Philips PUS8807 Review & Rating

The Sony X85K offers a much better brightness at the same price level. A bit cheaper with a significantly higher contrast comes the Samsung Q60B. For a slightly higher surcharge, you get an OLED variant for beginners with the LG OLED A2. You not only benefit from a perfect black, but also get the best viewing angle quality.

Although “The One” weighs more than 27 kilograms including the stand and thus does not exactly fall out of its packaging by itself, the unboxing procedure was quite uncomplicated and the installation was done in no time. A uniform, modern silver color covers the front of the case and makes a valuable impression on us right from the start.

The slim aluminum frame leads to a flat stand at the bottom, which replaces the somewhat wild construction of the predecessor and is placed in the center of the panel. This gives the device enough stability for a firm stand on our sideboard and effectively prevents wobbles. If you need more flexibility, you can also – as usual – easily attach the whole thing to a wall mount via VESA standard. 

Besides the four HDMI ports and numerous additional interfaces, the anthracite-colored back panel features built-in Ambilight LEDs. Since we are looking at a comparatively affordable TV, the rear wall illumination does not reflect downwards. The next-generation version of Ambilight is also not available for “The One”. Phillips still uses the conventional light version with group control.

Large sound bars can easily be placed in front of the screen without having to worry about covering the lower edge of the display. Above the back of the stand, you can route the connection cables to the rear via a clip and can thus lay your cables inconspicuously around the TV.

Although the Philips PUS8507 doesn’t really knock us off our feet in terms of design, the manufacturing quality presents a rounded picture overall and otherwise leaves little room for real criticism on our test device. We did not discover any unusually large gaps or other conspicuous problems.

The “The One” is among those TVs that are available in many different sales versions at retailer’s and in online stores. Regarding the look, this affects the color design and shape of the stand as well as the color of the frame.

But there are also some technical differences. Our overview below the summary explains these changes and tells you which equipment options are hidden behind the respective model code.

The processing of the picture material on the IPS panel with Direct LED has certain optical advantages, but it also has well-known weaknesses at the same time. Before we continue with our review, we would like to point out that Philips only uses the above-mentioned display in the 65- and 55-inch versions of the Philips PUS8807.

All additional versions are equipped with the higher-contrast VA technology. However, the disadvantage here is a comparatively weak viewing angle performance and poorer color reproduction.

Let’s now return to our test device: First of all, the good quality of the color reproduction is positive. Colorizations look natural. Transitions and contours look clear and fine without falling too heavily on the retina.

If an angled position to the screen is unavoidable, you don’t have to worry because the picture impression doesn’t change significantly compared to a straight top view. However, these benefits are immediately cancelled out by two considerable drawbacks.

On one hand, there is the low contrast range that is offered by screens with IPS technology. Coupled with the rather below-average luminance of about 460 nits for LED TVs, there is the risk that details in dark areas are sometimes lost.  

On the other hand, highlights are not provided with enough brightness peaks to really impress the viewer with enough brilliance. This is less of an issue in bright surroundings, but it becomes apparent on the Philips TV in the dark at the latest and can spoil the viewing experience.

The panel passed our gray uniformity test surprisingly well and got away without any noteworthy problems. We could not determine a dirty screen effect on our test device.

The TV’s reflection resistance was rather manageable. The Philips PUS8807 does not like a lot of daylight with additional sunlight and therefore has a hard time resisting incoming light rays. Since “The One” neither has local dimming nor mini-LEDs, you will be confronted with some blooming, especially in low-light scenes.

Three-sided Ambilight bathes the background in colors that match the content and provides the viewer with an indirect impression of a larger screen surface. In addition, you can adjust the strength of the effect and match the color to your wall.

Positive side effect: Because of the additional backlight distributed in the room, your eyes don’t have to strain as much. In fact, this feature is more impressive in reality than what it looks like on our sample picture and is therefore – as we think – rightfully seen as a weighty purchase argument.  

In order to get the maximum possible performance out of the TV in terms of motion handling, it is also very important to take a closer look at the model name to avoid any unpleasant surprises. Why? Generally, only the variants with the number “88” in the name have 120 HertzHertz is the derived SI-unit of frequency with 1Hz=1/s – When talking about TVs this means how many different pictures a TV can display in one second. support and thus also HDMI 2.1 with a full 48 Gbit/s bandwidth.

According to our information, you will find a total of five versions. Besides the PUS8807, our version tested here, these are the PUS8837, PUS8857 and the PUS8887.  Models labeled “85” therefore only have HDMI 2.0 and a 60 hertz panel.

This has a direct impact on the motion display and can reduce the viewing impression somewhat – depending on the setting and picture source – since content can only be displayed with a maximum of 60 frames per second. 

When “Natural Motion” is enabled, the P5 Perfect Picture Engine calculates the necessary material and ensures a smoother viewing experience. As it is common today, this can be done in different levels or, if you wish, individually adjusted by you. Modern 120 Hertz displays are more beneficial here – as just described.

