Expert review of the Philips OLED806

For this review, I test the 55-inch version of the Philips OLED806. The installation is quite simple. I easily screw the leg stands onto the bottom of the screen and place it onto the TV cabinet. I directly notice that the 2 slim leg stands give the TV a sophisticated look. Because of the slim leg stands, the screen is quite low. This doesn't leave much room for a soundbar underneath the screen. I turn the TV on and test the image quality with a movie with Dolby Vision support on Netflix.

When I watch colorful and bright images, I see many subtle tones. For example, all kinds of green are visible in a forest. The shadows of trees also have a lot of color details. The TV automatically selects the Dolby Vision image mode when I watch images that support this. The bright parts of the image look very bright too. The brightness of the OLED screen is often less than that of more luxurious LED-LCD screen. I find the brightness of the OLED806 good enough for an impressive display of HDR images.

OLED screens have millions of pixels that light up and dim individually. Thanks to this, black is really black. During a night scene in a movie, I notice that the dark parts of the image are really dark. At the same time, lighter parts are very light. Thanks to this strong contrast, images look very realistic. For example, A wolf with moonlight on its face really comes free from the background.

Because the light sources of an OLED screen are located closely to the surface, the viewing angle of an OLED TV is very good. Colors barely become duller when I sit next to the TV. The contrast remains powerful too. Thanks to this, everyone will see the same image quality when you're watching TV with a large group of people.

Like most OLED televisions, the OLED806 has a screen of just a couple of mm thick. On the back of the TV, there's a thicker part made of plastic. This is where all the connectors are located. There's Ambilight around the plastic part. The 2 leg stands at the bottom of the screen are especially thin and look stylish. In addition, you can choose between 2 colors. One side of the leg stand is light gray, the other side dark gray. You can choose how to mount the leg stands and which colors you want to see on the front of the TV.

Philips TVs are known for their Ambilight technique. The OLED806 has this lighting too, which projects the color of the image onto the wall. In my opinion, a disadvantage of the Ambilight is that it doesn't add much for dark movies. During these movies, it just projects a white light on the wall. With colorful images, it does add something though. The wall lights up in the same shades of light as the content. This isn't just atmospheric, but also easy on your eyes. With fast-changing colors, the Ambilight has no problem to follow along.

With an input lag of 18ms, the OLED806 offers an advantage for gamers. The TV also has 2 HDMI 2.1 inputs. You can use these to connect your new console and game with 4K images and a refresh rate of 100Hz. The smart P5 image processor makes images even smoother, so there won't be any hiccups in your gameplay. You can also benefit from high-quality audio signals like Dolby Atmos if you connect a compatible soundbar to these inputs.

The Philips OLED806 has 2 speakers and 1 subwoofer, which have a total power output of 50W together. Even though this isn't an extensive sound setup, I think the TV has good audio with most sources. The voices during the news or a talkshow sound loud and clear. Music also has a pretty rich sound. But I notice that I'm missing some bass and volume during thrilling scenes in a movie. For a complete experience of your favorite movies and series, I recommend a separate soundbar.

The remote of the Philips OLED806 is quite large and is silver. I can't easily reach all the buttons with one hand, so I sometimes have to move the remote while holding it. A large advantage is that the buttons light up. Thanks to this, you can easily find the button you're looking for when you're watching a movie in the dark. On top of the remote, there are shortcuts for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Rakuten TV. Thanks to this, I can quickly start a series of one of these apps.

The Android smart platform is a screen-filling menu where the most-used apps are displayed at the top of the image. This gives me direct access to apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, and YouTube. In the rows below, I receive suggestions for videos, movies, and series from these apps. I find this menu very clear. You can easily organize the top row of apps yourself, so you'll always have quick access to your favorite content.