Philips Aurea II shunned in favour of new LED LUX technology (IFA 2008)

Posted by Luke Peters on Thu 28 Aug 2008

Philips states 9800-series television is best ever

Philips has claimed its new backlit LED TV offers better picture quality than its flagship Aurea II television. The 42PFL9803 incorporates a new technology called LED LUX, which equips screens with 1152 individual LEDs making up 128 segments, each of which can be dimmed independently allowing certain parts of the display to produce bright whites and the rest to remain deep black. The Aurea II uses conventional LCD technology, meaning that its backlight can either be switched on or off.

Up until now, Philips has claimed the Aurea II to be its ultimate TV in terms of picture quality and design. T3 asked Philips at IFA 2008 whether the new 9803 is a better set. Danny Tack, technical guru at Philips, was quick to confirm that with its mind-blowing 2,000,000:1 (that's two million) contrast ratio, wide colour gamut, dual Ambilight Spectra 2 and PerfectPixel HD, the 9803 outperformed the Aurea II.

We got a detailed hands-on with the 42PFL9803 and would agree that the black levels and overall imagery are superb (Pioneer, watch out). It also sports a thin 34mm bezel and can save upto 45% power using the new lighting system. It's an exciting prospect for the TV world and we're expecting to see similar technologies announced by the industry's other players over the next few days.

So where does this leave the Aurea II? At present there are no plans to integrate LED LUX into its range and, at 3500 Euros (£2,816), it's more expensive than the similarly sized 42PFL9803 (3000 Euros). There's no questioning the Aurea's innovative flair but it's all about picture quality and, right now, it seems to be playing second fiddle.