Smart TV. Review on Philips 21PT240B

I was shopping for a TV and this time it was for my granny in Bangalore. She was using a very old BUSH 20 Inch Television which had finally seen its days. Philips was my only choice and so I decided to pick up the 21PT240B. This was a little over 3 years ago. During that time the 21PT240B was the best Philips had in the 21inch category. There was no Match line series (Philips Premium products are designated with 'Match line' series. This applies only to Audio/Video equipment) in the 21 inch category. On comparison too the 21PT240B was the best out there. So I picked it up and it cost me around Rs. 16000 under exchange. The old Bush tele did not fetch me much.

The ownership experience started with disappointed. The television was delivered to me in a passenger auto with the dealer staff in it. The Television was not even in its box. It was kept on the seat and the box was protruding out of the window. I ignored this. After the television was placed at home and tuned up; I spent some time looking around the set and noticed a lot a scratches on the body. There was even a gap between the picture tube and the cabinet thats supposed to hugg the tube. You could stick a match stick through it.

The unique thing about the 21PT240B is the Channel, Volume Scroll buttons and the Install button that was on the television set and placed on top. Philips referred to this as 'Island Controls' cause they were placed like an Island on top of the set. No television set had controls placed on top of it; they would be next to the Power Switch at the bottom. From my knowledge Philips robbed this idea of thier very own Match line series of televisions that were in the premium category and were always starting in the 29 inch segment. Match line television sets by Philips always had their controls placed on top of the television and it used to be backlit in Yellow and they used to highlight this as a unique feature about their sets in catalogues.

However the Island Controls on the 21PT240B were not meant to be backlit. Getting back to the point; the buttons on the controls on top of the television looked as if they had been chewed up a bit and I was not happy about this. The TV worked fine and I slowly addressed this with Philips. It took me 3 months to get my TV replaced but it was finally done. Technicians came home to inspect the set and finally agreed that the set did not look like a new piece.

Features about the set. 100 Programme Memory, S and Hyper band Tuners, PAL/NTSC compatible, AV IN/OUt Stereo, 2 AV INPUTS, 4 Mode Presets each under Smart Controls for Picture & Sound, 200 Watt PMPO Sound Output, 3 Speaker system (One set of High/Mid Frequency Speakers and a Sub woofer inside the cabinet), Channel SKIP and SWAP, Auto/Manual/Fine Tuning options, Full

Function Remote, 12 Channel Personal Preference Control and Auto Volume Level Control. This set was one fully loaded one for its time and still feel it is.

Picture is great. Colors are natural and everything is sharp and pleasing to look at.

However there is no seamless control for Sharpness. It just switch between 'MINIMUM, SOFT, NORMAL, and MAXIMUM. A hue control gets automatically enabled in the picture settings when the TV detects an NTSC signal. The televisions tuner allows you to SKIP channels you don't want and also SWAP them to a different location. Both these features are very useful. The Picture presets are of no real use. The options are PERSONAL, RICH, NATURAL and SOFT out of which the only preset worth using would be off course PERSONAL and SOFT. The other two

presets simply ruin the picture.

Sound is okay but I would have really wished they made the settings better. There is BASS and TREBLE control but what good is it when you can just switch it ON/OFF.

The other options under sound are Balance and Auto Volume Leveler which works quite well and 4 presets under Smart Controls for Sound called 'PERSONAL, VOICE, MUSIC AND THEATRE'. All options work well. This television does not have the best of sound. Its all clear but I feel there is just too much bass. This television can seriously put up a challenge to other televisions for the amount of bass it puts forward. To around 45 % of the volume control everything is fine but then all the sound gets too loud and terribly distorted. 200 Watts is a lot of power for the sound system of a television set and I guess the 21PT240B's cabinet too was not designed for it. Too many vibrations generated from that Sub Woofer and everything goes haywire. I sometimes simply crank the volume under various broadcast material to see how far the sound system will go. It has not popped so far.

DVD Playback is just great. Sound imaging is not that good but more than enough to expect out of a television.

Remote control is not the easiest to use but does not take much time to get familiar with the layout. Color coded buttons help a lot. However its been 3 years now and the print has faided completely on most used keys.

Overall its s great television set. Its been 3 years now and no problems at all and it looks like it will go on and on. A year down the line or less Philips launched a new model called the 21PT240S. The 'S' stood for a silver cabinet. Hope this review helps.