I have had one of these for a fortnight. It is the only 36inch CRT widescreen available in the U.K. I believe; although Tosh and Sony have models which are about to appear. These may be better but of course I have not seen them yet. These should be compared if they are available; I believe the Tosh will have non-interlaced tech which may be an advantage.
There is a pro review of this TV on
I choose this over a slightly larger Back projection set as the CRT picture was sharper and offered a wider viewing angle. Also because this is not so high and I have to stack all my AV equipment on a rack under the set. By the way if you do not use the stand supplied which I could not use as it does not have enough shelf space then you need to think about the weight of this thing. My dealer who should know (he had to lift it) said it weighed more than a washing machine. It weighs 78kg I think; much heavier than bigger projector sets. I got a Sound Organisation AV stand Z530 (silver) which almost matches it perfectly for size and colour and load bearing. These are Brit. made but are available in the states I know. (www.soundorg.com)
Auto Set-up was very good. The picture with a true wide-screen digital source impresses me; in fact the only problem is tearing myself away. A DVD source would obviously be the best, but I do not have one as I am waiting for release of DVD Audio/Video players here. No geometry problems that I can see and the anti flicker system seems to work. Not so sure that the artificial intelligence feature does very much of benefit; still you can switch it off. It has PIP and being 100HZ has freeze frame although I could live without either.
The remote (although I use a Philips Pronto) and menus are very simple and clear.
It has all the usual zoom features although these produce the inevitable distortion and smearing, Set to Auto it is fine. On- board sound is Ok no real bass of course but the centre speaker helps with voice if you set the sound to speech. Do not really know why they bother though; surely these are almost always used with external A/V amps and proper speakers. At the moment I am just taking stereo from the Phono’s on the back panel to my hi-fi system and this works well.
Apart from the Phonos it has 3 Scarts with various S-Video, Q-link and RGB connections. You can programme your name and address in; in case it is stolen; it might be more effective to watch out for any local villains with a hernia.

Problems: There is some screen reflection from windows etc; but much less than on 4:3 curved screens. E.g. my old Toshiba.

I love it but there was no competition here when I bought it.

Picture Quality, Looks, 100 HZ stable image, lots of features

Artificial options do not improve; soud settings should be set on music

On the lookout for a "normal" 32'' 16/9 TV, I stumbled on this deal : this 36'' beast at a staggering 1450 USD (lists over 3000).
Picture looks great using DVD - crisp, clear, contrast. Quality of TV depends on the signal quality; and "stretching" to 16/9 also reduces quality - but every 16/9 has this.
all auto-settings (noise reduction, auto-contrasts, etc) are better turned off; screen looks "digitalised".
Buy a big cabinet with this TV; not for the size, but for the weight : it weighs more than I do!

Similar Products Used:

none

Fantastic picture quality. I bought a DVD player after the TV and almost fell off my chair! Beautiful design wth good stand. 3 Scarts on back.

Basic remote amost exactly the same as the 25" 4:3 set I replaced. No S-video on back of set. Sound not up to quality of picture. Inputs need to be widescreen for view aspects to work well (Sky Digital a lifesaver here). Little in the way of competition with 36" CRT sets. Weight and size (Taken out of box on front garden to get in the door!!!)


After a year with this beast I can't look at any smaller TV without making snide comments :-) (My weakness I suppose and not the tv's!)

I was waiting ages for Sony to bring out their 36" model but in the end I couldn't wait any longer. I'm glad I didn't.

Picture quality is fantastic on this set. I've not seen better. Friends have tried to outdo me with bigger rear projection televisions but frankly the picture quality and sharpness on them leaves a lot to be desired.

Sound is acceptable, but with a TV of this size you'd be doing it an injustice not to hook it up to a nice AV system.

I bought for £2500, price matched down to £2000. It's now selling at around the £1700 mark in the UK. A full £7-800 less than the Sony equivalent which has the added Dolby bits but not a lot more.

I love it! Even the wife loves it :-)

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Sony, Smaller Panasonics, Toshiba

Great picture, looks, 100Hz flicker free,

Sound isn't as good as picture

The first thing I noticed about this set was it's weight. At nearly 80kg, you need help as you can't carry it yourself.

The case of the TV is very stylish, as is the wooden stand that comes with it.

After switching on the first time, it quickly selects the terrestrial channels and orders them correctly with no user input needed.

The picture quality is so good that you will need a DVD player to be able to experience the true quality of the set.

The sound is fine, but nothing special. It's good very decent bass and the speech mode helps the vocals, but makes the sound very claustophobic, so it's best left on music mode all the time. Ambience really destroys the vocals in movies, so I would recommend leaving this off as well.

However, if you have the full AV setup with the picture in this set and the sound going to an external amp, you won't be disappointed with the TV.

Not terrific value at recommended price, but many stores are now selling for up to £1000 less.

Worth buying for the picture quality alone. You are wasting your money though if you will not use DVDs.

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Goodmans 28inch widescreen (don't know model)