Appearance, processing and use
In a solid cardboard can be found in addition to the device itself and the remote control including batteries or a power cable and a printed Quick Start Guide in several languages (including German). A more detailed manual can be downloaded from the manufacturer's website.
The assembly of the stand has been thought through and resolved without any problems with four plus three screws screwed in. (A large Phillips screwdriver you should have at hand.) The equipment is safe on the walk, but can not be turned or inclined.
The workmanship is good in every part. Design is, of course, always a matter of taste, of the 40PFL4508K I think in any case succeeded, simple and elegant. The connectors are placed on the housing makes sense. There are in addition to the analog audio outputs and one digital coaxial output, but no optical audio output. For a HDMI ports is ARC capable (Audio Return Channel).
The remote is slim, compact and light, makes a high impression. Despite clear layout, the functions of some keys but not open up immediately.
In the menus you will find your way after some familiarization. Your classification appears in some places - to put it politely - indiscriminately. So the important settings for image parameters such as contrast and brightness hiding eg various submenus with meaningless names ("Picture" -> "Pixel Plus HD" or "image" -> "Advanced"). Since exploration urge is asked or you take a look in the separately herunterzuladene extensive manual. Another example: The setting of the image source distinguishes between "Satellite" and "TV", which with the former DVB-S / S2 and the latter with analogue cable TV, DVB-C and DVB-T are meant. Friendly, but little reassuring, I also think that the device offers, search for "all analogue and digital DVB-T channels". On the menu structure Philips should definitely make improvements.
A thorough tuning is time consuming, especially for reception via satellite. The device takes the scan on Astra 19.2 ° East over 1,400 stations namely sorted most of German spectators relevant to the front of the list. All you have to rest but seek out individually and reposition. Better filtering, grouping or a search function would be useful here. When something faster alternative is the use of my list, along which one can zap through at least.
Picture and sound
The display is not completely flat, scatters incident light but mostly so that reflections are not a big problem. The outlines of the nearby viewing angle light sources can be clearly seen, but only in low light.
The image quality of 40PFL4508K is good for something experimenting with the settings, strongly colored the image and contrast. The lighting is fine, only the top and bottom margins appear slightly cloudy in monochrome image content. The viewing angle is acceptable - the image is only slightly less contrast when viewed from the side. A similar effect occurs when viewed from a position above the center of the image on the screen. Black image portions, such as the edges in wide-screen movies, then act dark gray. Brightness settings of more than 50% are not useful because they also lead to such effect. The dynamic contrast adjustment should disable because already at level "minimum" drink too many dark tones from the mark.
The per se very good black level and the maximum contrasts to which the panel is capable of, you get seen most clearly in the menus - here the icons shine brightly at night almost black background. Also, irradiations in the corners can not be identified. In the default settings of the image processing, the screen looks too crisp, but there are too many parts of the image kaputt- "optimized". The art, therefore, is to reduce the Verschlimmbesserungen without the picture is dull. That takes some patience - the optimum settings are ultimately a matter of taste.
Unfortunately, the picture in TV mode is always with overscan (ie "inflation" of the image on the side of the screen) displayed. It is incomprehensible to me that we still have to grapple with this unspeakable relic of analog TV times in 2013. The only setting that no parts of the image are cut off at the edge, is called "unscaled" and are in accordance with the native resolution of the display only full HD images (1920x1080) Full Frame again. The public HD channels (in 720p), and certainly all SD programs will be shown in a correspondingly small box in the center. Here one can only hope for a firmware update that makes the overscan generally switched off.
The TV picture tells oblique edges on stairs unsightly artifacts. This is disturbing, especially for stations with SD resolution if you do not sit too far from the unit.
A motion smoothing, as they now also found in devices below the middle class, does not offer the 40PFL4508K. A light sensor, either.
After all, there is an explicit setting for connection to the PC ("play or Computer" -> "Computer"). Thus various electronic Verschlimmbesserungen the image as stretching, sharpening, contrast enhancement are switched off, and you get a clean, pixel-perfect playback. For a usable black level you have to adjust the brightness while about 40%.
The sound quality is not outstanding, but for an LCD television okay if one helps the basses in the settings a bit on the jumps. Automatic sound preparations should not use it.
Media
Pronounced well does the play media files from a USB stick. The 40PFL4508K not only reads FAT32, but NTFS formatted media and can handle many formats. In fact, it plays videos of all popular codecs from - successfully tested I MPEG2 (also in HD), H.264 or MPEG-4 AVC, Xvid and even VC-1 with audio as AC3 (Dolby Digital), AAC, MP3 or LPCM , Only for DTS audio he had to fit. He has to accept without complaint containers AVI, MOV, TS (DVB-S recording), M (2) TS, MP4 and MKV. Even changing the audio track in MKV files works fine. Only SRT subtitles liked the device in my experiments do not show, and I have found no way to skip the chapter marks. Very good is that the media player the last positions in the files remembers and offers a continuation. Pure audio files (including MP3, WAV, AC3) or a slide show of JPEG images from naturally no problem. The media player is, however, sometimes a bit slow and hakelig to use.
The integration into the home network is easy, both wired and WLAN. The Internet features offered by the device allow easy access to other, online media offered, for instance from the library of ARD. In my opinion, make it today's devices but lack of appropriate operating concepts anyway not to offer a serious alternative to PC or tablet when it comes to Internet. Therefore, one should not overestimate this aspect.
Now includes support DLNA Compliant Media Server, as they (the like of QNAP Synology or) bring many of the better NAS devices for home users as standard. On my NAS I have but the DLNA server disabled, because it brings too many restrictions on the formats. Simple SMB network shares (CIFS) can not be included on 40PFL4508K.
Power Consumption
At full backlight consumes about 40PFL4508K 60-65Watt in TV mode. After switching off by remote control the consumption falls within some time at the end about 0.4 watts. Another positive aspect is that the TV switches off when a time comes no signal on a selected input.
Conclusion
If one can not be put off by the complexity of the menus and idiosyncrasies of operation, provides the Philips 40PFL4508K with the right settings a good image quality.
The unit is solid and makes an elegant impression. The integrated media player works well - here Philips follows a very positive trend.
Given the developments of recent years are features and functions of 40PFL4508K but not impressive. Therefore and especially for the shortcomings in the operation, I prefer from a star and give four stars ****.