It’s not enough for a TV to simply act like a fancy monitor these days. Take this Philips 42PFL8404H, for instance: in addition to performing its regular televisioning duties, it’s also a full-on DLNA media streamer, capable of taking video, music and photo files from your home PC and displaying them on its crisp 42-inch screen.
Not only that, the Philips 42PFL8404H also comes with Net TV, an ambitious new feature that not only lets you browse YouTube videos and check the weather forecast with included widgets, but also includes a proper web browser. Blimey!
While Net TV it does what it says on the tin, it works at a speed that makes the average sloth look like Usain Bolt. The experience is a bit like surfing WAP on an old mobile – sluggish, frustrating and unresponsive. Still, it’s a new technology and essentially a bonus feature, and we can’t fault Philips for trying.
As an old fashioned HDTV the Philips 42PFL8404H fares way better. It’s stuffed with more wizardry than Hogwarts’ staff room, including 100Hz scanning, built-in upscaling and Philips’ trademark Ambilight Spectra backlighting, which bathes your living room wall in shades of coloured light based on whatever’s on the screen. Cool to look at, and apparently it reduces eyestrain to boot.
All this tech makes pictures sharp and detailed, with smooth colour gradation and slick, judder-free motion. Are things perfect? Well, they’re pretty close – although we did spot some artefacts around moving objects at times, which is a side effect of the motion processing tech. Philips reserves its very best picture enhancement technology for pricier sets though – the 9000 series and Cinema 21:9 models – so we reckon picture perfectionists will have to save up for one of those.
Audio quality is impressive for such a thin cabinet, and the built-in speakers deliver ample bass without ever straying into ear-bothering distortion. True, audiophiles won’t be flocking to the Philips 42PFL8404H to listen to Bitches Brew, but it’s perfectly adequate for TV shows, games and movies.
The connection selection is pretty high end too – four HDMIs are available, plus component video, VGA, USB for media and Ethernet for networking.
Overall this is a solid all-round performer with a stylish design (check out that narrow frame) and a stacked side order of features.
