Philips 9000 (47PFL9664H/12) review

This subtlety helps pictures look more three-dimensional, as does another substantial strength of this set: its sharpness. High-definition images look pristine, with the TV immaculately reproducing every last detail of, for example, Blu-ray material. What's really remarkable, though, is how sharp the 47PFL9664H/12's standard-definition pictures look. There's no better indication of the TV's processing power than the way huge amounts of extra-fine detail are processed into standard-definition images.

This set's superb handling of detail is backed up by exceptionally sophisticated motion processing that pretty much eradicates LCD technology's motion-blur problem.

Previous Philips TVs have achieved similar results before. But, crucially, the 47PFL9664H/12 offers these strengths while also suppressing source noise extremely intelligently, producing nothing like as many visible, unwanted side effects as we've seen with previous Philips TVs. This is particularly the case if, as we suggested earlier, you take the time to tweak the set's motion-processing and sharpness-boosting systems to suit different types and qualities of source material. But the set's image-processing system is also far more adaptive by default than it has been before.

The 47PFL9664H/12 also impresses with its black-level response. There's only a minor trace of the greyness that affects practically all LCD TVs to some extent. Black levels don't drop off badly when the screen is watched from the side, either.

It's really difficult to find anything negative to say about the 47PFL9664H/12's pictures. All we can think of is that you still get the occasional flicker over really fast motion, and minor shimmering around large moving objects, but these occurrences are much less regular and obvious than is often the case with other sets.

This TV sounds startlingly good, too. The dome tweeters on the TV's front deliver surprising treble clarity and a reasonably open, wide mid-range, while the rear-mounted subwoofers produce enough bass to do a good movie soundtrack proud.

Conclusion
The Philips 47PFL9664H/12 isn't cheap. But, by managing to combine stunning AV quality with a brilliant feature set and a fashionably svelte body, Philips has made its most loveable TV to date.

Edited by Charles Kloet