Philips Cineos 32PFL7404H review

The Cineos 32PFL7404H is one of Philips more basic TVs, but still has the company’s pioneering HD Natural Motion and a 100Hz panel, which smoothes the jerkiness in films. Movies are recorded at 24 frames per second, which leads to a juddering effect during camera pans or with objects moving across the screen. Natural Motion has three levels of intensity, and can make movies look as if they were recorded on a video camera. The effect is quite disturbing, especially with old black-and-white films where your bran doesn’t expect smooth motion.

At default settings, the 32PFL7404H wasn’t as bright as other TVs in our side-by-side tests. Colours were vibrant and contrast reasonably good, but to correct the dimness our only recourse was to increase brightness, sacrificing contrast in the process.

In our DVD test, the white titles were noticeably duller than we saw from other models and, although upscaling was generally good, we saw a hint of ghosting. Connected to a laptop, the 32PFL7404 benefits from being set to PC Mode, which disables image processing and ensures no scaling is applied.

Brightness may not be its strong suit, but the 32PFL7404H certainly makes up for it in the looks department, with rounded edges and a clear plastic trim around the narrow bezel. It’s not ideal for wall-mounting as Philips has made no effort to recess the rear-facing ports. The menu system is also stylish, with large, clear text and icons, but in practice it’s a pain to use as you can’t scroll past the end of a list to get back to the first item, and it’s not as responsive as others.

The USB port on the left side of the case accepts both flash drives and external hard disks, and as well as MP3 music and JPEG photos it also supports a number of video formats. These include H.264, MPEG1, MPEG2 and DivX AVI . The 32PFL7404 will automatically zoom video files to fill the screen without changing their aspect ratio.

The internal speakers are excellent, and at 50 per cent volume were loud enough to fill our labs. Bass was impressive, and you’ll find you can watch music channels without wincing at the poor sound quality. There’s also surround sound control that adds extra depth to the sound stage.

Following the design of the menus, the EPG is a minimalist affair, with a Now & Next display that shows only the next two programmes on each of eight channels, but splits the two vertical columns into half-hour slots. Large figures in the background tell you the date and time being shown, and the current time in large numbers, but these are hard to read at a distance. You have to press the Options button to search by genre, set reminders or change day.

Philips HD Natural Motion is a welcome feature, but we miss the excellent Ambilight of more expensive models. With good image quality, the 32PFL7404H is let down by its relatively dim brightness and unintuitive controls. It can’t compete with this month’s crop of cheaper 37in models: LG’s 37LF7700 has a built-in Freesat HD receiver for over £50 less.