Philips PML9009 / 9019 / 9059 vs TCL A400 PRO

Philips PML9009 doesn't really operate at the highest values in HDR materials. Most effects with brightness around 550 nits won't leave us thrilled with the lighting effects, although they are quite stable, which is a plus, and a considerable difference can be felt between SDR materials. It's worth noting that we can achieve a good result only in one scenario, that is in the film "Gemini," where the flashlight as the sole light source can really shine. Why in this scene? The answer is quite simple. The scene itself doesn't have a large amount of black, and the flashlight isn't as large an object as the sun in the first and last scenes. Overall, the brightness measurement results in HDR materials aren't a solid basis for recommending this television for viewing productions that use a wide color gamut. However, it's worth mentioning that this model can cover it in a not too bad 93% degree in the case of the DCI-P3 palette.

The TCL A400 Pro is a moderately bright TV. Its peak brightness reaches around 600 nits. That level already allows for a real HDR effect and in many films it does deliver a noticeably more appealing picture than in SDR. However, it’s not a level that dazzles by brightness alone. The A400 Pro is not one of those TVs that bombard the viewer with a powerful flash in every dramatic scene. The biggest limitation is visible with small bright elements on a dark background. Because of fairly aggressive zone control, the TV can significantly reduce their brightness, in extreme cases down to around 100 nits. That means small lights, sparks, stars or single highlights can be much less visible than they should be. It should be added, though, that this isn’t done without reason. The A400 Pro does this to keep black levels as deep as possible and to limit the halo effect around bright objects. It’s a deliberate compromise: the TV more often opts for deeper blacks rather than maximising point highlights. On the one hand this is understandable, especially given a limited number of dimming zones, but on the other you should be aware that the HDR effect won’t always be as strong as the peak brightness alone might suggest.

On the plus side, the colours are a strength. The PFS LED filter used here, marketed by the manufacturer as QLED, delivers suitably saturated colours. Our measurements showed about 94% coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut and around 74% of BT.2020, which is a solid result for this class.

The best factory mode used during our tests was "Filmmaker". Here, we will examine both SDR and HDR content. The key differentiator is primarily the EOTF curve in the wide colour gamut materials and gamma in those recorded "the old way". Starting with SDR films and series and the most basic thing we can observe, which is white balance, we see a significant red colour dominance. This led to a yellow tint across the whole image, causing unnaturally looking faces and yellowed whites. This issue is also clearly visible on the "ColourChecker" palette, where all colours have shifted towards their warmer counterparts. Looking at an even more significant graph, the gamma responsible for the contrast of the image, we see considerable errors beginning right from the start. From the left, the value we measured, indicated by a combined ellipsis, clearly spiked upwards, causing complete merging of details in the darkest scenes. This state of affairs persisted up to 10% brightness on the screen, after which it dove below the reference orange line, leading to a deterioration in contrast, which, as we know, Philips PML9009 is already lacking. In HDR materials, white balance issues were very similar to those in SDR content. The discrepancy appears when checking the EOTF curve, which governs the rate of brightness increase and severely limited it, resulting in an unnaturally dark image. As for the colours themselves, there were more reasons for concern here, as the television's low luminance caused a huge disparity between the actual state and the correct one, which is perfectly visible on the error graph, often exceeding the scale.

As usual, we carried out colour measurements in the best‑tuned picture mode, Filmmaker Mode, the one intended to be closest to the creators’ intentions. The A400 Pro, of course, also offers other picture modes, but in practice they show much larger colour errors and interfere more with the image character. So we won’t cover them in detail in this part of the review. How does the factory colour reproduction fare? In short: really very well. In fact, looking at our measurements, it’s excellent. Both the white balance and the luminance response were set surprisingly precisely. The errors were so small that during the measurements we genuinely rubbed our eyes in surprise. Such good factory settings don’t happen often, even in televisions running Filmmaker Mode. All the more reason to praise TCL, because the A400 Pro straight out of the box can produce an image very close to how the source material should look. The results were so good you could easily think someone had already given this unit extra attention and tried to calibrate it. Our one bit of nitpicking comes down to a single issue. In SDR material the image was slightly brighter than the reference for a dark room, because the factory gamma was set closer to 2.3 than 2.4. It’s not a large error and most viewers probably won’t even notice it. We should note, however, that we are talking about our specific test unit. There can always be some variation in factory colour between individual units, production batches or screen sizes. We do not assume every A400 Pro will look identical straight out of the box.

