"I had done a considerable amount of research before I purchased the Philips 42PFL5603D/27 and I have to say I am quite pleased with my choice. I have owned the TV for about a month now and here are some of my findings. Hope this helps.

After reading a few conflicting spec reports, the Phillips 42 does in fact have a 5ms seek time. Some sites you will see have it listed at 8ms but this is incorrect. The 5ms is amazing when watching sports or playing games. There are roughly no 'trails' or inconsistent images.

The trim around the TV does not glow or light up as some earlier reports suggested (before the release)

Software like the 3D engine and HD Natural Motion is very stable and looks great when watching HD content. Infact it takes a bit to get used to it, being that image panning is very very smooth.

Software like Dynamic Contrast and Active Control were kind of useless to me because when these features are active you can actually see the screen adjusting. It seemed annoying to me and at first and I thought there was something wrong with the set. However they are easily defeated (turned off) and it worked fine after the adjustment was made.

The software also gives you a setup assistant feature which quickly walks through the setting up of the color. It shows you different split screens and asks your opinion on which looks better. After a few of these are answered the TV automatically adjusts itself according to your choices. I think this is a nice feature for those who do not like to 'tweak settings' over and over again. The picture was close to perfect in my opinion after running the setup assistant.

If you are not planning on mounting the set to a wall the stand is very cool. It allows you to 'swivel' the TV up to about 30º in either direction. My TV is located in the middle of the room however my couch is off to the right side. So having the ability to rotate the TV so that I am looking at it in direct line of site is very handy especially when playing games! :)

Fit and finish of the Phillips is superb and as the marketing swill says, it really does look great in any room. My wife was concerned that it was too big for our space however once it was set up she really enjoyed the sleek and subtle design features.

The Remote is pretty basic and cannot be programmed for other devices. I also found that off axis operation (when not pointing directly at the TV) causes inconsistent results. My sense is the remote does not send out a high enough powered IR signal because the issue goes away when I use my logitech universal remote.

As far as power consumption goes, all I can attest to is the fact that it does not get very hot which leads me to believe the power levels are clean however it is hard to tell without proper test equipment. There is a 'powersaver' mode which drastically ramps down the contrast and is only really good in a very dark room. I rarely use this as I prefer my color settings. Even the lower contrast one I created for 'movie mode' still performs better then the preset powersave mode.

Overall quality of the sound is pretty good and in my opinion completely adequate for most situations and/or users. I used the TV for over 2 weeks before setting up my surround sound system and never felt I was missing out. The speakers are not terribly loud so if you are someone who is looking for that full movie experience with explosions so real the cops are called, well, then you will definitely want to invest in a 5.1 or 7.1 surround system. The built-in subwoofers are rear firing so you may want to be careful about judging the resonance in the next room if the rooms share a wall or if you share a wall with a neighbor. The subs don't have too much power so in most cases it should be fine but should be considered.

Amount of Inputs are great. It has 3 HDMI, 2 component and 2 composite. It even has a USB port so you can plug in portable media and display photos and things however I have not used this feature. The only thing I wish is if it had a Digital or Optical sound in but I am sure Phillips felt if you needed that kind of quality you would use it with a Surround System.

Overall a great TV and solid buy for the money. Hope this helped. Good luck! "

    "Bought Philips 42PFL5603D/27 for a $899 deal at buy.com. Picture quality is great if everything you see on it is in high definition. I have a 1080i Panasonic plasma and there is just no comparison between the picture quality between the two. The Phillips lags in every category (picture quality) from vivid colors, to darkness and contrast. I tweaked it every way I could to match the clear crisp colors and contrast that I see on my 1080i but it just doesn't compare. Like I have said in my headline, you get what you pay for. This is not my primary flat screen TV so I am not greatly disappointed but if this is my first and primary television then I would spend a little more to buy a Panasonic or comparable TV. Hope this helps.
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    "The award-winning Philips ‘EcoTV’ is a 42″ stunner. Philips 42PFL5603D/27 features a dimmable backlight and power saver mode that can push the power consumption of this set down to 75 watts, which is just a little more than a standard incandescent light bulb. It also has a standby mode that sips just .15 watts.

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    "I highly recommend Beach Audio for best prices and customer service. The Philips 42PFL5603D/27 is a great LCD display. Much lighter in weight over the plasma it replaced. Easily switches from Power Save mode to Sports or Movie mode. Very nice HD Picture. The 5603D has a Personal picture setting that allows the user to dial in the picture quality and aspects based on your preferences. Plenty of inputs and outputs. If you are in the market for a low energy consumption TV, this just might be what you are looking for."
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    "Pros:Philips 42PFL5603D/27 has picture quality is great ; really does use a lot less power ; very easy to setup ; continues t look amazing no matter what I'm inputting to it

Cons: really the only thing I can think of is that it doesn't have a split screen mode (not that I would use it all the much)

Summary: I did some research before I bought this tv and for the most part people had good things to say about it. I think most of the problems you'll hear are isolated issues, ya get a warranty, but don't expect to need it.

I used to have comcast and their hd feed really sucks, they use a 3:1 compression (trust me I know I used to work for them), so I was always seeing issues with that. And the SD feed was absolutely awful, again thinking the tv couldn't do any better. When I quit working for them I switched to verizon fios, holly crap. Talk about a difference, I quickly realized it wasn't the tv at all. The HD feed with fios is breathtaking, and the nicest part is SD shows are at least 3 times clearer. I never thought I would watch SD TV again until I got FIOS.

I also have PS3, games and Blue-Ray are nothing short of ridiculous. The color, contrast, refresh rate, everything is great. Ya it does take some tweaking to get it right and I still change settings depending on what exactly I'm watching.

Four of my friends also have 42" LCD TVs. One has a VIZIO, two have 2 different models of samsung, and the other has a nice sharp (sorry don't know model #'s). And as well all have PS3, so I've seen all in 1080p. Bottom line the vizio and samsungs don't come close, the sharp is very nice. It looks about the same, but slightly better, it has 120 refresh rate and slightly higher contrast ratio. But not enough difference to make me feel bad about buying this one. The design is better than any lcd that I've seen, it uses less than half of the power (even when not in power save mode), the sound is good for watching tv (still have sound system for games and movies). All of my friends spent more (except VIZIO) and ended up with lesser products that are still costing them more every month.

This set rocks, plain and simple and lastly. If you have comcast or a dish and can get Verizon FIOS, switch.......right now. Take it from someone who was in the business, it is much better......and I'm not even going to get into the internet side of things. So ya do some research, but if you want an affordable lcd that looks outstanding and will save you money in the long run take a look at this set "