Rival manufacturers of a delicate disposition should look away now, because the super-slim Philips 42PFL9664H LCD TV is about to deal your self confidence a serious blow.
Other companies might be more adventurous and plenty are cheaper, but few seem able to deliver the last word in flatscreen design and specification in a particular price range quite so consistently as Philips.
The 42PFL9664H is the Dutch maestro's latest mid to higher-end LCD and comes bristling with state-of-the-art spec, the best examples of audio-visual and multimedia gadgetry currently found on TVs sets and wraps it all up in a frame that makes just about every one of its peers seem plain.
Features
This a gorgeously attired telly, with a matt, gunmetal frame trimmed with a faintly Art Deco-ish run of silver across the bottom of the screen and around its outer rim.
The bezel, at 25mm deep, is not as radically slender as some of the more expensive, edge-lit LED machines that are currently taking TV aesthetics by storm, but it's still not much chunkier than a cigarette packet and it exudes a build quality that puts just about every other LCD manufacturer to shame.
The elegant display, with its subtly rounded edges, sits on a reassuringly sturdy, swivelling base and the whole adds up to the sort of set that is able to add a note of impeccably understated grace to even the swankiest front rooms.
It is also comfortably one of the most extravagantly featured we've ever seen.
You can take as read that the display resolution is the full 1080p (1,920 x 1,080 pixels), with all those dots being brought to order by the Dutch company's very own, class-leading Perfect Pixel HD engine.
This is the very latest in a long and consistently impressive line of image processing circuitry that began years ago with the groundbreaking Pixel Plus.
Now optimised for full HD, this awesomely powerful set of picture refinement algorithms is one of the most sophisticated 'engines' ever made. It addresses each pixel individually, ensuring that each is operating to best effect in concert with its immediate neighbours, leading to a sharper, more detailed picture, while extraneous digital dross, such as mosquito noise, is held at bay.
This is abetted by the also-proprietary Perfect Natural Motion circuitry.
That's designed to eliminate judder by anticipating movement between minute points and correcting any judder it thinks might be thrown up in between, while 200Hz digital scanning is on hand to ensure that the screen is able to keep pace with objects moving swiftly across it, upping the response time of the panel to an impressive claimed 1ms.
The backlight is of the conventional (cold cathode lamps, as opposed to LED) variety, but is lent an extra dash of high-end gloss with a scanning facility that enables the lamp to flicker in sync with the picture refresh rate, supposedly smoothing movement by an extra degree or two.
The final piece of picture-related gadgetry likely to play a part in your buying decision is yet another Philips innovation in the form of Ambilight.
Available in several guises throughout Philips' current line-up, the version deployed here is Spectra two, or 'stereo', casting pools of sympathetically coloured light onto the wall behind either edge of the set in harmony with whatever is happening on the screen.
Regarded with a degree of scepticism when it first appeared a couple of years ago, the technology's endurance is testament to its genuine usefulness; while we doubt anyone will buy a Philips set simply because of it, we defy anyone not to enjoy the softening, immersive effect that it produces.
Moving away from the video side of things, the 42PFL9664 is equipped with one of the better internet systems currently doing the rounds.
Net TV
Net TV enables your set to connect to the web via Ethernet or Wi-Fi and gives you more or less unfettered internet access, as opposed to the handpicked selection of partner sets offered by most rival manufacturers' 'widget' systems.
No fewer than five HDMI ports cosy up to all sorts of other useful things including an Ethernet port and an electrical digital audio output for sending the audio to external amplification.
One minor oddity is that the secondary connections (the fifth HDMI plus the usual composite video, stereo audio and headphones jack) are labelled on the set and in the accompanying literature as 'Side' connections when they are about as blatantly on the back of the set as it's possible to be.
We mention this in order to save you the same ignominy of a fruitless search for a secret, concealed panel containing the auxiliary connections that may or may not have perplexed our reviewer for a couple of minutes or so.
Philips 42PFL9664H: Ease of use
This set occupies one of the upper echelons of Philips' current output and offers the kind of picture-tweaking depth that requires a clear afternoon, a soothing cup of tea and a very deep breath.
Fortunately, though, if the Dutch company has one eye on hardcore videophiles, the other is invariably on normal, functioning humans, and the latter are sure to be delighted by a foolproof installation assistant that enables you to fine-tune your picture to your preferred parameters by responding to a set of split-screen images.
It's surprisingly effective and, crucially, you don't at any point feel baffled, patronised or seized by the fear that you've done something irretrievably ghastly to your settings.
The actual user experience, meanwhile, is an ergonomics masterclass.
Philips has always been at the forefront of ergonomic innovation and the current operating system is one of its jazziest and best.
We love the spooky, blue-haloed graphics on a translucent dark background and the menu architecture is effortlessly intuitive.
The exemplary layout marries up seamlessly to one of the best remote controls in the business, a satisfyingly weighty, metal-jacketed zapper that sits in the palm as if it had been made with yours in mind
Philips 42PFL9664H: Picture quality
It will come as no shock to anyone by this stage to discover that the picture performance of the 42PFL9664H is really rather good.
Detail, for a start, is jaw dropping. A combination of a maximum-resolution screen, some intelligent scaling and some of the best picture processing brains on the planet make for a thrilling video experience.
