The biggest step up comes from its brightness. We measured a decently sustained peak light output of nearly 870 nits on a white HDR window covering 10% of the 55-inch OLED807’s screen, which is around 100 nits up on the peak light output of the OLED806. This amounts to an almost 15% increase that can be keenly felt in both small bright highlights and full-screen brightness when watching HDR sources. Editor’s Note: As we have already reviewed the 48-inch with many of the same features, large areas of this review will feature exactly the same text. Where there are differences between the models they have been added to the review as well as the measurements for this 65-inch TV which was fully tested and measured. The 65OLED937 handles bass better than its predecessor too. Low-frequency sounds reach deeper, sound smoother, and enjoy more frequency variation and responsiveness, while also avoiding significant phutting and buzzing issues with even the most demanding of movie basslines. How B&W has managed to get so much bass from the 65OLED937’s external speaker enclosure without using an external subwoofer is beyond us. Especially as the bass is delivered without feeling dislocated from or impinging on the audio system’s impressively open and dynamic mid-range. This need to change the default motion processing mode brings us to the fact that while the OLED807 is better out of the box than its predecessor, you should still get involved with its intimidatingly convoluted picture set up menus if you want to make sure you get the absolute best picture results. As well as the motion adjustments, all noise reduction should be turned off for the vast majority of native 4K and premium quality HD sources, for instance.

These issues might even persuade you to turn Dolby Vision off on your sources where possible – especially as the 65OLED937’s Advanced HDR processing does such a fantastic job with regular HDR10 feeds. Immerse in legendary and exclusive titles from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic available on Philips Android TVs. It's worth noting that you can technically upgrade your current television to include Ambilight, even if it isn't a Philips TV. To put it simply, Ambilight is a proprietary TV technology exclusive to Philips TVs, and in a saturated market full of near-identical goggle boxes, it really does help Philips stand out from the crowd. Ambilight is essentially the inclusion of an LED array around the side of a television, which projects color onto the wall behind a TV. We are reviewing the 65-inch OLED807 in this review, which is almost identical to the 48-inch previously reviewed, just with a slightly different panel, but performance was very similar indeed. As such most of the points made with regards to the 48-inch are the same for the 65-inch model.We also didn’t get on with the new Ambient AI modes, especially in the way they tend to make pictures look excessively dark, leading to a loss of shadow detail, if you’re watching the TV in a dark room. So you should turn these off. The 65OLED937’s pictures manage to keep the spectacular feel going. As we might have expected given Philips’ penchant for going ‘all out’ with its TV pictures, this OLED model grabs the new brightness potential made possible by its EX OLED panel with both hands, pumping out the brightest, most vibrantly saturated high dynamic range pictures we’ve seen from any OLED TV on the market today bar Samsung’s S95B QD-OLED. Google Assistant is available on Philips Android TVs running on Android O (8) or higher OS version. Google Assistant is available in selected languages and countries. Its picture quality, meanwhile, takes a relatively aggressive approach that will win it many fans in both crowded electronics stores and living rooms – yet it also carries modes able to give you a more accurate picture if that’s your bag. Even its sound is way more powerful than that of most rivals.

Even LG’s gorgeous G2 series, which also uses the new EX panel and a heatsink element, doesn’t seem to push quite as far in brightness terms as the 65OLED937 – at least when it comes to classic bright HDR highlights such as glints of sunlight reflecting off metal or glass. Philips also supports the HGiG system that lets you use set up menus built into your console to establish the best gaming HDR experience, rather than the TV trying to figure out on the fly how best to handle incoming HDR game graphics. We could spend a good few thousand words next on the myriad picture adjustments provided within Philips convoluted menu system. It really does feel like Philips has given you control over, well, everything. For the sake of everyone’s sanity, though, we’ll limit ourselves to saying that while enthusiasts may embrace and enjoy exploring the huge range of adjustments the 55OLED807 carries, it can all be a bit intimidating to more regular folk. Philips TVs may not earn quite as much attention as the latest Samsung or LG OLEDs, but Ambilight is a pretty compelling reason to choose a Philips model over everything else.It feels, too, as if some of the provided picture tweaks can work against each other. For instance, running the Advanced HDR Tone Mapping feature in conjunction with the Maximum HDR Perfect setting can cause dark scenes to start to look a bit unstable.

