Philips 42PFL7432D 42″ LCD HDTV

Choosing between Plasmas and LCD nowadays have become very difficult. This is due to the improving quality of LCD televisions. Before, Plasmas are superior to LCD’s, now, you won’t even see the difference.

With the Philips 42PFL7432D 42-inch flat-panel LCD, you are given even a harder choice as it tries to compete with similarly priced 42-inch plasmas by bringing the company’s trademark Ambilight system to the table.

As a company known for their striking designs, Philips took relatively great care with the 42PFL9732D. It has a handsome exterior of entirely thick, glossy-black case with a similarly glossy-black bezel around the screen. The bezel in turn is set forward from the matte-black cabinet, for a double-frame look. A thin strip below the bezel consists of perforated speaker grille, which bends back subtly. The panel itself rests atop a stand with a silver pedestal and black glass base.

The set measures 41.2 inches wide by 29.5 inches tall by 10.4 inches deep, and that includes the TV’s stand. It weighs at 76.3 pounds.

As mentioned, Philips included an extra to this set, its Ambilight system, which, on the 42PFL3742D, consists of a set of colored fluorescent lights arranged vertically to either side of the back of the TV. This create a colorful accompaniment to the onscreen image. A comprehensive set of controls handles the color and brightness of the lights, and you can choose whether to have the color and brightness mimic the onscreen image, display a constant color, or turn off completely.

The 42PFL7432D is a 1080p HDTV, which means it has a native resolution of 1,920×1,080, enough pixels to fully resolve the detail of 1080i and 1080p sources. All other incoming resolutions, such as 720p and 480p, are scaled to fit the available pixels.

The 42PFL7432D offers five aspet-ratio modes for standard-def sources but only two for high-def sources. The two high-def choices are Unscaled, which is a “dot-by-dot” mode displaying every pixel of 1080i and 1080p sources with no overscan, and Widescreen, which produces some overscan if you want to eliminate interference on the outer edges of the picture. There are no zoom or stretch modes for high-def sources, which will disappoint anyone looking to eliminate black bars on 4:3 aspect ratio program material.

As far as connection is concerned, the 42PFL7432D is pretty solid with the trio of HDMI inputs on the back panel. There’s also a bank of analog AV inputs; the first offers a choice of component-video, S-Video, or composite video; the second only composite-video; and the third only component-video. Additional rear-panel connections include a coaxial optical digital output and an unusual matching input for getting digital audio from source devices to play through the TV’s sound system.

The set, however, lacks an RGB-style PC input. A set of AV jacks on the left side of the panel, with composite and S-Video, offers easy access. The same-side panel bay also includes a headphone jack and a USB port, the latter for displaying digital photos on the screen and playing digital music files though the TVs speakers.

As for its performance, the 42PFL7432D strength is its accurate post-calibration color. However, its major flaw is its reproduction of blacks. Putting the TV through its paces, this observations are very evident. In more difficult darker scenes, Philips didn’t produce quite as deep of a shade of black as you would have expected.

But nevertheless, the Philips showed very good color accuracy in both light and dark scenes. The shadows and darker areas stayed neutral instead of shifting into blue/green as they do on other similar sets.

Standard-def video processing on the 42PFL7432D is superb, although if your cable or satellite box performs the upconverting to HD resolutions itself, you won’t get the benefits of this aspect of the Philips’ picture quality.

Sources:
http://www.plasmaconcepts.com
http://review.zdnet.com
http://www.productwiki.com