; we also noticed the lowest sound setting is still fairly loud. After I received the tv in the mail, I noticed a white hue around each edge of the screen when the background was dark. If you were on a totally black screen, the white hue was easily apparant. Unfortunately, it would bleed into darker colors when watching a dvd or tv. Not a lot, but enough to notice that it was a problem. I had to send the tv back to Philips ($20 via UPS), and they replaced some parts on it. When I received it tv back, the problem was still there, just not as noticable. I'm now going to contact Philips about getting a new replacement, or Amazon to get my money back. Hopefully this tv was a one off problem.

This is a great television for its size. The closed captioning is a bit difficult to read due to the font size. The remote control is a bit small. The colors associated with the predefined picture settings are not great, needs to be adjusted.
My original set was defective near the end of the first year under warranty. The customer support is terrible, spent on the average of 50 minutes on at least 3 occasions. The first set (Day 1 thru Day 20), Philips screwed up the address. The second set (Day 21 thru Day 40), FedEx delivered to the wrong address. The third set (Day 41 thru Day 50), was refurbished and defective (would not turn on, gone through troubleshooting with Customer Support). After the frustration and aggravation with Customer Support, my case was escalated to Consumer Relations. The individual in Consumer Relations stated that Philips will pick up the cost to ship the defective third set back to them and offered a buyback. Despite a satisfactory resolution and a great television, Philips Customer Support is disappointing, a customer will be told 15-20 days for a replacement set to be ordered and sent. Hopefully my experience with Customer Support was an isolated incident.

The Flat LCD has bright color, decent sound, and many input options. I was dissapointed in the DVI input - I plugged my macbook pro in and found the image quite grainy. I was also dissapointed with the composite in - I pluged my video ipod in and the resulting image wasn't great either. All aside however, my xbox 360 going through the component looks fantastic. Even with games that have fast moving action, there is very little ghosting - the TV really keeps up. The graphics look very sharp. I played a DVD through the xbox and it looked very good as well. When I stopped thinking of this TV as a monitor I came to terms that the TV part is great, but it isn't a monitor. The DVI port is a bit missleading. There really should just be an HDMI port. Overall though - great TV for little money.