Operation

The remote control sits well in the hand. The buttons for volume adjustment and channel changing, however, require some sleight of hand to hit on the first try. Less talented users like us are forced to adjust their grip. It would have been better, instead, to put these buttons where the navigation wheel is.

The quality of a TV's remote control and on-screen menu are crucial for everyday ease-of-use, as is that the channel search and electronic program guide (EPG). Find out here how well the Philips 47 PFL 9703 D performs on these points.

Remote Control:

The design leaves no cause for grumbling: The remote control looks great and matches the TV excellently.

A good idea in itself, but poorly executed: The navigation wheel is too easy to turn, meaning you either jump a step too far or stop too early, making fluid operation practically impossible. But maybe we just lack the necessary sensitivity.

Apart from it constantly overshooting the mark, we also didn't find the design very logical: The wheel only works within the menu or for selecting a channel from the channel list. You can't use it for volume adjustment or for speedy channel hopping - here, the wheel's tendency to leap forward through lists might actually have been handy!

The number pad for direct selection by channel numbers occupies the lower third of the handset, along with a button for displaying the clock and a handy "back" button for quickly jumping between the current and last-viewed channels. Also nearby: The two buttons for controlling the Ambilight.

On-Screen Menu:

Here, the manufacturer ignores persistent criticism, and with equal persistence. For years, one of the main problems with Philips TVs has been that the full-screen menu pages make picture optimization especially tricky. The menu's size does, however, offer one advantage: The huge text is clearly visible even from six meters away.

Criticism continues when it comes to the way the TV saves settings. If you accidentally make a change to a preset, which even experienced users can do, the TV automatically saves the change in the "Personal" preset. This means you lose any settings you've painstakingly derived using a test disc, so you'll have to start again from scratch - extremely irritating. The customer-friendly way to do this would be to apply the changes in the current preset only - as is the case with most other TVs.

Some picture settings work in an unconventional way and actually complicate - rather than simplify - adjustment. For example, a single "Contrast" setting controls both the backlight's brightness and the picture's contrast - this is totally unusual. It's therefore impossible to set the TV's backlight high and the contrast low.

Channel-Search and EPG:
Here, the Philips finally shows its user-friendly side: The 47 PFL 9703 D detects all channels on the first attempt and sorts them into a sensible order. You can then access the channel list using either the OK button (in the center of the navigation wheel) or the GUIDE button. The large text, once again, means you can read the channel list and EPG clearly even from quite far away.