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Philips 20PF5320D 20in LCD TV

Author Ed Monkton
Published 11th May 2006
Manufacturer Philips
Price £408.51 (Exc VAT)
as reviewed £480.00 (Inc VAT)
Latest Price Click here
Design & Features Score 9 for Design & Features
Image Quality Score 9 for Image Quality
Sound Quality Score 6 for Sound Quality
Value Score 7 for Value
Overall Score 8 for Overall
Philips 20PF5320D 20in LCD TV
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Merely having HD capable connections, of course, is not enough in itself to win a TV its HD Ready wings. And so we find the Philips set ticking all the other necessary boxes by adopting a widescreen shape, employing a native resolution of 1,366 x 768 (high for such a small TV), and being able to handle the two 720p and 1080i HD formats.

In terms of other features beyond its HD readiness, we’ve already hinted in the connections section at the fact that this TV can double up as a PC monitor if you want it to.

Also, very unusually for a TV, this set sports a built-in FM radio tuner. At first this sounds like an odd idea but actually, when you think that it will likely be doing second-room duties in a home, making it into a radio as well as a TV makes all kinds of convenient sense.



The only other bits and bobs worth even a passing mention here are a contrast range expander and Dolby Virtual pseudo surround sound processing. Worth way more than a passing mention, however, are the 20PF5320D’s really outstanding pictures.

Kicking a whole heap of good news off are the TV’s colours, which shun the slightly muted look common at the sub-26in LCD level in favour of retina-burningly bright, vivid hues. What’s more, this attention-grabbing lustre is achieved without being accompanied by dotty noise, shimmering edges and the sort of unnatural tones that many small LCDs can suffer with.

The 20PF5320D also knows how to deliver a fine detail or two, managing to produce, for instance, every last, lovely pixel of image data from our resident Xbox 360 and digital video high definition sources. We feel bound to point out that the sheer visceral impact of the 20PF5320D’s high definition pictures isn’t as profound as it can be on larger screens. But the ‘HD difference’ is definitely still visible enough in our opinion to justify this TV’s expense relative to non HD Ready 20in LCD models.

 

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