[MoFoHo]

Hi there! I just purchased this set on sat, and thought I'd give you my views on it so far... Please feel free to ask me any questions or point out any mistakes!

The Competition.
I choses this set over the Samsung 40R74BDX, Toshiba 37WLT66 and Panasonic 37PX60. I dismissed the Panny and the Tosh quite early on not because of their pictures (which are lovely) but simply because the sets didnt look that attractive to my eyes, at least not as nice as the other 2! My feelings are that with these being such prominent pieces of kit, you have to be very happy with how not only how it performs but how it looks too! The Sammy was very tempting, cheaper and with a bigger screen. Both the Philips and sammy are very attractive sets! I eventually went for the Philips as I think its SD pictures were better. In contrast I found the Sammys HD images to have the edge, but only just mind... I also want to thank Nitesun, and Mackem for their thoughts on this set, after all that's EXACTLY what these forums are for I think, thanks guys!

Design and construction.
Upon setting up the stand and heaving the screen onto its stand its quite obvious the Philips is well made. The shiny black surround is very flash (JUST like the Sammy!), but it needed my sweaty finger prints wiping off it! The finnish is exquisite, even down to the remote.

Connections.
They're all there, almost...
No VGA I'm afraid, but there's 2 scarts (1 of which is RGB), component, and of course the 2 HDMI inputs. There's also a digital audio output AND input. And the usual set of side mounted 'convenience' inputs at the side.

Performance.
Picture.
I've only connected my upscaling DVD player so far, so Im unable to report on the set's internal DVB tuner and upscaled DVD playback. I will connect my Xbox360 tomorrow night and feed it some true HD goodness...
Predictably it looks very good indeed. Once you've fiddled with the myriad of picture tweaks (and there's a lot of them) and reduced the brightness down from retina burning levels, its very pleasing to the eye. There's a settings assistant slideshow, which optomises the picture according to your preferences, and it gets it pretty good. There's no motion blur AT ALL, and black levels are good, although predictibly blacks look 'more black' during daylight hours. At night you loose a little contrast but overall its a very pleasing picture. The colours are very beautiful, they look more saturated than on the new Sonys, and I'd guess THOSE sets have the more natural colour balance. The viewing angle is very good, no problems whatsoever.
Digital Terrestrial- also rather predictibly, it depends which channel you're watching! The better channels look crisp and clean, but get up close, and the digital artifacting is there- probably more a fault with the terestrial system than the set itself. The tuner does seem strong though, it definately outperforms my 23" Samsung, and the newer Sammys I've seen.

I cant really comment on HD yet, Im gonna connect my Xbox360 up maybe Mon night and I'll let you know the outcome.Incidently, no dead pixels on this set...

Sound.
Not bad at all. I know that many people will say that the internal speakers dont matter, that most people here (myself included) will have a seperate kick ass surround system anyway. But sometimes I just want the set to be a good 'ol regular telly and the speakers do a fine job.

Ambilight.
Only had the set a day or so really so I cant make a good judgement. All I can say is I have brown walls, so I'm not exactly bein dazzled by a wide spectrum of colour being splashed onto my walls behing the set. Maybe I'm finding it too gimmicky at the moment. I watched Die Hard 3 last night and was just fiddling with the Ambilight settings all the time. I'll have to live with it for a while. Certainly through the day its just not worth switching it on.
How come whenever you see it being demoed or pics of it in action its always showing something with lots of changing colours? "BLUE sky- cut to ORANGE dessert- fade to GREEN meadow- wipe to BLUE sky again (probably with a hot air ballon). I didnt see any of those saturated hues in die Hard...

The set has a few idiyosyncrassies? My DVD player is connected via both RGB scart and HDMI, yet turn on the player on and it defaults to the scart input- it seems you cant prioritise the inputs? Also when the picture format is set to Auto-format, you cant request that Non-anamorphic 4:3 material is shown as 4:3, it gets shown in 'Superzoom' instead.

Overall though, I'm very happy with the set. The picture is superb and its controls and menus are very intuative. Its a lovely set to use and its pictures catch you eye, for the right reasons.
Would I recommend it to you good people? Yes I would, although you are paying a hefty premium for the Ambilight feature- for around £400 less, that 40" sammy was (and is) very tempting indeed! I guess its also down to personal taste, some people may hate the looks of the Philips, I myself was prepared to pay a premium for those looks.
Hopefully soon, Ill be seeing what this beauty can do with a HD feed, and of course if people want I'll let them know how it performs. Till then, I'm done.
Any questions? lol
Steve.