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Reviews and guides for all of the best all-in-one home cinema systems in the UK |
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Philips HTS3300 ReviewThe Philips HTS3300 compact home theatre system is certainly very pretty. Nice and sleek, with a modern design and a nice silver sheen, it wouldn't look out of place in even the most fashionable living room. The subwoofer especially is looks more like something from a top of the range system rather than a sub-£150 home cinema unit like this one. The specifications on the Philips HTS3300 are quite impressive too. On the audio side of things it comes with DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio support, and built in ProLogic II for enhancement of external audio. For video it sports progressive scan image optimisation, 4x video upsampling and has outputs for RGB scart and most importantly, S-Video. The amp is a little uninspiring, coming in at just 300W, which is lower than some of the other systems in this price range, but that's still a lot of noise. In terms of media support, Philips have slipped in really good mix with DVD, DVD-R/RW, CDR, VCD, SVCD, MP3/WMA CD, JPEG Photo CD and multichannel SACD all ready to play. There is also a built in FM/AM radio as standard, and it has the facility to play slideshows with picture and MP3 files on a recordable CD. In terms of audio inputs its quite versatile for the price - with photo and digital optical in, so you can connect your MP3 player or minidisc device very easily. Video in is not so impressive, with one AUX port and no S-Video or Scart input. Setting up the Philips HTS3300 is very easy - its all very much plug and play, and the instructions on speaker positioning are clear. Once you're set up the performance is good, although not amazing. The video looks very nice, with only slight MPEG artefacts on dark scenes, and the audio is strong and clear. However the bass feels a bit careless and the details suffer a bit at low volumes. But for a Hollywood blockbuster the sound is powerful and certainly emersive. 
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Conclusion The Philips HTS3300 is a good all-rounder at a super price. It is easy to set up and configure, works nicely and intuitively and plays reasonable audio and video. It looks very pretty, and comes with great media and decoding support. On the downside the low RMS voltage makes the sound suffer a bit at low volumes, and miserable video input support means its not for those that want to route their PC or games console through it. But for your average user, it definitely could be a lot worse. Resources |