Philips OLED807 review: A triple-A TV

The Philips OLED807 combines a 4K OLED panel with the brand’s proprietary Ambilight technology and class-leading AI-enhanced processing to produce an HDR smart TV that delivers both performance and value for money.

Once you include Android TV, next-gen gaming features, a full house of HDR formats, Dolby Atmos and IMAX Enhanced, you’ve got a TV that’s hard to resist.

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Philips OLED807 review: Key specifications

Philips OLED807 review: What you need to know

The Philips OLED807 is a 4K (3,840 x 2,160) HDR smart TV that uses a 120Hz OLED panel with the latest AI-enhanced P5 perfect picture processing engine, the brand’s proprietary four-sided Ambilight rear-mounted LEDs, and support for Dolby Atmos object-based audio.

The 807 range consists of four models with 48in, 55in, 65in and 77in screen sizes available. The design is elegant and the build quality is impressive for the money, but only two of the four HDMI inputs support all the features found on the latest gaming consoles.

The Philips OLED807 runs the Android TV operating system and supports every version of HDR – HDR10, Dolby Vision, HLG, and HDR10+. All the main content streaming services are also present, including support for Freeview Play, plus a host of other smart features.

Philips 807 OLED review: Price and competition

The Philips 807 has enjoyed some recent price reductions, which means regardless of which screen size you choose it offers excellent value for money. The 48in version currently retails for £1,199, the 55in model reviewed here costs £1,299, the 65in variety will set you back £1,899, while the 77in screen size is priced at £3,499.

If you’re looking for an OLED alternative, the Panasonic TX-55LZ1000 is the obvious choice, although it is more expensive at £1,549. Like the Philips 807, it supports every version of HDR and Dolby Atmos. There’s also Panasonic’s Master OLED screen and HCX Pro AI processor, plus the brand’s My Home Screen 7.0 operating system, and HDMI 2.1 for next-gen gamers.

Alternatively, if you’d prefer a non-OLED alternative, you could check out the Samsung QE55QN90B, which also costs £1,299. It’s a 4K Neo QLED mid-range model that features a Micro LED backlit panel, quantum dot technology and AI-enhanced processing to deliver an impressive visual and audio performance, plus it includes Samsung’s comprehensive Tizen-powered smart system.

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Philips OLED807 review: Design, connections and control

The Philips OLED807 has a similar minimalist design to most of the other OLED TVs on the market, with an ultra-thin metal bezel and a panel that’s millimetres deep at the top, before widening out further down where the electronics, speakers and connections are housed. Since this is a Philips TV, this deeper rear section also includes LEDs for the Ambilight system – more on that later.

The 55in version of the 807 uses a polished aluminium swivel stand that’s centrally mounted and provides sufficient clearance for a soundbar. The stand offers stable support and is 802mm wide, which allows the TV to be easily installed onto a narrower surface. Alternatively, if you’d rather wall-mount the 807, there are screw fixings at the rear compatible with a 300 x 300 VESA bracket.

The connectivity is good, although of the four HDMI inputs only two are full bandwidth 48Gbits/sec. While all of the HDMI inputs support 4K/60Hz, HDR10, HLG, HDR10+, Dolby Vision and ARC, only the two HDMI 2.1 ports handle 4K/120Hz, Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) and Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM), plus one also supports eARC.

The other physical connections include terrestrial and satellite tuners, a 3.5mm headphone jack, an optical digital output, an Ethernet port, three USB ports and a CI (common interface) slot. When it comes to wireless connectivity there’s built-in dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0.

The included remote control is as elegant as the TV itself, with a slim shape, silver finish, backlight and sensible button layout. There are direct access keys for Netflix and Prime Video, along with large navigation controls. If you prefer voice control, there’s a microphone built into the remote, with the 807 supporting both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.

Philips OLED807 review: Smart TV platform

The Philips OLED807 uses the Android TV 11 operating system, as opposed to the newer Google TV. The older iteration is still good, and thanks to the inclusion of a quad-core processor, the 807 has sufficient power to run the platform in a smooth, stable and responsive manner.

The Android system is better than when it was first introduced, although to be fair, Philips has always implemented it in a superior manner to its competition. There’s an extensive selection of apps, including Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, Freeview Play and Google Play.

If you want to use the 807 as a smart assistant, there’s Google Assistant built in, although the TV also works with Amazon Alexa. Other smart features include USB recording of TV programmes, 16GB of flash memory and extensive file support for the built-in media player.

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Philips OLED807 review: Image quality

The Philips OLED807 uses the latest EX type of OLED panel, which is claimed to boost brightness by up to 30% compared to earlier generations. However, since the brand buys its OLED panels from a third party, where it really adds value is via its proprietary picture processing. The 807 sports the latest P5 perfect picture engine with AI-enhanced image processing.

This imaging prowess can feel a little overwhelming, with a host of controls on offer to tweak the picture quality to your preference, but the deep-learning AI algorithm reduces noise and improves deinterlacing and upscaling. This results in increased sharpness on lower-resolution content and wonderfully detailed images regardless of their original resolution.

Naturally, the 807 enjoys all the benefits associated with OLED, including deep blacks, plenty of shadow detail and pixel-precise highlights. The overall screen uniformity is excellent, with no signs of banding, dirty screen effect or colour tinting anywhere on our review sample. Reflections are also handled well, and the viewing angles are very wide.

