glenhamilton's Full Review: Dell W4200 42 in. HDTV TV
I'm back with an update after owning this TV for over 18 months. I'm pleased to say that there is nothing to change about this review. My only comment is that there are many plasma choices now, and they continue to get cheaper. And yes, Dell support from India still sucks. No more Dell purchases from me until they move it back to America.
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This review is for the 4200 HD (High Definition) version of this TV.
I already own a 50" Panasonic plasma located in the family room, but wanted something smaller to wall-mount in the bedroom. I initially considered LCD for reduced cost, but when I saw this plasma for the same cost as a 37" LCD, I became more interested in a plasma solution. My expectations were already set high by watching the Panasonic plasma I bought 10 months ago. Thus, I tend to rate this TV with respect to the superior quality of the Panasonic. I almost bought another smaller Panasonic plasma due to our fabulous positive experience with it, but I couldn't justify the extra $1,400 above the price of this Dell unit, considering it goes in the bedroom and is only watched for a short time at night.
WHY BUY THIS PLASMA:
Price and performance! At the time of this writing, this TV is about the least expensive high definition plasma unit in the 42" size. Like most plasmas, it has a small space footprint as it is under 4 inches in depth. One of the most impressive set of features is the wide range of inputs it has (DVI, component, ATSC, NTSC, composite, etc), and in some cases, it has two sets of each input. Furthermore, it has dual built-in tuners for both standard and high definition (ATSC) "over-the-air" broadcast. Thus, you will be able to receive HDTV broadcast from local TV stations. Almost no other plasma unit has this feature at this price range/size. This will soon be a standard feature in most TVs.
WHERE TO BUY:
You only have one choice for this model... buying online from Dell. Our prior experiences from Dell have always been good over the last 10 years. Products have been reliable. Philips makes this product for Dell, but Dell is careful to hide this fact. They want you to think they built it.
CUSTOMER SERVICE:
On occasion, I've called Dell customer service in the past to ask questions. In the last couple of years, Dell support has gone down the tubes as they have tried to save money by having some support go off shore to India. Unless you bought a company camel through Dell and have questions, they are clueless about helping you, assuming you can even understand what they are saying. Don't expect to get good phone support from Dell. Use email support. Fortunately, I did not have to call for any support on this TV in the 3 weeks that I have had it. Regardless, Dell needs to move support back to America before they have to replace the "D" in their company name to an "H".
ARRIVAL OF TV:
From time of ordering to arrival was about 6 days. I saw complaints on other sites that it was taking a month or more to arrive, but it sounded like a temporary problem earlier in the year. I was amazed to see it arrive in less than a week. It came by a private carrier from the airport. While looking on the shipping label, I was surprised that Dell had shipped it by air instead of ground. I thought this was a problem with plasma units due to the lower pressure levels at high altitudes, which would exist in the cargo bay of an airplane. Maybe the concern is just for operating conditions, not shipping conditions. I have to look into that. Obviously, it must be ok or I doubt that Dell would risk the extra expense and damage for no reason. The exterior box was beat up a little, but no internal damage as the unit was reasonably well protected. Unlike plasmas from some other companies, this box did not have any "Tilt Indicator" that would indicate improper handling. I think it would be nice to know if mishandling occurred during shipping. After all, those indicators only cost about 50 cents to put on the box.
SPACE & WEIGHT:
Being a 42" plasma, it was a bit easier to handle and mount than the 50 inch Panasonic monster. It still takes a couple of sturdy people to take it out of the box and set it up. In my case, I wanted to mount it on the wall. It weighs approximately 65 pounds, so I was worried about dropping it while mounting it on the wall. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that when we took off the base stand, it became about 20 pounds lighter. The base unit is very sturdy (and heavy). It adds a lot of stability to the unit if you are plan to keep the base on the TV and set it on a table.
SETUP:
Wall mounting is very nice because it gets the unit out of the way. By ordering the optional wall mount bracket, you can easily do this. I like the bracket. It was very strong steel, mounted easily, low profile, and allows for about 6 inches of horizontal fine-tuning adjustment of the TV once mounted. As with most brackets, it is a two-part system. One bracket attaches to the back of the TV, the mating portion mounts to the wall, then you lift the TV up and hook it onto the top edge of the wall mount. Lastly, slide in the side locks, and you are ready to go. After the TV is mounted on the wall, there is still enough room to attach the included speakers to the TV and plug-in the wires. Also, due to the downward facing input connections, it is very easy to connect the cables after the unit is on the wall. This was a big design oversight on our Panasonic unit. On it, I had to connect the cables before mounting it on the wall.
Again, I did not want to take any unnecessary risks of the unit falling while I was lifting it onto the wall bracket, so I mounted a strong steel eye-hook into a stud near the ceiling of the wall, tested it for 200 pounds of pull, and then hooked up a ratchet strap to pull up the TV. Then I removed the eyebolt and patched the small hole. The ratchet system ($12 at hardware store) prevented the TV from falling as we lifted it. Two people should be able to easily lift and attach hook it onto the bracket.
For table mount, there isn't anything special you need to do. The stand is pre-mounted on the unit. It looks very nice and sleek. I removed four screws to take it off before wall-mounting it. Consider adding a safety strap to the back of the TV and anchoring it to the back of your furniture stand to prevent the TV from tipping over. You better have a strong table to support this weight.
