Philips 42PFL9903H

What is the 42PFL9903H exactly?   Behind this rather obscure name is a new TV from Philips which features the next generation of the manufacturer's Ambilight technology, dubbed Aurea.

The original version of this system projects a gentle glow onto the wall behind the TV whose color varies according to the images shown on screen, but this new version also makes the frame of the TV itself glow.

Both the brightness of the light and the speed with which it changes is adjustable using the on-screen menus, and you can even turn the whole system off if you want.

The first thing you notice about this TV is an updated design: the large white frame which holds the LEDs for the Aurea system is still there, but Philips has added some of the design refinements that have been gradually introduced across its range since spring of this year.

The white frame, then, is a little thinner, and is now rounded off with a clear plexiglass trim around the outside.

The whole thing rests on a substantial rotating base. 

The Full HD screen is a glossy LCD panel covered with an anti-reflective coating.

Despite this treatment, we still noticed a number of irritating reflections from objects in the room, and it's best to be able to control the lighting in the room where you'll put the PFL9903H if you want to get the most from it.

At last, an Aurea with ad HD tuner!

Another innovation is the inclusion of a HD-compatible digital tuner, marked by the 'H' at the end of the model number.

Any Philips TV you see whose model number ends with 'D' only has a Standard Definition tuner.

A new remote control sees the usual directional buttons rounded off into a scroll wheel, which is frustratingly inaccurate.

The cursor sometimes refuses to budge, and then jumps two or three lines at a time, which makes scrolling through menus a real nightmare.

You can still press the wheel at each side to move up, down, left and right and that's by far the most reliable way of navigating the menus.

On the right you can see the different connectors that are available, most notable of which is an Ethernet port allowing you to connect to DLNA-enabled networks to play MP3s and look at photos and videos.

Lab Tests

The initial results from our lab weren't very positive, and this new TV succumbs to all of the usual problems we've come to expect from Philips.

In particular, the manufacturer's products tend to suffer from a gradually-worsening gamma curve which is impossible to improve by modifying the settings and blacks that are far too light.

If you really tweak the backlighting, it's possible to get the black level down to 0.07 cd/m².

Without this artificial filter, the real results are around 0.3 and 0.4 cd/m², giving a rather disappointing ANSI contrast ratio of 574:1.

The PDFL9903H handles colors well, with the color temperature (blue line in the graph below) sitting nice and close to the ideal of 6500K. 

We measured a DeltaE score--the average discrepancy between the ideal colors and those actually shown on screen--of under 4.

These aren't excellent scores, but they're not so bad as to rule out the PFL9903H either--there's definitely room to hope that this TV can pull it out of the bag when we sit down and watch some test discs.

Viewing Tests

When we sat down in front of it, we were very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the PDFL9903H's picture quality, and the lack of contrast that we measured in the lab wasn't too noticeable to the eye.

Parts of the screen that should look black do look a little gray, but using Ambilight helps give the impression of a deeper black on screen.

The fact that the whole screen is very bright--it goes up to 400 cd/m²--also helps the perceived contrast seem better than it actually is. 

It's only with Ambilight turned off and a large amount of black on screen that you really notice you're looking at a dark gray rather than pure black.

As usual with Philips, the gamma curve (yellow) isn't smooth.
The color temperature (blue), however, is close to the ideal value of 6500 K

On the other hand, Philips' High Definition Natural Motion (HDNM) system is still struggling to convince to us, especially now we've seen competitor Sony's much more impressive Motionflow system get up to 200Hz.

These filters, which are designed to improve the fluidity of on-screen images by intercalating 'missing' frames to create an artificially-inflated framerate can sometimes get it wrong.

Even with HDNM on its lowest setting, there are far too many visual artifacts, and it's really not worth it for movies, although you might like to think about it for fast-moving sports programming--sport is a good example.

Either way, it's definitely not worth turning HDNM right up to its highest setting which produces far too many artificial accelerations.

The only thing you lose by turning it off excellently is an improved response time which reduces ghosting, but this isn't problematic in most situations.

The PFL9903H handles Standard Definition sources reasonably well, but it's still nowhere near as ood as it is on Sony's PlayStation 3.

Digital sources (even SD ones), which you're more and more likely to be using, do a lot better.

Conclusion

To be honest, after we looked at its scorecard from the lab, we though that this new Aurea-based TV wouldn't get more than three stars.

After sitting down in front of it for a few hours though, we had to reassess our original findings as this is actually one of the most pleasant TVs to watch on the market right now.

It doesn't match the best of the bunch when it comes to performance, of course, but it still shows a decent image.