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If you love Christmas lights and don’t see why they should be restricted to just one time of the year, the Philips Aurea II is the TV for you. It boasts enough coloured illumination to put Oxford Street to shame. The only disappointment: it costs more than a 50-inch Pioneer Kuro.
Yes, that’s right, the 42PFL9903D has a list price of £2,500. So, as you can imagine, this is going to need to be one awe-inspiring TV to justify such a hefty price tag. To be fair, we did really like the original Aurea, which had excellent black levels and amazing picture detail. What’s more, this one is actually slightly cheaper than its predecessor, which takes the edge off it.
The design of this TV is slimmer and more attractive than the previous model, which could charitably be described as looking rather plasticky. The new one is fashioned from non-reflective glass and the gap between the screen and the frame has been tweaked to be less jarring than its predecessor.
As with its forebear, the Aurea II features the more conventional, rear-firing Ambilight Spectra system, which will light up any wall it’s placed close to. The ‘Active Frame’ is the bit that matches what’s on screen with the front-facing LEDs.
There’s also been a significant increase in the number of LEDs used in the TV. The old model had 128, but this shiny new version has ‘over 150’ LEDs, Philips claims. We’re going to go right ahead and assume it means 151.
Philips also claims this is the fastest-responding LCD screen on the market, with a refresh rate of 2ms. That, combined with 100Hz picture processing, should mean this TV has very little motion blur and movies look tip-top.
Sound is produced by a six-speaker system, which fires audio forward with some invisible trickery. Meanwhile, bass is produced at the rear of the set from a pair of subwoofers, so even low-end sound should impress with this TV.
No word yet on power consumption, but what you spend on powering this TV, you’ll save in blown Christmas tree lights.
