Philips HDRW720

266 reviews

Apr, 2024

Positive
usability (104)
price (34)
design (15)
image quality (12)
size (12)

Negative
reliability (48)

General overview
Price comparison

alaTest has collected and analyzed 266 reviews of Philips HDRW720. The average rating for this product is 3.0/5, compared to an average rating of 3.8/5 for other DVD Players for all reviews. Views about the image quality and size are on the whole positive. The design and price also get good feedback. Some have doubts about the reliability.

usability, price, design, size, image quality

reliability

We analyzed user and expert ratings, product age and more factors. Compared to other DVD Players the Philips HDRW720 is awarded an overall alaScore™ of 73/100 = Good quality.

Review analysis

(Based on 266 reviews)

Expert Reviews

User Reviews

Review Ratings

(16% of reviews)
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Show all 3 star reviews (13% of reviews)
Show all 2 star reviews (29% of reviews)
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Features

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reliability
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price
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design
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size
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Showing 161 review(s)

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Showing 1 - 140 of 161 Show Reviews: in English | in other languages (105)

Consumer review (amazon.com)

Amazon.com review summary for Philips HDRW720

alaTest has collected and analyzed 130 user reviews of Philips HDRW720 from Amazon.com. The average user rating for this product is 2.3/5, compared to an average user rating of 3.6/5 for other DVD Players on Amazon.com. Reviews about the design and size are on the whole positive. The image quality and price are also mentioned favorably, whereas there are some negative reviews about the reliability.

usability, price, image quality, size, design

reliability

38% of the reviews on Amazon.com give this product a positive rating.

Apr, 2024

Expert review by : Ben Patterson (cnet.com)

Performance

Philips HDRW720

Excellent recording quality; pauses and rewinds live video; great connectivity options; cable box control via included IR blaster.

TV Guide-powered programming guide won't work with digital cable or satellite; can't record directly to DVD; nonintuitive menus.

Saddled with a crippled electronic programming guide and hard-to-browse menus, Philips's new DVR-DVD recorder is more trouble than it's worth.

Jan, 2005

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Expert review by : Alex Kidman (cnet.com.au)

Philips HDRW720

The HDRW720 is DVR with an inbuilt 80GB Hard Drive and a unique 6 hour program buffer feature.

Outlook: Hard drive enabled DVRs like the HDRW720 are pushing the price of standalone recorders down at a steady pace. This is a good thing. At the same time, competition in the hard drive enabled DVR space is also making these units cheaper. This,...

Aug, 2004

Partner Source

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Expert review by : Lordpercy.com (lordpercy.com)

Philips HDRW720

A DVDR machine with a hard drive and access to EPG listing via a DSL connection, sounds like a handy box?

Mar, 2011

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Consumer review (epinions.com)

RECORDS DV FROM FIREWIRE CONTROLLER

The Philips HDRW720 (model "HDRW720/17", 120GB) is the first DVD recorder I've found (and I've tried many) that will record DV video from a computer's FireWire controller. "DV IN" jacks on most recorders have built-in copy protection - basically ...

Records and transcodes DV AVIs from a computer's FireWire controller, sweet MPEG-2 encoding

Not user friendly, big learning curve, crappy remote and DVD menus

Apr, 2008

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Consumer review (epinions.com)

A lemon

Great features if they work

to the junkpile after minimal use

Mar, 2007

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Consumer review (epinions.com)

Philips HDRW 720 DVD Recorder

Fully as good as TIVO - huge hard drive.

Durability of laser unit was terrible.

Nov, 2006

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Consumer review (epinions.com)

Flawed HDD/DVD recorder lacks reliability

I bought my Philips HDRW720 (80GB UK model) in June 2005 and was initially quite pleased with it. My opinion has changed though. Recording quality is fine for my needs, the EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) system is generally pretty good, but it does ...

EPG (GuidePlus system), compatible with Sky DigiBox (UK)

Poor reliability, complicated user interface, sluggish operation

Aug, 2006

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Consumer review (epinions.com)

Don't buy this piece of shizzle!

NONE!

EVERYTHING!

Mar, 2006

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Consumer review (epinions.com)

Philips HDRW720/17 is a very "GOOD BUY

I went through several DVR's prior to acquiring my I Philips HDRW720/17at Costco. All of the others were difficult to work and unreliable at best. One of the main things that I wanted was to do advanced scheduling of programs without paying Tivo for...

Hard disk recording No charge TV Guide Channel advanced programmingEasy recorded programs to DVD

Takes a couple of days for the TV Guide channel to populate the listings

Nov, 2005

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Consumer review (epinions.com)

Good so far.

I wanted a HDD recorder with component INPUTS (not many seem to have this) and the ability to archive recordings to DVD. I got this as an open box special at my local Best Buy for CDN$404 +taxes. This one unit replaces my DVD player, CD player and ...

Price, Component Video inputs.

Terrible manual, always goes to TV Guide page when powered on

Nov, 2005

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