The set also carries a Dolby Vision Game mode (though this only supports DV up to 60Hz, not 120Hz like LG's OLEDs), and provided you select its Monitor setting the OLED807 can deliver 4K 120Hz without suffering the half vertical resolution issue that has affected some premium Philips TVs. Philips has got its Game preset input lag time down for the OLED807 to 15.1ms with 1080p/60Hz feeds. That’s still 5ms or so higher than the fastest results we’ve seen this year, but you’d have to be a more competitive gamer than us for 5ms to make a serious difference to your performance. Being able to deliver more native brightness means, too, that there’s a wider range of natural looking tones in the brightest parts of HDR images, as well as reducing the potential for clipping (lost shading) in peak light areas. A new Aurora feature even lets you combine Ambilight with a selection of ‘screen saver’ videos and images, ensuring that your TV could remain an attractive centrepiece to your living room even when you’re not actually watching it… assuming you don't mind the extra energy use. Energy consumption in kWh per year based on the power consumption of the television operating 4 hours per day for 365 days. The actual energy consumption will depend on how the television is used.Smart TV app availability varies per TV model and country. For more details please visit: www.philips.com/smarttv. Gaming is supported by two HDMI 2.1 ports (in addition to two HDMI 2.0 ports), with support for 4K 120Hz and Variable Refresh Rate, plus Auto Low Latency Mode so it switches to its Game Mode when you fire up a console.

That said, it’s seriously welcome to find the 65OLED937 providing the latter two picture options (along with support for the third-party IMAX Enhanced‘format’) for viewers who really do like a more restrained, ‘authentic’ look to their TV pictures. Philips no longer takes the ‘my way or the highway’ approach to picture quality it could perhaps have been accused of a few generations ago. The OLED807’s smart features are provided by Android TV - the 11th generation of Android TV to be precise. This version of Android TV is far superior to any previous version in its presentation, stability and features, displaying a much greater understanding of how to deliver an interface that’s suited to TVs rather than personal smart devices. It’s still a little dictatorial and low on customisation options, but at least it no longer feels like it was designed to actively put you off using it. This television contains lead only in certain parts or components where no technology alternatives exist in accordance with existing exemption clauses under the RoHS Directive. Not every Ambilight TV is made the same, though. Low-end models have two-sided Ambilight, meaning colour emanates from the left and right of the TV. Mid-spec models have three-sided Ambilight, with LEDs pointing upwards too. Some very premium models, like the 2020 flagship OLED+935, now come with four-sided Ambilight, meaning the LEDs glow from the bottom edge of the set too. Philips has released something called the Philips Hue Play Gradient Light Strip, which comes in sizes for 55-inch, 65-inch, and 75-inch TVs. It effectively replicates three-sided Ambilight – though not four, which is apparently to prevent odd reflection off TV stands or soundbars by non-Philips manufacturers.Thanks to its combination of a beautiful metallic finish, super-thin panel design, external speaker enclosure (complete with Bowers & Wilkins’ distinctive ‘tweeter on top’) and a new and improved, four-sided version of Philips’ Ambilight technology, the 65OLED937 is arguably the most dramatic-looking ‘mainstream’ TV around today. Happily, the 65OLED937 sees – or rather, hears – B&W delivering significant improvements that lift the new set’s sound into truly five-star territory. Last year’s Philips OLED806 was up there with the very best mid-range OLED TVs – but the OLED807 beats its predecessor in pretty much every way. So, does the Philips 65-inch OLED807 offer up the image quality goods to compete as an ‘A’ brand in today’s TV market? Let’s find out…