Philips PFL97x8 (2013) Series

Excellent UHD/4K picture quality ; Good audio quality ; Ambilight works great on such a large TV

Picture settings need handling with great care ; Philips' online service is second rate ; Upscaled images look noisy using Philips presets

Finally, we didn’t see much benefit from the TV’s noise reduction systems. They’re utterly unnecessary and actually quite damaging with native UHD content, and even with upscaled sources we often felt they were doing more harm than good. There’s much...

Mostly excellent picture quality ; Ground-breaking price ; Effective Ambilight configuration ; Good audio

Set up requires extreme care ; Processing can be over-ambitious ; Limited viewing angle ; Limited online content

So long as you're not afraid to put in a bit of regular picture set-up leg work it's also capable of excellent picture quality, and can accompany these pictures with a superior soundstage. It's fair to say the 4K price war starts here.

Excellent detail with HD and UHD ; Good upscaling from SD ; Punchy whites ; Ambilight

Tricky to finesse picture ; Hit-and-miss motion ; Blacks lack depth ; Limited smart apps

Look past the state of the Philips PFL9708’s smart offering, though, and it’s actually one of the best 4K TVs we've seen. And it also happens to be the cheapest, which is another string to its bow…

That price, 4K picture amazing with right source content, ambilight technology a real highlight and point of difference, lots of user control to tweak picture styles (inc. ISF presets), booming sound quality, well built and good looking set, smart...

Upscaling of some content is crude, slow menu system needs tweaking, clouding visible in some over-bright settings presets, no ambilight from bottom edge, some time-out and auto-off issues, are we ready for 4K in the UK yet?

There’s a chicken and egg thing going on with 4K. People are keen on the idea - as are we - but the delivery of native Ultra HD content lacks. Well, it’s as good as non-existent in the consumer space for now. And while that should be a huge minus...

Excellent colour and greyscale accuracy ; Impressive video processing ; Reference 3D performance ; Excellent screen uniformity ; Solid build quality ; Comprehensive set of connections ; Decent audio perforemance ; Attractive price

Some minor banding ; Occasional motion artefacts ; Smart platform still limited

The Philips 65PFL9708 is a very welcome addition to the ranks of new 4K Ultra HD TVs on the market. It's design might seem rather pedestrian but in all honesty we prefer the simple gun metal bezel and unfussy stand and it's good to see that it can...