This paper assesses practical aspects related to advanced laboratory testing of smart grid applications with Power-Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHIL) approach. Particularly, the general features together with a set of extended use-cases for PHIL testing are introduced. An existing laboratory at TU Dortmund University is presented and considered as a reference for describing the architecture and the principal components of typical advanced laboratory testing infrastructures based on PHIL approach. A number of exemplary testbeds are provided to show the potentially applications of advanced PHIL testing for low-voltage distribution grids.