Philips Cinema 21:9 TV out for £4,500 – full specs and availability

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We knew it was coming in June but now we now exactly when you can fork out for the Philips Cinema 21:9 TV. 18th June is the date to jam in your diaries and you’d better put in some serious overtime because you’ll need a rather icy cool £4,500 to get one in the UK. The good news is that we do have the full details on the dream machine so you can at least drool if not afford.

It runs a full 2560x1080p HD resolution making for a grand total of 8.3 million pixels, each controlled by the Philips Perfect Pixel HD engine. It offers a 200Hz frame rate – as well it should – response times of just under 1ms and a contrast ratio of 80,000:1. Oh, and before we have a bunch of nay-sayers jumping in, there’s some smart tech to resize your 16:9 pictures without significantly distorting the images or leaving black bars all over the place.

The 17bit colour processing makes 2250 trillion different shades – prove them wrong if you’ve got a year or two spare – and the old faithful Philips Ambilight Spectra 3 system will chuck out the appropriate hues against the wall, by which it sits, for a more dynamic experience.

There’s five HDMI ports to play with as well as USB connectivity and it’ll play back ACC, MP3, AC3, LPCM, WMA, JPEG, GIF, PNG, MPEG1, MPEG2 and MPEG4 which is everything you’d hope for with only a few exceptions in the shape of FLAC and DivX. Best, though, it’s fully webbed up with Philips’ NetTV system which will allow full internet browsing as well as all your widgetry.

Soundwise, there’s an integrated 15W system of two backward facing subwoofers and a set of face-on high-enders but I’d be amazed if anyone who shells out four and half big ones is going to stop short of a full AV set up.

If you buy sooner rather than later, Philips will throw in a swivel stand and “smart level” bracket trinket but, if you’re seriously after one of these things, I’d wait. Wait because this is just the kind of kit that you’ll see for considerably less once the fuss dies down – particularly as the first quote we had was 4,000€. I know the pound has been bad, but not that bad.

Philips

Super-thin Sony Bravia ZX1 ready for sale – Bravia EX1 & 200Hz Z4500 on shelf too

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Now that I’ve booked my flights, hotel, planned my shopping and rid myself of the anger of the £3,489 Sony XEL-1 OLED from this morning, I can tell you about their other Bravia TVs that’ll be hitting the EU shortly.

Sony Bravia ZX1

First up is the super thin 9.9mm LCD Bravia ZX1 we saw at IFA in August last year. It’s the one pictured above.

As promised it’s a 40″ panel with a frame rate of…

HANNspree HT09: 28-inch full high definition LCD TV

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HANNspree is pretty pleased with itself as it boasts one of the few 28 inch widescreen LCD TVs on the market.

Though the TV boasts full HD credentials, both analogue and digital tuners, two HDMI and two SCART inputs, and teletext, there’s still something a bit “computer monitor” about this silver-edged screen.

Full HD it may be, but it has a 16:10 aspect ratio (1,920 x 1,200 resolution) rather than the standard 16:9 of most branded HDTVs. That means black bars at the top and bottom of standard widescreen material, or picture stretching. The additional vertical resolution makes it great for hooking up to a PC via VGA or DVI, though…

IFA 2008: Philips gets in on the thin scene with its 42" Essence LCD – only 38mm thick

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This year’s “thing” at IFA 2008 is definitely thin TVs. Everyone’s at it. Spec sheets now list LCD thickness in millimetres, as companies fight – like children over a dropped sweet – to see who’s got the thinnest TV.

That award has already been won by Sony’s BRAVIA ZX1, to be honest – but the new Philips Essence LCD isn’t far behind. Peaking at a max width of 38mm, the 42″ screen has been designed to sit flush against a wall…

IFA 2008: Sharp launches super-thin AQUOS XS1 and premium AQUOS D65E HDTVs

AQUOS XS1

It’s not just Sony playing the thin TV game, with Sharp announcing its latest AQUOS LCD TV boasting 2.3cms thick body.

Available in 52 and 65-inch screen sizes, the XS1 series features advanced contrast ratio of 10,000:1, 6ms response time, detachable speaker system, five 2.1-channel speakers, and 100Hz picture enhancement technology, plus gallery mode for displaying photos from a USB stick…