Pop in something with plenty of background, such as the dizzying swoops over the Hogwarts and the Highlands in The Prisoner of Azkaban and prepare to be amazed by the sheer depth and scale on display.
Perhaps even more pleasingly, the 42PFL9664 doesn't over-egg the whiz-bang technical spectacle.
Philips sets have, on occasion, divided people into those in thrall to the sheer amount of visual information on display and those who mourn the lack of cinematic 'warmth' this overt digital polish can occasionally cause.
Deep colours
Images in this case are almost astonishingly textured and nuanced, but you don't at any point find yourself stepping out of the action in order to marvel at the level of resolution on display and the picture has that richness found with film, as opposed to the rather clinical, un-enchanting 'digital' aspect that over-processing can occasionally produce.
Colours are also first class.
A bit of tweaking here and there yields shades and tones that encompass everything from the lurid fluoro headaches zooming about in Fast and Furiousto the delicate Highland hues of the aforementioned Harry Potter movie with even-handed fidelity.
As with the detail handling, the palette, while spectacular when required, is ever mindful not to get carried away when restraint is required.
Familiar, real-world shades, like skies or grass, that absolutely have to be right in order to convince, are rendered impeccably.
The convincingly verdant hills rolling into the distance in The Prisoner of Azkaban meet a shade of sky to which anyone who has spent any time in the British isles will be able to relate, while flesh tones are captured and blended accurately, with none of the isolated splurges of tone that can occur with less gifted television sets.
Black levels
Black levels are also surprisingly good for LCD. Differing shades are picked out carefully, while night-time scenes are layered in shades, rather than swamped in a single, uniform inkiness in one of the best liquid crystal black-level performances you'll see this side of LED.
There are a couple of faults, however. The first is that black levels do deteriorate markedly when viewed off-axis.
The viewing angle is just about wide enough to cover most sensible seating arrangements, but anyone decidedly left or right-ish is going to get somewhat short-changed, with otherwise distinct shades merging into one another and anything dark taking on a greyish sheen.
This is shame, given the profundity of which this set is capable.
The other glitch is that the HD-optimised picture processing brains seem, unsurprisingly, much more sure of themselves with top-spec source material.
Freeview problems
While DVDs and hi-def video polish up to startling effect, standard-definition TV broadcasts appear to ask too much of the algorithms and they visibly struggle to keep up with the demands placed upon them by the likes of Freeview.
It's fine with static images, but movement seems to cause the engine to repeatedly reassess what it's looking at, causing a slight lag while it tries to marshal as much as it can back into focus.
The result is a load of digital noise that follows whatever is moving around like a heat-haze. Still, these foibles are so comprehensively outweighed by its strengths as to be negligible and the overall experience is deeply satisfying
Philips 42PFL9664H: Sound quality
We've become so resigned to rubbish flatscreen audio that finding a set able to do movie soundtracks some semblance of justice is scarcely less than a revelation.
The Philips 42PFL9664 carries four drivers in total, but it's the two rear-firing bass units that grab your attention. These provide a solid, muscular foundation to proceedings, investing the audio image with the kind of presence almost invariably absent from LCD sets, particularly wafer-thin ones.
Broadcast programmes are handled effortlessly and the performance with film is sufficiently impressive to make anyone considering investing in a small home cinema system to accompany the set think twice about parting with their cash.
The audio image is expansive and airy and, while not strictly 'surround' in nature, does at least conjure an approximation of three dimensions.
The bass drivers, while necessarily limited in scope by their compact size, manage to produce enough low-end rumble to give a convincing amount of heft to 'big' scenes involving, say, explosions and invest the overall experience with the sort of visceral impact and depth that few other equivalent LCD screens can match.
Despite all this, it would feel somewhat remiss if we didn't urge you to do those lovely, cinematic pictures the audio service they so richly deserve by pairing this set up with a top-class home movie audio system.
Philips 42PFL9664H: Verdict
The Philips 42PFL9664H LCD TV isn't the cheapest 42-inch set on the market by a long chalk, with some perfectly respectable alternatives from big-name brands such as Toshiba coming in at less than half the price.
The Philips isn't aimed at the budget buyer, however, and with that in mind is easily one of the best sets in its class, with a performance and features list that leaves anything significantly cheaper choking on its dust.
If you are after a set that offers all the spec you could conceivably need, a performance that equals (and frequently surpasses) the very best flatscreens currently available and, as an added boon, looks extremely pretty in your front room, then the 42PFL9664 is worth that grand and a half asking price.
We liked:
This is an immensely capable set, with near-reference quality pictures that are a cut or two above most of its immediate peers.
The features list is also extremely impressive, from the class-leading image engine through to the five HDMI inputs via one of the few genuinely useful web-browsing setups in circulation. We also adore the effortlessly chic styling and the nigh-on flawless operating system.
We disliked:
The narrowish viewing angle is a slight niggle and Ambilight might be seen by some as a piece of unnecessary, cost-nudging frivolity. Standard-def isn't always to its rather refined taste, either.
Verdict:
A beautifully conceived and executed set for the serious (and better-heeled) AV fan.
(Reviewed by Jim Findlay ) - Via TechRadar.com
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