| Reviews : Westinghouse TX-47F430S 47-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV |
Technical Details
- Manufacturer Warranty - 1 year
- Color - Black/Silver
- Device Type - LCD TV
- Max Resolution - 1920 x 1080
- - Color Capability: 16.7 Million colors
Product Description
Bring style sophistication and technology advancement to your home cinema, introducing the new TX-47F430S, a 47?1080p LCD HDTV - truly the perfect TV for all your entertainment needs. This LCD HDTV offers 1080Pure?- 1080p resolution out of all HD inputs (including component), an astounding four (4) HDMI?inputs, and an integrated ATSC/NTSC/ClearQAM tuner. This display is not only an engineering marvel but designed with class and sophistication; featuring subtle curves and a thin 5.5?housing this display has a deep onyx bezel with brushed titanium accents. Enjoy the latest Blu-ray?or HD DVD?movie, gaming on a PS3? Xbox 360?or Wii? or watching your favorite HD TV show.Similar Products
Customer Reviews
By Y. Christian (orlando, fl)
blurays, ps3 n 360 look incredible on this tv...once yu look at a more expensive tv yu will see the difference, but overall for he price and what you can do with the tv with an HD signal...its a good buy
By G Word (Maryland)
DO NOT! REPEAT; DO NOT BUY THIS TV!! I own several large screen LCD TVs all within the $1500 - $1800 range. This TV is no comparison to their picture quality or any other performance category. I bought this TV because of the low price and placed it in a room that is seldom used for TV viewing so high picture quality was not the objective. However, any TV should at least be reliable regardless of price. After 4 months of very infrequent use, the TV simply would no longer turn on. Although frustrating, matters became horrible when dealing and negotiating with the Westinghouse Contact Center for repair services. Without going into the ugly details, all I can say is that it took me THREE MONTHS to finally get Westinghouse to stand behind their product. Ultimately I substituted the TV during this ordeal and realized that I should have made the alternative competitive purchase (only for $180 more) in the first place. I can't tell you how upseting it is/was to learn later that almost everybody had the same problem, in otherwords a manufactured defect associated with the powersave mode. The bottomline is that this is a "low budget" TV; "Low Quality" Picture; and "Low Quality" Service. There are too many good LCD TV alternatives in this price range and for a little more money, substantially better products in all measureable categories. If the picture quality or anything else were better, I would at least say that it might be worth the try as an entry level LCD TV set. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY. I am not saying this to be mean, but Westinghouse should be ashamed of itself!
By Steven M. Perry
I've had this TV for over a year now and it has been a fine TV during most of that time. This is a quick, simple review of my experience with it:
Pros:
-It's hard to get a large 1080p picture for much less. The value is very good. This was my first HDTV and I could only grin when I first saw a good 1080p signal on it. Its an incredible leap from analog cable.
-Allows for full appreciation of Blu-ray. This media is so much better than DVD for video quality. Suggestion: Do not buy Blu-ray discs, but rent from Blockbuster or Netflix.
-Simple to set up with easy menu navigation and fairly expansive settings
-Performance surpasses its price
-Built in tuners are very capable. Over the air 1080p looks great.
-Very good 480i scaling. It makes the difference between analog and digital 480i cable almost unnoticeable.
-Many inputs. My roommate and I have quite a few game systems and the 4 HDMI inputs have been very useful.
-Built in sound system is good, but will eventually develop vibrations.
Cons:
-Experiences PS3 flickering over HDMI (See below)
-Poor black levels: must decide between dark blacks with bad shadow definition -or- good shadow definition and gradient with noticeably light blacks
-Poor scaling of 480p signal. My Wii looks better on 480i than 480p settings.
-Slight shadowing of 1080p VGA signal. Remedied by using DVI output from PC to VGA converter.
-The settings for all of the HDMI inputs are linked. You can set specific video settings for all the different inputs except the HDMI inputs, which all must have the same settings. Changing the brightness for one changes it for all of them, for instance.
Issues:
-It looked much better after adjusting the settings at home than it did in the store; set the sharpness up to 70 or 80, for instance.
-Slight Audio-Visual lag at times. I can't reproduce the pattern, but sometimes the voice will come significantly before the movement of the actor's mouth. This is especially detrimental in fast-reaction based games.
-My PS3 connected via HDMI would flicker. The signal would go in and out, which was very disconcerting during a climactic action scene on a 1080p blu-ray. This problem was especially prevalent on 720p signals. THIS HAS SINCE SUBSIDED AND DOES NOT HAPPEN ANYMORE. I'm not sure why.
-Recently, my set has experience significant red "snow" or fuzz in dark areas with distortion of whites or light grays. I luckily bought the set with a credit card that provides an extended warranty, but otherwise I would be out of luck. It makes some media almost unwatchable. This has been a major problem and will require repairs. Note that this issue arose less than 2 years into the life of the set.
-I attempted to update my firmware and this process was impossibly difficult. The site does not let you download by mouse click, but instead requires that you input your serial number. It tells my mine is invalid. Westinghouse phone support is of no help in this matter.