Philips PML9009, like most leading manufacturers, has been providing advanced tools for calibration processes for years. Here we find 2-point and 20-point greyscale adjustments, as well as an advanced CMS (Color Management System). The differences resulting from calibration are evident, and even someone who doesn't pay attention to image quality (although there probably aren't many like that here) will notice the positive difference. Both SDR and HDR materials have undergone quite a transformation. The former and the latter have primarily shed the ugly yellow tint resulting from the red colour dominance in white balance. As for the SDR materials and gamma, although it is not perfectly modelled and still loses dark details, the rest of it is at more than a decent level, and minor errors will not be noticeable. The colours themselves look far better, and with low deltaE errors, they are almost reference-quality. On the other hand, HDR materials, due to the unit's low luminance, have not been optimised as we would have liked. Although the white balance has been largely normalised, a slight blue tint can still be observed here and there. Fortunately, the EOTF curve turned out to be much more accessible, allowing for practically perfect geometry. Unfortunately, due to the screen's too low brightness, the colour errors remain quite high.

Despite the outstanding factory tuning, we couldn't resist checking how the TCL A400 Pro would respond to professional calibration. With such a strong starting point, we were especially curious whether we could squeeze even more from this TV. And here we have to boast: we managed to bring our sample to absurdly low colour errors. Results below 1 are something you don't see every day, even on very good TVs. Such outcomes are more often associated with professional reference monitors than with a lifestyle TV for the living room. In terms of white balance and colour reproduction, the A400 Pro after calibration simply excelled. The only thing we can pick on after closer analysis concerns the brightness response. The TV can vary the luminance level depending on the content being displayed, and quite often the picture is a little darker than it should be according to the reference. This most likely stems from the way the Mini-LED backlight and the local dimming algorithms work in this model. That said, it doesn't ruin the overall impression, because in terms of colour precision the A400 Pro after calibration reached a level that was genuinely hard to expect.

Judging by how PML9009 Philips handled tonal transitions, the image scaling test should perform just as well. This time, we are checking the TV’s algorithms responsible for enhancing the quality of images that were recorded in lower quality. Such images can be found, for example, in various TV shows or older films. In this regard, Philips PML9009 performs quite mediocrely and drastically blurs the image. This is particularly noticeable on fine branches or the model's hair.

Let’s revisit the issue of tonal transitions, which performed remarkably well. Within the unit, we will find several levels of smoothing. Even the lowest one can effectively eliminate any jerky tonal transitions and will be suitable for the vast majority of materials. More importantly, none of the settings for this function soften the effect of film grain, which is extremely important in terms of alignment with the director's vision. However, we would like to point out that sometimes it may turn out that fine details are blurred.

Digital image processing is unfortunately one of the weaker points of the TCL A400 Pro. That does not mean the TV performs badly, but it’s hard to call it anything clearly above standard. The upscaling itself is acceptable: edges are fairly well smoothed, the picture does not look overly sharp or “pixelated”, and lower-quality material can be watched without major discomfort. At the same time the overall image has a slightly soft character and you don’t see the kind of precision that the best image processors in more expensive TVs can offer.

Handling of tonal transitions caused by heavy compression is much worse. TCL equipped the A400 Pro with a “Gradual Smoothing” feature that in theory should reduce visible colour banding and artefacts in lower-quality material. In practice, however, its effectiveness is very limited. It does not improve tonal transitions in any noticeable way, and at higher settings it can further smooth image detail, giving it an artificial, slightly blurred character. For that reason we think it’s best to leave this feature off. The A400 Pro copes decently with basic image scaling, but if you often watch heavily compressed material with visible posterisation, this model will not be one of the best choices.

