Philips 42PFL9903H Aurea

Tripping the light fantastic

Thanks to its LED-packed Active Frame and the most pimped-out edition of Philips’ Ambilight technology yet, the second generation Aurea is a kaleidoscopic feast for your retinas.

As with the first Aurea, launched last year, lights inside the TV’s frame and on the back of the set change colour to match the shades and tones of whatever’s on the screen, delivering what Philips describes as a “sensorial halo”. That phrase might reek of PR guff, but it’s reasonably accurate: the picture is effectively extended around the screen itself and, because there are now more lights in the frame than before (150 as opposed to 128), the colour matching is more detailed and accurate than ever.

You might well be asking yourself what the point of all this is. Well, in addition to looking pretty nifty, the lighting serves to enhance the TV’s black levels by adding a bright foil to the dark areas on the screen. This makes blacks look deep and rich, even when you’re viewing in a dark room – in reality the contrast can’t touch that of plasma TVs like those in Pioneer’s KURO range, but it doesn’t look too far off here.

Light show aside, the TV also comes stuffed with the cream of Philips’ picture processing technology. Perfect Pixel HD Engine sharpens up any incoming picture source and kills off noise. Perfect Natural Motion removes judder from movies and 100Hz Clear LCD inserts extra frames to whatever you’re watching in order to keep the edges of moving objects sharp and blur-free all the time. The result is eye-popping picture quality with almost any source, but Hi-Def material gets the most benefit, in particular from the two motion-enhancing technologies.

Colour reproduction is also a high point, with everything from leaves to skin tones looking natural and bright without straying into oversaturation. And fast-moving games show no signs of blurring or ghosting – at least when you flip Perfect Natural Motion and 100Hz Clear LCD into the off position. In fact, these techs need to be used carefully, as they can cause some weird artefacts to appear when used with non-movie material. Watch a football match with them cranked up and the ball will sometimes appear to split into three separate balls, for instance.

Despite no speakers being visible from the front, sound quality is impressive. Two built-in subwoofers deliver plenty of bass while treble is crisp and bright – but you could definitely improve things by adding separate speakers and a proper sub.

The second gen Aurea is a top class all round performer, then, but at £2,500 you’d expect nothing less. Personally, if we had that much cash to splurge on an HDTV we’d go for Pioneer’s PDP-LX5090, which offers slightly better pictures and a 50-inch screen, but that’s not to say the Philips isn’t a great telly – it’s just very, very expensive.

Link: Philips Aurea