The Philips Cinema 21:9 Platinum 3D TV stole the show when it was unveiled at IFA last year. Philips’ first super widescreen telly was striking enough, but with LED backlighting, a new frame and 3D support, has it ascended to home cinema heaven? Let’s see what the experts thought in our Philips Cinema 21:9 Platinum 3D TV review roundup.
Design
It’s unanimous: the 58-inch Philips Cinema 21:9 Platinum 3D TV is out and out the most beautiful LCD TV yet, thanks to its metal frame and super wide, gorgeous screen. Said Cnet‘s Ian Morris: “In terms of appearance, we don’t think this TV can be beaten by any telly of a similar or lower price. Even the whisper-thin TVs from the likes of Samsung and LG don’t have the impact of the Cinema 21:9. That’s mostly a result of the size and ratio of the screen, and the fantastic metal finish.” John Archer of Trusted Reviews declared it “a big improvement over the black plastic sported by Philips’ original, 56in Cinema 21:9 set launched last year.”
Ports and features
No one had any massive gripes with the sockets and connectivity on offer with the Philips Cinema 21:9 Platinum 3D TV. It’s worth bearing in mind, as Ian Morris pointed out however, that only one of the four HDMI sockets support the latest 3D 1.4a spec – but since Sky‘s 3D solution uses a regular HDMI port you’ll still have space for both it and a 3D Blu-ray player.
No reviewers really bemoaned the lack of Freeview HD tuner built in, largely due to the fact that the 21:( screen is so Blu-ray oriented anyway, and instead much praise was given to the Philips Cinema 21:9 Platinum 3D TV’s Net TV service. “Its highlight is a built-in Opera browser that lets you surf the Web at large rather than restricting you to Philips’ ring-fenced content,” said Archer.
2D display
It may come as no surprise that reviewers thought the Philips Cinema 21:9 Platinum 3D TV one of the finest 2D LCDs they’d ever seen. Said TechRadar: “Philips has crammed its flagship screen with so many processing tricks and pixel-tweaking algorithms that it’s a wonder it doesn’t topple over…Feed it a Blu-ray movie and the TV laps it up. HBO’s WWII series, The Pacific, looks simply stunning, with clear, sharp images free from noise, with well-resolved, bright, natural colours and some of the most captivating black levels yet seen from an LCD screen.”
Morris meanwhile didn’t mind the slight tweaking of the image to fit the unusual resolution: “Even though the image is upscaled to the higher-than-usual resolution of the screen (2,560 by 1,080 pixels), it still looks tip-top.”
Read our Philips Cinema 21:9 review now
3D performance
Here, alas, was where the Philips Cinema 21:9 Platinum 3D TV fell down. Only TechRadar enjoyed its stereoscopic performance (It uses active 3D technology), while Trusted Reviews and Cnet both marked it down for all too obvious crosstalk.
The ghosting “is the worst we’ve seen on a 3D TV”, said Morris. But John Archer did at least admire Philips’ consideration in how it delivered 3D. “This one actually has the transmitter built into the TV’s body. Plus you get two pairs of active shutter glasses thrown in for free, compared with just one with some other manufacturers.”
Audio
Edge lit LED TVs are rarely known for their sound quality, since they’re so thin, so you might be surprised to hear that the Philips Cinema 21:9 Platinum 3D TV bucks that trend. “Once again, we have to congratulate Philips on the quality of its TV audio. There really are very few mass-market TV manufacturers that can come close to achieving this level of performance from built-in speakers,” wrote Cnet.
Verdict
Brace yourself: the Philips Cinema 21:9 Platinum 3D TV costs £4,000. Ouch. But if you’re a Blu-ray addict, there’s no doubt it’s the best model you can buy right now. We’ll leave Trusted Reviews to wrap it up: “Its extra width chimes more naturally with the way our eyes perceive the world, and so it feels both more relaxing than a normal 16:9 picture and, more importantly, more immersive…ultimately during our time with the 58PFL9955H there were moments – many moments, actually – where it genuinely feels like the best TV we’ve ever reviewed.”