Although the Soap Opera effect is not far away as usual, pans are rendered cleanly and detail losses are kept within limits. This is ensured by the fast response time on top model level. We measured a total delay of about 0.4 milliseconds.

While HDR mode on the Phillips PUS8807 is not one hundred percent brilliant, and a few details are sometimes lost in dark areas, it is sufficient for a solid experience. You can activate the most important optimizations in one go via the game mode.

Ambilight does exactly what the backlight was designed for and enhances the already good color presentation even more during gaming. Owners of the current Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 will be confronted with a native refresh rate of 120 hertz for the first time with “The One” and can thus fall back on significantly more frames in compatible games.

In order to be able to use the corresponding data rate, Phillips has equipped the first two HDMI ports with the 2.1 standard. An additional feature set includes support for variable refresh rates via AMD FreeSync PremiumVariable Refresh Rate with AMD graphics cards or consoles with at least 120fps at Full HD, Dolby Vision gaming with Xbox players in mind, and a latency-reduced input mode for faster command transmission. 

All these features are summarized clearly by the Philips PUS8807 in a Game Bar and can be changed directly during play. Cloud Gaming completes the list of features and lets you have fun without a console or PC via direct streaming of your favorite titles in combination with a compatible Bluetooh controller. 

If you take a closer look at the model choice, you will also find a 43-inch variant in the portfolio – quite rare nowadays – which can function as a larger gaming display or even a second monitor on your home computer.

According to our expectations, the two 10-watt speakers of the review sample perform on the usual level, which is sufficient for simple daily use. However, you should not demand a sound spectacle from the speakers. This configuration is simply not good enough for that. The usual recommendation for a reasonable soundbar solution is recommended for this TV – depending on the usage behavior and budget – in order to transmit a more immersive experience with enough frequency depth into the room.

For this, we would like to recommend the buying guide on soundbarfindr.com. Of course, to experience Dolby Atmos at full power, a powerful home theater system is necessary. You can transfer the respective sound in its native form to the speakers via HDMI eARC.

The Phillips PUS8807 definitely scores in terms of sound connectivity and customization. You can easily transfer the audio playback to an external speaker via the so-called DTSMulti-channel-sound-system (Surround Sound) competing with Dolby Digital Play-Fi. This way, you can simply take the sound to another area when you leave the room and continue listening there. 

With the help of a room calibration, the TV can compensate for acoustic characteristics in your environment. On top of that, Philips provides the Mimi Sound, a feature already known from other models, for people with hearing impairments. A corresponding app can be used to create suitable sound profiles to compensate for hearing deficits.

One highlight of the Philips PUS8807 is of course the intelligent Ambilight backlight. It has been established now for many years, but can still only be found on Philips TVs in this form. Apart from synchronizing with the display on the screen, however, this feature can work in a slightly different way as part of the additional Aurora function. 

If desired, you can create your own ambience based on predefined pictures, videos and sounds and thus combine them to form individual sequences – for parties, as an example. Ambilight music flickers to match the soundscape and wraps the room in a light show that matches the beat. You can easily expand your setup with compatible Philips Hue lights as well.

You can navigate through the somewhat confusing menu structure of Android 11 with a silver-colored remote control, which is still easy to recognize in combination with black-labeled buttons even in the dark. The built-in microphone can be used to send voice commands to Alexa or Google Assistant.

All relevant streaming apps are available. External devices are not necessary, since you can solve everything with on-board tools. However, you will not find Apple support with Philips’ “The One”. If the TV is your only direct source of reception, watch and record will also remain unavailable due to the single tuner. 

A USB recording feature on Philips’ PUS8807 allows you to store a program directly on a stick or compatible hard drive.

Worth knowing: If you pair your smartphone directly with the TV, you can use as many Bluetooth headphones as you want at the same time. Of course, always one set per pairing.

After the first check by our calibration software, we could see that the panel already left a quite good, if not quite optimal footprint ex-works. Thus, “The One” did not want to give us particularly much breathing room in terms of correction.

This fact is pleasing and shows that a professional readjustment does not always have to be necessary. The color balance was already within a small tolerance of a maximum of 3 error points at this time.

In the bright and very bright areas, the image went a bit off track and got a slight greenish cast. The average brightness also remained fairly constant over the entire scale despite a deviation that was slightly below the normal line. 

The luminance turned out only slightly too high with a maximum error of 2 points – especially in the more luminous areas. Colors were also not at their absolute peak, but except for blue and magenta, still within a tolerable range.

With a bit more downtime than usual, the Philips PUS8807 could then be adjusted even more cleanly than described before. Unfortunately, the gamma value is still not quite as we imagined, but at least close to the standard target.

The color balance is now even more accurate across the entire luminance range and has also lost the sparse but present green tint. The result is now very consistent.

Unfortunately, our test device had problems with the color calibration. Even after multiple runs, we did not get the expected outcome. In connection with this, we noticed that the panel reacts very sensitively to the smallest changes in the color values and tones have odd high maximum errors despite an apparently better target position.

Therefore, we have no choice but to provide you with these values. Whether this is only due to our test device can at least be questioned.