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Toshiba 42HP83P 42" TheaterWide HD-Ready Plasma Flat-Panel TV

Toshiba 42HP83P 42" TheaterWide HD-Ready Plasma Flat-Panel TV

List Price: $7,499.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Purchase I've Made...
Review: Before my purchase I spent a lot of time looking at various option with TVs. I work for a major home electronics dealer and I had some special access to testing information and narrowed it down to this model a Sony variations and a Samsung model.

This TV won, hands down.

The picture is beautiful, especially in DVD or HD, likewise the sound quality is excellent, slight distortion, but with proper calibration it's easily solved.

Several reviews have mentioned the sound being "off" and "not syncing correctly" I experienced this slightly in the short film "Star" by BWM Films, otherwise I have had no problems the picture and sound match perfectly.

The level of detail and sharpness are by far the best I experienced in Plasma. The color quality and brightness levels are amazing, even if turned down below 25%. The blacks are very black and the whites are brilliant white.

The sharpness is equal if not better then many XBR models. I am very pleased and will continue purchasing Toshiba's for years.

Make sure you properly calibrate the model (either professionally or with an Avia disc...) and make sure you let the TV warm up to room temperature before you turn it on. Likewise read you manual, a lot of mistake and abuse can come about with improper knowledge of how to run a machine like this.

This Toshiba is like a European sports car, you treat it right and it'll treat you right.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Started off beautifully, but after 1 month....
Review: Bought this TV at BestBuy. We loved the features, picture quality and the overall design of the TV. Everything was great until about day #29 when the screen was all white when we turned it on. After several tries we got it to work. After 3 days of phone tag we fiunally get to talk to our sales person, manager of the department, and he tells us we are 2 days over the 30 days and he won't do anything for us. Long story short we point out that it was 30 days from the day it was delivered and they agreed to take care of it. After another week we finally get a repair man out and he says we need a new circuit board. So now 4 days later, we can barely get the tv on now and no word on when we are going to get the part. By the way it is discontinued. Buy another TV! I wish we would have bought the Panasonic and will if we end up having to replace this one. Also, it is BS that you have to buy a warranty, but I will buy one to just to protect my $5000 investment.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Defective Product and Customer Support Stinks
Review: First the good:
-the picture quality is good, the colors are rich.

Now the bad:
-the speakers produce distortion
-you cannot save settings associated with different inputs. This means every time you switch from one type of feed to another (watching a movie on DVD to watching regular TV via the satellite), you have to change the relevant settings. This gets to be time consuming and tiresome.

Now the unacceptable:
From the day I purchased this TV I have had sound synching problems. Sometimes the sound is off by as much as a second. My experience with Toshiba Customer support is very similar to the experience other reviewers have had: Toshiba tech support arranged for a local shop to examine the TV. They reported the problem to Toshiba and nothing has happened. I have had the TV almost two months now. Worse is, every time I call Toshiba to check the status, they cannot tell me anything, not even when they expect to repair or replace the TV.

My hoped for outcome from this will be that I will be able to return the TV and I will then purchase another brand, probably the highly rated Panasonic TH-42PA20U

