Voices are clean, clear and well-contextualised at all times, avoiding the ‘hummy’ feeling with deep male voices or the shrillness with high-pitched female voices that so many TV sound systems suffer with. 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…

It's worth noting that you can technically upgrade your current television to include Ambilight, even if it isn't a Philips TV. 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.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. The biggest issues for gamers, though, are that input lag is a little higher, at 21.2ms, than we see with most premium TVs these days (though 21.2ms still represents less than a frame), and that while the TV will accept 4K/120Hz feeds, these will actually only appear with half the vertical resolution they ought to. This does result in a softer, less detailed look to 4K/120 images than you get with TVs that can properly support such feeds. Though, as we’ll see, this doesn’t mean the 65OLED937 isn’t capable of looking very good indeed with gaming sources. Disney+ subscription required. Subject to terms at https://www.disneyplus.com (c) 2020 Disney and its related entities. Disney+ is available in selected languages and countries.

Memory size (Flash) : 16 G, the actual available disc space may differ (dependent on e.g. (pre-)installed apps, installed operating system, etc.) 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.

Measurements

The Philips 65OLED807 is a great performer at the price point and market position sitting just below the OLED+ models in the Philips lineup. It has support for all currently used HDR formats, two full bandwidth HDMI 2.1 inputs with 4K120 support at full resolution with VRR, FreeSync and G-Sync support, a decent smart TV system and the USP of four-sided Ambilight. 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.

Precious few TVs at the OLED807’s price point carry a 70W audio system – never mind a 70W audio system with a dedicated bass speaker. It’s hardly surprising, then, to find that this Philips model sounds far better than the vast majority of other TVs in its class, despite the remarkable thinness that characterises much of its bodywork. 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. The OLED807 retains Philips’ long-running reputation for sharpness, too. Its pictures look emphatically 4K with the set’s Ultra Resolution feature in play – and this feature now seems to cause no significant unwanted side effects, so we see no reason not to use it (we recommended avoiding it in the past). The OLED807’s extra brightness also brings out more shadow detail in dark areas than we got with the OLED806, and HD sources are upscaled with more sharpness and detail than you get from most rivals.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. 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. The set’s mid-range is wide and dynamic enough to deliver even dense action scenes with authority and conviction, easily avoiding the thin, hemmed in feel you get with big movie moments on so many TVs. The power and dynamic range that delivers this impressive mid-range performance also contributes to excellent detailing; a nicely projected sound stage that seems to exist well beyond the edges of the screen; and convincing, clear vocals. Compatibility depends on Wi-Fi Miracast certification and Android 4.2 or later. For more details please refer to your device documentation. The 65OLED937 manages to look exceptionally sharp and detailed with both native 4K and upscaled HD footage. This feels as much a result of the TV’s exceptional contrast and light control than any simple sharpness processing, too, so there’s nothing forced or overly gritty about it. This is one area in particular, in fact, alongside a slightly more dynamic feel to HDR10 content, where the 65OLED937 seems to improve on the picture quality of Philips’ step-down OLED807 OLED range.

Philips’ new Ambient AI feature is a bit of a letdown too, chiefly because it tends to leave HDR pictures too dull for comfort if you’re watching the 65OLED937 in a very dark room. You can turn the feature off, thankfully, but it feels in its current form like a missed opportunity. 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. As ever with an OLED TV, every pixel in the OLED807’s screen can produce its own light, delivering massive local contrast benefits over even the best LCD TVs. The OLED panel in the OLED807, though, builds on this by being one of the latest so-called OLED EX displays, meaning that it has the potential to produce as much as 30% more brightness than many previous OLED TVs. It's a big deal in these days where HDR video is so widely available. 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.

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. 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. 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. 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.