Philips Cineos 42PFL9703 review

Philips Cineos 42PFL9703 Review

Reviewed by: Ian Morris

Reviewed on: 6 August 2008

Popping in our Live from Abbey Road disc yielded a beautiful picture, with natural colour and amazing, noise-free detail. Every hair on Mary J Blige's head was visible and there was simply massive amounts of detail everywhere we looked.

We tried to use the USB socket on the 9703 to look at some photos and play some MP3s, but we simply couldn't make it do what we wanted. We aren't sure what the purpose of this socket is, but we're fairly sure it isn't just there for decoration, so why won't it do such simple tasks?

The question on the tip of your tongue is obviously, "What about the Ambilight?" We were actually quite impressed with it. Movies definitely benefited from having it on, and watching TV with a backlight does help boost the apparent contrast -- even though it's an illusion. Adding the third light strip on the top of the TV makes a big difference compared to older Ambilights. It somehow seems less jarring than the two-strip system. We also think Philips has done a good job of improving the responsiveness of the Ambilight, which seems very sprightly and able to handle quick on-screen changes with poise.

Also impressive was the standard-definition Freeview picture. Noise was minimal and the TV seemed to do a good job of reducing MPEG compression artefacts. If you watch plenty of programmes on Freeview, you won't be disappointed at all.

The sound performance was very, very good. Listening to the music channels on Freeview proved this TV can generate deep bass, while maintaining control over the high end. That has much to do with the baffle around the edge of the TV we mentioned earlier. Essentially it's designed to pushout high-frequency sound without obstruction. It allows the speakers to be largely invisible, and lower-frequency sound comes from woofers facing out of the back of the TV. This arrangement makes a good deal of sense, given that bass is much less directional than the upper end of the sound spectrum.

If you were to watch a movie on this TV, we think you'd be very pleased with the noise it pumps out. It's certainly the best we've heard on an LCD TV in some considerable time, and more than good enough for day-to-day listening.

Conclusion
This is, without doubt, the best Philips TV we've seen for a long time. The picture quality is superb, and the Ambilight adds enough to the movie experience to make it worth considering, but obviously the feature also adds to the price, which is higher than most of the competition at this screen size.

In terms of picture quality, there isn't anything we can complain about. There are minor niggles with some aspects of the TV, but none are serious enough to be a problem. If you want a TV that matches this screen, you'll probably want to consider a Panasonic plasma or one of the recent high-end LCDs from Toshiba with the thin bezel.

Edited by Nick Hide