CONNECTIONS:
Geez, there are gillions of them as I briefly mentioned above. This TV is going to support any input you have. I don't need to dwell on the details. See the specs. It offers a wide choice. If your equipment has DVI then you should use it to get the best picture with the smallest cables. Second choice should be Component Video. If you are resorting to use s-video, you're wasting a lot of money on HDTV. There are also a few connections on the right lower corner of the unit that are easily accessible for occasions when you want to quickly connect something like a video camera.
FIRST VIEWING EXPERIENCE:
Once connected to our HDTV TiVo receiver and surround sound system, we turned it on to get an out-of-the-box experience. Initially, the three members of our family were not that impressed. The two reasons were that the TV default settings aren't very good, and secondly, we have been spoiled by the greatly superior Panasonic 50" unit that we have been watching for many months. I needed to adjust several settings before we were satisfied with the results. Our final settings were Brightness= 45, Contrast= 55, Tint= 45, Color Saturation= 37, and "natural" display. The scale is 0-100 with 50 being mid-range (linear scale). Keep in mind that your settings and preferences may be greatly different. I think the default levels made the TV appear too heavy on the green spectrum, too much color saturation, and too washed out on the brightness. Dark scenes don't appear as good as I have seen on other plasma TVs, but I wouldn't say it is anything to be concerned about.
After adjustment, we were quite pleased with the results. It still can't match the black levels and color richness of our 50" Panasonic, but results are still dazzling. I don't think you will be disappointed.
I noticed a power supply hum (60 cycle) coming from the TV when standing near it. The hum is not noticeable from a distance even with low volume sound.
The supplied speakers sound decent for most shows, and there is plenty of volume, and conveniently mount to the side of the TV with included brackets. Floor standing mounts are also provided for the speakers. However, you will really want a surround system to get deep base and a full movie theatre experience. Optional wall mount brackets are available if you want to separate the speakers from the TV.
OTHER THINGS TO THINK ABOUT:
I'm going to miss talking about a lot of things in this review because the TV has so much to offer. I'll just touch on the more important miscellaneous items.
On the down side, plasma TVs in general will draw more electricity and give you little higher energy bills. It's probably not going to be that noticeable unless you are a TV junkie and leave it on all day.
Dell's extended warranties seem expensive, so we did not buy their warranty. Some other reviewer thought they were cheap, but compared to other vendors, Dell is about 40% higher. You can always get a third party warranty if you don't want Dell's. You get an automatic one-year on-site warranty from Dell (they use a third party company with all of their warranties on all products).
"Image burn-in". You might want to Google search it and read up on this topic if you are not familiar with the term. Dell's unit has a feature to help recover from this issue. I have not had a need to use it yet.
REMOTE CONTROL & FUNCTIONS:
The remote control is quite nice. It looks good, very solid feel, light, and handles well. The backlighting is only for the numerical keypad, so you will have a hard time locating other buttons in the dark. I used the remote control for several days before swapping it out for the same Harmony 659 remote control (another review of mine) that I use in all the other rooms for other equipment. This way, we only have to learn one remote control for every setup in the house.
I'm not one to use all of those picture-in-picture types of functions, so I can't comment on that. My brain can only concentrate on one image at a time. For you Attention Deficit Disorder folks that need to see 5 pictures at once while you eat dinner, talk to the kids, and type on your computer at the same time, see other reviews about PIP functions ;-)
SIGNALS FROM NOWHERE !!!
This baffles me for the moment until I figure out what is going on. When I connected the Comcast cable to this TV, I expected that the built-in cable signal decoder would display the channels, but I did not expect it to display all of them, including the ones I don't pay for. Since I subscribe to DirecTV, I don't subscribe to anything on cable other than what I already get for free (12 channels). For some reason, it displays all 90 channels. I went back to my other 3 TVs in the house to see what they display, and sure enough, they display only 12 channels and the others are scrambled. I'm not saying this TV will give you free cable, but it is interesting that something odd is going on here.
TRICKY DELL PROMOTIONS:
Wait for a promotion. Dell runs them regularly. Even when you see a new promotion, consider waiting until the weekend to order because Dell often runs additional weekend promotions. In my case, it was a $500 discount, free DVD player, free shipping + the weekend promotion of another $100.
You would think that Dell has the same deal in all areas of their web site. Surprise, they usually don't. This is also true of computers and other items they sell. My point is to be sure you check both the "Home Consumer" and the "Small Business Consumer" portions of their site. Example: At the time I ordered this TV, there was a choice of... a $500 mail-in rebate, weekend $100 instant rebate, and a free DVD player in the home consumer area of the site. In the small business section, there was a $500 instant rebate, no weekend rebate, free shipping, and no free DVD player. Of course you can order from either web page regardless of whether or not you are a small business or just an average consumer. Go figure this one!
SUMMARY:
Great price for a plasma of this size.
Higher energy usage (all plasmas, not just this one).
Conveniently located input connections (if mounting on a wall).
Very nice picture with most any type of input.
Wide array of inputs available.
Lots of display mode features.
Plenty bright even in brightly lighted rooms.
Possible image burn-in issues (all plasmas)
Consider an extended in-home repair warranty (third party, not Dell).
Prices on plasmas continue to drop.
Wait for a Dell promotion of several hundred dollars (occurs often)
I couldn't find anything at this time that is competitive enough to beat Dell's price/performance. The picture is as good as most any other plasma. It's also a nice looking cabinet.
Payment Shipping Warranty Contact DELL W4200 42 inch Plasma TV Speakers Includes Mounting Brackets and Floor Stands Guaranteed! General Information Th...More at eBay
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