Thomson 28WH403S

Would not hesitate to recommend the Thomson 28WH403S tele, picture and sound are excellent. Other reviewers point out the zoom problem which is patchy on mine. Two other points are that when viewing in darkness (the old atmospheric movie evening for eg.) the reflection of the bright parts of the picture on the silver pastic screen surround was very distracting - the angle of the plastic relative to the screen is what shines the light from the plastic at you - result: sometimes two bright strips of reflected light, one above the other below the screen. I said "was " distracting because I cured the problem on mine by using matt black plastic tape cut narrowly and applied on the offending reflective "ledge " above and below screen. Had to laugh at doing this but now I neither notice the tape and the reflection is gone so a five minute cost free cure was to be had - a rarity in TV problems I would think.

I also use an eltax nova home theatre system and was a bit peeved to find the shelves could not handle the size of the player/receiver.

These things aside - great TV - buy one!

My Philips 28" widescreen decided to go belly up today, and after a few phone calls found it'd cost somewhere near to £200 to fix, so off I trotted to the nearest retail park to find a replacement. I didn't want to spend over £300 so I really did expect to struggle to find anything half decent. Until, there in the corner of the shop was this Thomson, with a shelf missing off the stand (underneath a note saying £250 - cosmetically damaged'). I checked with the asssistant and all that was wrong was the stand! So I bought it, saving £150 and putting a big smile on my face (sorry this has turned into a story and not a review). I got it home and like one of the other reviewers was set up in a matter of minutes (except it put ITV on channel 10 (easy to change though)). The picture quality is much better than my Philips, sharper and far more vibrant with reds and bright colours, and with none of the 'noise'. The FST screen is clear from all angles in the room. Again though, like the previous review the 'auto' zoom feature is a bit hit and miss (in sky sports news (transmitted in 4:3 it blows it up and cuts off the top line (although admittedly this is the only problem)). I do however miss (from my Philips) the abilty to hold pages of text and move to the next sub-page when I'm ready, and not when they're transmitted). The sound blew me away though (and probably the next door neighbour too, until I altered the bass levels) clear and loud, and the stereo effects were much clearer. Not quite good enough to pack away my home cinema, but a viable alternative late at night!

Like the previous reviewer, I went to Miller Brothers to buy another brand of TV, when my Sony 28" widescreen broke beyond repair after four years! I had bought a cheap Thompson DVD player a year ago and had found it to be really basic and somewhat troublesome. So, when the sales person pointed me at the Thomson 28WH403S Widescreen TV my immediate response was that I wasn't interested. However, looking at similar spec TVs, the Thompson picture quality was very noticeably better. Absolutely crystal clear picture due to the 100hz screen refresh. Anyway, I bought it for £400, took it home and kicked off its auto set up feature. 10 minutes later I was sitting watching it, fully set up.

My wife is a clich wife who still cannot record a programme on the video we have had for five years. She is completely uninterested in this sort of thing and is as happy with a 14" portable with a screen like half a goldfish bowl, as a 28" TFT widescreen. I'm totally banned from home cinema because 'it will have wires everywhere for the speakers!' However, even she sat watching it that night and said 'this is a really good picture'. That is very high praise indeed.

My only criticism is the widescreen selection function. Sometimes it auto-detects and other times it doesn't. So, sometimes people have slightly fat faces so I have to manually change the screen size to standard. However, when watching DVDs which are letterbox mode, on my old Sony widescreen I could use the zoom function to make that full screen, which worked really well. On the Thompson you cannot do this. For some reason the zoom (in fact all screen size changes) is disabled! The buttons simply don't do anything. I find this a bit bizarre and annoying. Its no big deal I suppose but I'd like the choice. Never the less, a brilliant TV for £400.

Went to an Asda superstore with the intention of buying another brand of tv but seeing them on, the picture quality of the Thomson 28WH403S set left the others standing.

The picture adjusts itself so you dont get people looking like they are as wide as they are tall and it works very well. You can also adjust it from the remote control.

Dont be put off by the instruction manual,its the size of a phone directory but its in about 50 different languages and setting the tv up was so simple it amazed me.

I will leave it to others to explain the techy stuff. All i can say is that i got a 28inch wide screen tv with a brilliant picture for £400 and it could easy have cost double from another maker.