For those looking for an OLED TV, there is absolutely no shortage of choice. Philips has been using the 800 series for several years as the best combination of image quality and price. This 55OLED807/12 comes with a new OLED panel, an improved processor, excellent sound, Android TV and a new Philips Ambilight, which we think is a good combination.
PHILIPS 55OLED807/12
Price: €1,999
What: Ultra HD OLED TV
Screen size: 55 in (139 cm), flat
Connections: 4x HDMI (2x v2.1 (48 Gbps), 2x v2.0, ARC/eARC, ALLM, 4K120, VRR, AMD Freesync, NVIDIA GSync), 3x USB, 1x optical digital out, 1x headphone, 2x antenna, Bluetooth
Extras: HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision, HDR10+ Adaptive, Dolby Atmos, WiFi Built-in, Android 11.0, DTS Play-Fi, USB/DLNA Media Player, DVB-T2/C/S2, CI Plus Slot, 6th Gen P5 AI Perfect Picture Engine , four-sided Ambilight Plus
Dimensions: 1,225 x 771 x 236 mm (incl. foot)
Weight: 21.4 kg (incl. feet)
Consumption (average): SDR 84 watts / HDR 77 watts
9 Score 90 
- Pros
- Beautiful image processing, with smart light sensor
- Very good HDR images, universal HDR support
- Four-sided Ambilight Plus
- Excellent sound, Dolby Atmos
- HDMI 2.1 with all game features
- Swivel base
- Rich Android TV environment and DTS Play-Fi
- Negatives
- Remote sometimes causes wrong keystrokes
- Only two HDMI 2.1 connections
Buy the Philips 55OLED807/12 at Bol.com
This year, Philips abandoned the choice for two slim feet under the screen. The 807 stands on a central base, with a wide but fine chrome support beam at the front. That looks a lot more elegant than the typical footplate, but is just as sturdy. And what’s more, this is a swivel base, which is always a nice plus. The screen is also higher above the TV furniture, so that placing a soundbar is now an option.
Ambilight is like an exclusive signature that Philips puts on every TV. The 807 is equipped with a four-sided version, which has also been renewed. In earlier versions, the LEDs were controlled in groups. Now each LED has its own control. This results in a much more detailed light glow that more closely matches what is seen on the screen.
Ambilight not only provides extra atmosphere while watching TV, there are also many other functions. If you just want a neutral warm white glow around the screen, that’s also possible. Ambilight then functions as bias lighting, just like in professional grading studios. Or let Ambilight respond to music, use AmbiWakeup and AmbiSleep, or use it as a lounge light.
This year you can also use Ambilight Aurora to put built-in atmospheric images or moving scenes on the screen. In this way, your TV becomes a decorative piece when you are not watching TV.
For gamers and streaming, everything is on board
The TV has four HDMI connections, two of which are suitable for next-gen gaming fun. On HDMI 1 and 2 you have the full HDMI 2.1 48Gbps bandwidth, support for 4K120, ALLM and VRR (HDMI VRR, AMD Freesync and NVIDIA Gsync). The input lag is excellent, 15.7 ms in 4K60 and 6.5 ms in 2K120.
Philips supplies ARC on all connections, but those who want eARC have to sacrifice one of the two HDMI 2.1 connections.
Smart features are provided by Android TV, which delivers smooth and fast operation thanks to a powerful chipset. Philips will not switch to the Google TV interface for the time being (although that will be possible later), and will retain the slightly more customizable Android TV interface.
In the current version, it already offers an extra ‘Discover’ tab, which offers the most interesting function of Google TV. You will find recommendations arranged by genre and across different streaming services. An extra function that Philips offers is DTS Play-Fi, with which you can make the TV part of a multi-room audio system.
The remote control with the Muirhead leather back gives a premium feel as soon as you pick it up. The keys are lit. You activate them when you take the remote off the table and tilt it towards you, or when you press a key. The keys fit closely together and have a completely flat finish, which unfortunately makes it easy to hit a wrong key.