The TV ships in Personal mode, and as is usually the case with the default SDR settings, the whites are too blue, the colours too saturated and the overall image too bright. Luckily, Filmmaker mode easily addresses these issues with a pleasing level of accuracy thanks to greyscale and colour Delta E errors below two and a gamma curve that tracks our target of 2.4.

Motion handling is an area where Philips is particularly strong, and the 807 is no exception. The Perfect Natural Motion does exactly what it claims, delivering smooth movement with films and TV shows. Anyone particularly susceptible to frame interpolation on film-based content should turn the processing off, but sports fans and gamers will be delighted by the fluid images.

While not directly related to image quality, Ambilight does play a part. This feature is unique to Philips TVs and uses a series of LEDs built into the rear of the panel (at the top, bottom and sides). These LEDs light up the wall behind the TV, and change colour based on analysis of the image on the screen. This effect can make the viewing experience significantly more immersive.

There are fans of Ambilight who swear by the technology, but if you’re a video purist who doesn’t fancy disco lighting behind the TV, there is another benefit. Ambilight offers a neutral white setting that acts as a bias light and has a number of key advantages, such as improving the perceived contrast, and also creates a more comfortable viewing experience at night.

Philips OLED807 review: HDR performance

The Philips 807 might use an EX OLED panel, but the claims of a 30% increase in brightness depend on what’s being tested. The 55in 807 hits 720cd/m² on a 10% window, which is fairly standard for an OLED, but also reaches 189cd/m² on a full-field pattern, which is an improvement and ensures the overall luminance of an HDR image looks brighter.

While the specular highlights aren’t any brighter than other OLED TVs, when combined with the deep blacks and pixel-precise delivery of this self-emissive display technology, the resulting HDR looks fantastic. The greyscale is also very accurate, with equal amounts of red, green and blue to deliver clean whites with no obvious discolouration or clipping.

Colour performance is equally impressive, with the 807 hitting 100% of the DCI-P3 colour space. This means you’re getting the full benefit of HDR’s wider colour gamut, and a saturated film such as The Greatest Showman really pops. Crucially, this colour gamut isn’t just wide but also very accurate, with all the colours hitting their saturation targets precisely.

The Filmmaker mode offers highly accurate images for HDR10, HLG and HDR10+, while the Cinema mode does the same for Dolby Vision. The 807’s tone mapping passed all of our HDR tests, ensuring any HDR10 content precisely follows the PQ curve and doesn’t clip 1,000, 4,000 and 10,000 nit material, ensuring the content retains the original creator’s intent.

As a result, when watching a darker film such as Alien, which also offers HDR10+, you can really appreciate all the production design and horrors lurking in the shadows. Conversely, a brightly lit and colourful film such as Ambulance, which uses Dolby Vision, makes the most of the increased overall brightness and expert motion handling to perfectly render car chases through sunny LA.

Philips OLED807 review: Gaming

The Philips 807 makes for an excellent gaming TV thanks to its support for 4K/120Hz high frame rate, ALLM and VRR – including Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync Premium – although, as mentioned earlier, there are only two HDMI 2.1 inputs.

The inclusion of ALLM means the TV automatically switches to the low latency Game mode when compatible consoles are detected, and this delivers an input lag of 15ms. While not as low as some of the completion, it’s more than fast enough for all but the most demanding of gamers.

There are actually two game modes: Optimal and Optimal (Auto). The latter mode allows you to enjoy the benefits of VRR. In terms of other gaming features, there’s support for HGiG and Dolby Vision HDR gaming, along with cloud gaming via Geforce Now.

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Philips OLED807 review: Sound quality

The Philips OLED807 might lack the Bowers & Wilkins sound systems found further up the brand’s OLED range, but it still includes some fairly decent audio capabilities. There’s a 2.1-channel sound system built into the 807, with an impressive 70W of total amplification. Of this, 20W is allocated to each of the downward-firing left and right channels, while 30W powers the rear-firing woofer.

Despite the relatively slim chassis, the 807 is capable of delivering a full-bodied sonic presence that produces width and a surprising amount of bass. The mid-range is clear, the treble free of sibilance or harshness, and the volume able to go loud without distorting. This makes the 807 great for dialogue and music, and even bass-heavy blockbusters as long as you don’t push it.

There’s a host of sound features, including onboard decoding of Dolby Atmos, which is then delivered using psychoacoustic processing. You can’t expect miracles with only two speakers, but the processing does add greater dimensionality. The 807 also supports DTS soundtracks, which is something of a rarity on a TV these days, along with DTS Play-Fi.

There are a number of audio enhancements such as AI Sound, AI EQ and Clear Dialogue. If you don’t want to disturb the rest of the household, a Night Mode compresses the dynamic range, and for Dolby soundtracks, there are Bass Enhancement and Volume Leveller features. Finally, there’s a Room Calibration feature for optimising the audio to a specific environment.

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Philips OLED807 review: Verdict

The Philips OLED807 is a cracking 4K OLED TV that manages to combine cutting-edge proprietary technology with some highly competitive pricing. The image processing and motion handling are first-class and, when combined with the brighter OLED panel, the result is superb SDR and HDR pictures. There’s also support for every version of HDR, and even IMAX Enhanced.

The design is attractive and the build quality is solid, while the sound system is surprisingly good and supports Dolby Atmos. The Ambilight feature offers benefits for casual viewers and purists alike, while the Android OS provides a comprehensive choice of streaming apps. Aside from only having two HDMI 2.1 inputs, this impressive and affordable OLED TV is hard to fault.