Overall:
This far after the purchase, I can say that I would only recommend this set if you are absolutely dying to have an HDTV and are feeling very light in the checkbook, like I was. I would not buy a 720p TV ever, but this is the bare minimum for a 1080p set. If you're going to spend the $[...], go ahead and spend the extra few hundred for a better set, especially with deeper blacks. It will bother you if you're in a dark room watching a nighttime scene in a movie and the night sky looks like a dull gray light filling the room. Also, things like black suits and hair lose their definition on this set. I have had numerous issues with the set and am now having it repaired a year and a half after buying it. Like I said, this set made me smile when I first had 1080p video and games on it, but the problems and shortcomings make me wish I had spent just a little more.
UPDATE (10/3/09):
I wanted to love this TV. It was my first HDTV. I bought it in my third year of college with three roommates putting in $[...] each to help. Coming from standard definition CRT and rear projection sets, this set looked pretty good. The blacks were fairly crushed, and shadows in scenes looked uniformly gray. But 1080p was very impressive, and as I've used it extensively for game playing, the high resolution has been great with my PS3 and my roommates 360.
HOWEVER, when I spend $[...] on a piece of electronics, I expect it to serve its purpose for more than a year and a half, which this set did not. I purchased the set in August of 2007, and in November 2008, it began to exhibit very bad color distortion and red "static" or "snow" in dark areas. I spent quite some time adjusting the picture settings to make it watchable, but it was simply miserable to look at. Luckily, I purchased a 2 year third party warranty with the set, and am currently in what's been a 3 month long warranty repair process. Evidently, the main data board is in need of repair (a $[...] part).
Mind you, the set is failing after less than a year and a half of moderate daily use. This comes in addition to the various problems common with this set (dropping of input signals, failure to pick up input from the PS3, losing signal when changing resolutions, vibration of TV cabinet with speakers), all of which I have experienced. Do not buy this TV. You can purchase a much better set for only a few hundred dollars more. Had I had a little more wisdom under my belt, I would have done the same.
I cannot recommend this set to any prospective buyer. For more information, read the AVSforum owner's thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=851860&page=182
While the price is tempting (I've seen it as low as $[...]), this set experiences a major failure after around 18 months. In my opinion, a product recall or class action suit against Westinghouse is in order. That forum is filled with 200 pages of consumers who spent $[...] on a TV that last them less than 2 years, and that my friends borders on theft.
By Thomas King (SC)
Great TV, IF you get one that stays working. Great sound, great picture, great tuner and inputs, great in most every respect. Spotty reliability, and pee poor service if you need warranty service. Get it cheap and get a 3rd party warranty and it'd be reasonable, just do not leave yourself at the mercy of Westinghouse.
After WH support saying that someone will call in 4-5 days, that plus a few and still no call. Then finally get through to the local service, and guess what? No action at all! "Well we have thousands of customers, and there's just me" says the receptionist. 2 or 3 weeks to get the part, after they order it too! Then just the one part WH phone support thinks it is, if they've guessed wrong and the power board happens to have taken out the other board or the screen I could literally be looking at months.
The set is almost wonderful! A percent or two on better engineering, a percent or two to go ahead and ship boards out when called for and 2nd day air etc and things would be fine. Instead they run a seriously mickey mouse repair method to save a few bucks, and guarantee that customers buy something else next time. WH management makes the Big 3 CEO's look like geniuses..
Got it at Costco, and fortunately after the warranty repair problems they took it back despite being outside the 90 day direct return period. If they hadn't been decent I'd have been screwed at least for weeks if not 2 or 3 months.
Great stuff if it stays working, but you'll be quite sorry if you get one of the bad ones. Costco stopped carrying a couple weeks after my purchase, they and several other retailers had a good price and sold them off 6 months ago. No need to wonder why.
By Ace of Sevens (Cedar Rapids, IA USA)
I bought this back in May 2007 when it first came out because the death of my previous TV put me in a bind. Had I waited to see some more reviews, I probably would have purchased a different model. First the pros:
* Good price for a 1080p of this size.
* Sharp, bright image image. Seems to resolve pixel-for pixel on HDMI.
* Does 1080p over component, which is good for those of you with older Xbox 360s.
* Plenty of inputs.
* Digital and analog tuners use a single cable.
* No significant response-time problems
* Low weight and small footprint mean you can place this on many kinds of stands and movie it without too much difficulty.
Now the cons:
* Image brightness is a bit uneven, though not awful. The upper corners are a bit brighter than the rest.
* It crops 480p signals in wide mode about 5% each off top and bottom and less at the sides. This is true for both component and HDMI. High-def signals are framed correctly.
* HDMI is finnicky. My PS3 wouldn't be recognized at all for a while, then got so it would freqently blink out. Running the HDMI through a receiver resolved this, but it's something to keep in mind if connecting directly to the TV.
* Can't be calibrated quite correctly. I couldn't get color bars on spec no matter what I did, though it comes quite a bit closer than many cheaper TVs. I got red and blue close to right, though still visibly off, but it has a significant green push that can't be adjusted out.
* The TOSLINK out seems to down-mix everything to 2-channel. This means you can't watch HDTV in 5.1 without an external tuner. I have no idea why it would do this as it requires alteration to the signal.
* If there's a power outage, or you unplug the TV, you lose all your calibration settings. You'd better write them down somewhere.
* The worst problem is the black levels. Blacks actually glow. There is no shadow detail to speak of. Many video games were unplayable until I cranked them to just not look dark anymore. Kristin Kreuk's hair is just a void in the picture, as is the case for any other dark-haired actor. This really cuts into the benefits of high-def presentation.
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