Convincing OLED image quality
Philips equipped the 807 series with the latest OLED panels (the so-called EX panels), which have improved efficiency. However, there is an even better version of those panels, which Philips is saving for the OLED+937 top model. The OLED807 achieves a peak brightness of 715 nits on a 10% window (and 790 nits on a 2% window), and an impressive 180 nits on a completely white field. It therefore does not provide an improvement across the board.
The smaller windows are down 5-10% from last year, but the larger windows are getting a 15-20% boost. This means that the Average Brightness Limiter must intervene less aggressively and you therefore notice it less easily. The color range of almost 97% P3 is very good. The Filmmaker Mode is well calibrated, with a lot of black detail and excellent color reproduction. Philips has given some priority to color saturation in its calibration and sacrifices a little brightness for this, but we thought that was a good choice.
The tone mapping takes the HDR10 metadata into account, so that you rarely lose white detail. There is also support for HDR10 + and Dolby Vision, you are really well suited for HDR.
Also in SDR you choose the Filmmaker Mode for the most truthful image reproduction. The gray scale had a very light yellow hue, but this did not, if at all, persist in the color reproduction. Here too we saw a lot of black detail, and the images were very convincing. If you want the most, you can opt for a professional calibration, the 807 is also ‘Calman Ready’ and supports automatic calibration with Portrait Displays software.
Handsome image processing and smart light sensor
The Philips P5 AI Perfect Picture Engine is already in its sixth generation. The processor handles all your different content very well so that you can enjoy the 4K OLED screen to the maximum. Nice upscaling, good noise reduction and accurate color processing are an excellent basis. If you want to give SDR images a little boost, you can activate Perfect Natural Reality, which gives the image a light HDR style. That’s not for the purists, but definitely worth a try.
The OLED panel, together with the processor, also delivers very good motion sharpness. Unfortunately, Black Frame Insertion is no longer available, we already saw that on the LG models that no longer offer 120 Hz BFI, but only 60 Hz. Since that solution visibly flickers, we don’t mind that Philips has completely deleted it.
The upgrades compared to last year are twofold. Just like last year, the processor is able to detect that you are watching a movie, and can itself switch to one of seven available picture modes. Last year you could only choose from two picture modes.
But the best upgrade is a strong expansion of the light sensor. Ambient Intelligence is divided into three domains, each of which you can turn on or off yourself. “Eye Care” adjusts the maximum brightness. This way you avoid looking at an image that is too intensely bright in low light, or vice versa. “Dark Detail Optimization” adjusts the gamma curve. For example, the processor makes black detail more visible in a lot of light. He even takes Ambilight into account.
“Color Temperature Optimization” adjusts the color temperature. With a lot of ambient light, he chooses a cool color temperature that gives a brighter impression. Ambient Intelligence works great. We found the interventions very good, they did not disturb the viewing experience, although we prefer to keep color temperature under control ourselves. The main asset of Ambient Intelligence is that it works on all types of content, including HDR, even on HDR10 + and Dolby Vision.
Unpacking with great audio
For the absolute audiophiles, there is of course the OLED+937 series, but the OLED807 is not indifferent. It is equipped with a 4.1 70 Watt audio solution with a large woofer in the back, and support for Dolby Atmos and DTS-HD. We got very powerful audio from that, which had no obvious problems even at a lot of volume.
The sound is warm and rich, with sufficient bass and gave our film fragments a good surround experience. We also liked the 807 for music. After a short test procedure, the TV also takes the room acoustics into account.
Conclusion
There is a lot of competition in the OLED TV segment, but this Philips can still distinguish itself. For example, we love that slim, central base on which the device can rotate. And of course there is the new, four-sided Ambilight Plus. But it also scores excellent in terms of image and sound. The combination of the P5 AI Perfect Picture Engine with the Ambient Intelligence solution and the new OLED panel provides very beautiful images.
The fact that the Philips also supports all HDR standards, and that Ambient Intelligence also works for those HDR images, is a great asset. In short, viewing pleasure guaranteed.
Gamers will also find what they need on the 55OLED807 and with Android TV you have a very complete smart TV platform. A solid audio system that supports Dolby Atmos ensures excellent audio quality that can really underline your movie, sports or gaming experience.
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