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: PLEASE DO NOT BUY THIS PLASMA
Review: I have bought this TV in June. It has not worked for 15 days properly. Picture comes up for 30 min and it goes off and the screen is just with white lines all over, and the TV gets so hot we shut down for few min (when it works). It works once a day. Picture quality is not good. Repair guys took 2 months to figure out what the problem is. After 4-8 new parts in it, it worked for 20 days again back to the same problem. Customer Service of Toshiba "New Technology and New Problems". No HELP AT ALL FROM THEM. Do not take my word. I am putting the Phone Number of the Repair center: 770-451-5057 and my case #: 281270. PLEASE DO NOT BUY THIS TV.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Just got one
Review: I have looked at all the HDTV Plasma in 42". This is the best model out there. The picture looks crystal clear, the colors look natural, and the image is very bright. J&R has this model next to the more expensive Sony Wega Plasma. If you have seen those two TV's side-by-side, you wouldn't pay $1000 more for the Sony Wega model.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Defective product--don't even think about buying!
Review: I have looked at all the HDTV Plasma in 42". This is the best model out there. The picture looks crystal clear, the colors look natural, and the image is very bright. J&R has this model next to the more expensive Sony Wega Plasma. If you have seen those two TV's side-by-side, you wouldn't pay $1000 more for the Sony Wega model.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Just got one
Review: I have looked at all the HDTV Plasma in 42". This is the best model out there. The picture looks crystal clear, the colors look natural, and the image is very bright. J&R has this model next to the more expensive Sony Wega Plasma. If you have seen those two TV's side-by-side, you wouldn't pay $1000 more for the Sony Wega model.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Just what I wanted
Review: It took a long time for me to decide which TV to get- plasma or otherwise. I knew I wanted HD, so I looked at DLP (Digital Light Processing), Rear Projection, Tubes, LCD, and Plasma. LCD sets had too much motion artifacting, DLP's had too much of a screen door effect, tubes were too big and bulky, and Rear-Projection had too little of a viewing angle. The final decisions came down to DLP (with the newer chip, the Samsung HL-P5085W was a stand out) and Plasma.

I originally was under the impression that Plasma TV's could not display true High-Def, and I suppose that if High-Def were calculated at 1080i or 1080p, that might be true. Nonetheless, the picture quality on the Toshiba 42HP83P is amazing. I am pretty aware of some of the tricks that stores use to make their displays look good (i.e., turning the contrast all the way up, etc.) so I shopped aware. I looked at high-end Plasmas, and low end plasmas, but in the end, the Toshiba blew most of even the more expensive displays away. In addition, it does an excellent job of stretching the 4:3 analog picture to 16:9, without making the people look odd.

I went out shopping for a few things: clarity of the picture, reasonably enough inputs, good conversion, DVI inputs, Picture on Picture that could combine both analog and digital signals, as well as direct video input (no pressing of the same button on the remote to pick the video source that you want to use). Additionally, I have Time Warner Cable, and most of my friends (ok, all of them) that have a HDTV, have to switch to Component/DVI input to watch HD, and then back to S-Video/RCA/Coax, to watch a non-HD channel in a stretched-screen mode. Not so with the Toshiba. It literally gives me everything that I wanted in a TV, and unless you are considering spending $9,000 or more on a TV (and even if you are), it's one stellar performer.

There have to be drawbacks, right? Of course. Plasma display's suffer burn-in, a trait that does not make an appearance with LCD's. Consequently, I am very careful as to what is one the TV. This plasma puts out a lot of heat- so if you are upgrading to plasma from a CRT tube and expect the same electricity bills, you're in for a small shock; the bill won't kill you, but you'll start to see the need for turning the thing off, even if you're just leaving the house for a while. In an ideal world, the Toshiba would have two DVI inputs, but I can deal. I could also get a DVI switchbox, but I haven't seen the need yet.

All in all, this TV WILL shine for you, and comes highly recommended from a person with very discerning taste.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Defective product--don't even think about buying!
Review: We loved this TV for one month. Then a bright red line appeared from the top of the screen to the middle. Toshiba tech support arranged for a local shop to examine the tv. The repairmen determined that the line was from a failed circuit board. They said this "happens all the time" on Toshiba plasmas, something I never noticed in doing my due diligence on this product before I bought it. So here is a warning for anyone thinking about buying this or any other Toshiba plasma. Try another brand! By the way, it has been a month since the service call and we are still waiting for the problem to be repaired.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome Picture and Sound
Review: We recently purchased this TV and Wow. DVDs and Dish Network HDTV look amazing. The picture is crisp and lifelike. It is easy to use and hook up. I wish that it had an HDMI interface rather than a DVI-D so that I could save the addition of audio cables, but for the price, you can't beat it.


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