An Excellent TV, hides behind a Cheap Price Tag!
Written: Feb 22 '05
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Pros: Excellent Sound Quality, Cheap Price, Many different Audio/Video Options
Cons: Side speakers makes TV too wide to fit in a standard 27" entertainment unit.
The Bottom Line: This Television is awesome. It makes me ponder why other 27" models sell for hundreds more. Great affordable TV.
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| damanger's Full Review: Panasonic CT-27E13 27 inch TV |
My wife and I were looking for a new TV around Christmas. We, like most, did not have tons of money, and were looking for a 27" TV that had half decent features, for a cheap price. Models like Apex, Orion, Durabrand, and Tatung. All name brands I have never really heard of before, but they sold cheap TV's. We never really considered brands like Samsung, Sony, or Panasonic, because they were too pricy.
Fast forward to a week after Christmas, and my wife called me and told me she won a TV at work. I did not believe her at first, but once reality kicked in, I was excited at getting a new TV. The TV that she won, was a 27" Panasonic CT-27E13, the one I am about to review for you.
When we got the TV home, we quickly took it out of the box. I found it cute, that Panasonic even supplied "Panasonic Batteries" for their remote control. (I didn't know they even made batteries.) It took about 5 minutes after we took the TV out of the box, that we had a problem. The TV we had in our living room, currently was a 27" RCA TV, with speakers on the bottom. Our new TV, had side speakers, which made the Television 4 inches wider than our other TV. IT would not fit in our entertainment unit, which was designed for a 27" TV. It would eventually cause us to get a new Entertainment unit, which was fine, because we had already saved up the money for the TV anyways.
I am not one to read through a manual, for anything. But I had to hook up some many devices to my new TV, and I remember the nightmare of a time I had when I setup my RCA TV, that I decided to take a glance through it. I happened to be very disappointed by the instruction booklet. I found it to be very uninformative and the descriptions of how to plug in certain devices was limited. It honestly was no help.
I did finally get everything, (Stereo, Receiver, DVD Player, VCR, and Digital Box) all hooked up to the TV. I used the same cables I used for my RCA television. When it came time to test out everything, I came across some problems. The DVD player which used a combination of S-video Cables and A/V plugs, showed a very grainy image. Along with that, the VCR reception was horrible. I did not know what was the cause of that originally, until I replaced the A/V cords. It seemed to clear up the problem. I did find that having 3 sets of A/V outlets, (2 back, 1 front), along with S-video and Component, gave me the capability of plugging in 5 things into my T.V. compared to only 4 with my RCA television.
The stereo system (speakers), I found to be more sharp and clear than my old RCA television. Also, I found myself setting my volume level much lower around 8-10 on my new Panasonic TV, compared to 26-30 on my RCA. There are still the same 5 stereo settings (Mono, Stereo, Surround....etc) as my old TV.
I noticed for some odd reason, that TV's that are black attract more dust. This TV is completely free of dust (after two months) I am seriously impressed. So the question is, why do they make black TV's?
This TV does have locking features to lock certain channels (parental controls) as well as an overall lock to lock all channels. It is a built in alarm, and auto-turn on and off features. (which is good, because my wife always leaves the TV on when the goes to bed)
There is one feature of this TV that I have not seen in any other TV that I have had. When I want to play a video on my VCR, I do not have to change it to channel 4 on my TV or have to worry about switching to VIDEO 1,2,3 or 4 or having to push the TV/Video button on my remote. It just plays, on my TV and when I stop it, my TV is just back to where it was before. I really enjoy that feature.
Anyhow, this TV has been a great addition to our Living Room. I have yet to find any real downfalls yet, but if I come across any, I will update my review.
My overall Opinion rating of this TV, is 8.7/10.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 280
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Epinions.com ID:
damanger
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Location: winnipeg,manitoba,canada
Reviews written: 25
Trusted by: 1 member
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