Hands on: Philips 42PFL9803 review

Updated: read our full review of the Philips 42PFL9803.

One of the most exciting products to appear at IFA 2008 is Philips' new LED backlit LCD TV, the 42PFL9803. It scooped the EISA Best Product 2008-2009 prize in the LCD TV category, and it certainly is very impressive.

Philips claims that the 42PFL9803 has a contrast ratio of 2,000,000:1 which, frankly, is astounding. It certainly does have phenomenally deep black levels and the bright parts of the screen do their upmost to burn your retinas out. But 2,000,000:1 seems like somewhat of an exaggeration to us - we'll test that properly when we get our hands on a full production sample.

The LED backlighting inside the 42PFL9803 comprises of 128 segments of LEDs (1,152 LEDs in total). It uses these to vary the amount of light in each sector, which means black areas can be switched off completely. That's different from a standard LCD TV which has an always-on backlight.

Flagship technologies

It also features other flagship Philips technologies, including the latest generation of Perfect Pixel HD engine and the Ambilight Spectra system.

Here's what the EISA judging panel had to say about this TV: "The new 42PFL9803 solves two of the most critical challenges in current LCD TV technology: black level and motion blur.

"Thanks to its genius LED backlight, featuring 2D Dimming control over 128 individual areas, the 42PFL9803's black level can now compete with the best plasma-TV sets. The Clear LCD 100Hz technology, meanwhile, reproduces crystal-pure images that are also naturally fluid thanks to Philips' extremely sophisticated motion compensation algorithm.

"The picture-sensitive Ambilight is another smart feature exclusive to Philips. Sound quality is better than average, but this does not compromise aesthetics: the loudspeakers are, in fact, invisible! Finally, this TV is all set for multimedia content thanks to its DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) standard network connection."

The best TV in the world?

The enormous, busy, bright and loud Philips stand at IFA offered hardly the most ideal conditions for us to conduct anything like a test. However, from what we could tell, this telly offers something very special indeed.

The picture was as smooth as anything we've seen at the show, the black levels were startling and the colour reproduction was hypnotic.

One of the men behind this startling TV, Danny Tack, the director of technical marketing management at Philips, went as far as to say it's the best TV in the world. In an interview with TechRadar he claimed it surpasses the contrast ratio of the brilliant Pioneer Kuro G9.

It's a bold claim - but one that seems at least plausible after seeing it up close. We certainly cannot wait to get it in our lab side-by-side with the Pioneer Kuro LX5090 to see how the two compare.

If we had to take a guess, we'd say that the Kuro still has it on black levels. Still, though, that's but one important feature among many. Be excited about this TV. Because LCD technology just grew up. Full review coming soon.