Philips PML9009 has been equipped with a panel that has a native refresh rate of 120 Hz. This is the essential minimum for watching all kinds of sports and is recommended for comfortable gaming in favourite titles on consoles or PCs. The manufacturer, for those who dislike the characteristic judder of footage recorded at 24 fps or those requiring a high degree of motion smoothness, such as when watching football matches, has prepared an effective system for improving the sharpness of moving images. In the dedicated tab, we will find a "Smoothness" slider responsible for eliminating judder and a "Motion Blur Reduction" setting that helps to increase the sharpness of dynamic elements. The function works very well and granularly, meaning each setting has a real impact on motion perception. With such a set, every user will find their sweet spot. In the picture, we present our choice, which is slight smoothing without the soap opera effect.

A matter directly related to motion is the response time of the pixels in the panel itself. The best in this regard are of course OLED panels, followed by units based on IPS and ADS screens, and lastly VA. Despite the generally good quality of the systems responsible for smoothening the image, the use of a VA panel carries consequences in the form of black smear behind fast-moving objects. Although in the tested television this should not occur frequently, it will be noticeable here and there.

The TCL A400 Pro is equipped with a 144 Hz panel, but in practice we're most interested in how it performs at 120 Hz. That's the refresh rate most consoles, as well as many sports broadcasts and high-motion sources, are limited to today. In that range the TV performs quite well. Motion clarity is really good, especially after properly configuring the motion smoothing. The 'Motion Clarity' function improves smoothness. Its settings include two sliders that let you tailor the motion smoothing to your preferences, separately for low-frame-rate and high-frame-rate content. This allows you to achieve either a more cinematic look or a noticeably smoother image. If you don't want to fiddle with manual configuration, you can use built-in presets such as Low, Medium, High, Cinema or Nature.

Philips PML9009, equipped with HDMI 2.1 connections with full bandwidth, supports all functions dedicated to gamers. The most basic ones, such as VRR and ALLM, are a given, but G-Sync, FreeSync, or playing in HDR Dolby Vision with low input lag are not. These features activate without any problems, and during the tests conducted, they presented no obstacles. Such preparation of the television is certainly its strong point, and it can be said that it is a unit dedicated to gamers. For more advanced users, we also mention that the PML9009 is equipped with the HGIG mode, which will be particularly felt by gamers, as there are still relatively few games that support Dolby Vision. This mode primarily allows for the adjustment of HDR effects to the capabilities of the television on a special board, to prevent dimming and burning of the image.

The television additionally implements a special menu - GameBar. This allows for editing unit settings "on the fly," meaning without having to exit the game. In it, we will also find functions such as activating a crosshair or black level correction for better visibility of opponents in shadows.

In a brief summary of this paragraph, the Philips PML9009 is a unit that will undoubtedly attract gamers' attention. Thanks to its versatility, it will allow for playing any title in the highest quality without compromises. Especially since features such as VRR, ALLM, G-Sync, FreeSync, or gameplay in HDR Dolby Vision will provide an even greater immersion in the favourite title.

In terms of gaming features the TCL A400 Pro performs brilliantly. The TV has practically everything you’d expect from a gaming TV today: support for 4K at high refresh rates, VRR, ALLM, correct implementation of HDR formats in games, including Dolby Vision, and HGiG. That means it works well with both next‑gen consoles and PCs. Another plus is the inclusion of a Game Bar, a dedicated panel with the most important settings for gamers. From it you can quickly check basic information about the signal, refresh rate or active features, and customise the appearance and behaviour of some settings to your preferences. It’s a solution that may not change picture quality by itself, but it greatly improves the convenience of using the TV while gaming. The only thing to criticise is the number of full HDMI 2.1 ports. The A400 Pro has only two such ports out of four, and one of them also serves as eARC. In practice this means that if you want to connect two next‑gen consoles and a soundbar you may run into some limitations. In that scenario you’ll need to either swap devices or use extra equipment, such as an AV receiver or a soundbar with HDMI inputs. Even so, it’s hard not to rate the A400 Pro very highly as a gaming TV. The gaming feature set here is genuinely powerful.