Philips 804 OLED TV Arrives in Australia
The first TV I ever bought was a second-hand black-and-white model. When a housemate overwatered the pot plant sitting atop the TV, it was time to buy a new one. I went to the big electronics store and was confronted with dozens of TVs lines up, blaring their pictures. It must have been cricket season. The pitch was glowing lime on all the TVs, except one. Only the 66cm Philips CRT TV produced natural colour, so that’s the one I bought.
Times have changed. Since then, Philips introduced astonishing technologies such as digital natural motion for smoothing motion, and in the early 2000s, a $30,000 42-inch standard definition plasma TV. Now it has released its latest two OLED TVs in Australia.
Naturally, they are UltraHD models – that’s 3,840 by 2,160 pixels. Using Philips’ “P5 Perfect Picture Engine”, they support HDR10+ (and presumably standard HDR), HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma) and Dolby Vision. The TVs are rated at 99% of wide colour gamut coverage. Most UltraHD Blu-ray discs are HDR10-encoded, with a minority supporting the more advanced Dolby Vision. A lot of streaming video is also HDR, with some Netflix material also in Dolby Vision.
The TV supports Dolby Atmos – although I always recommend a proper sound system to go with the high-quality picture available from OLED TVs. That said, Philips says that this TV incorporates a two-way speaker system with tweeters and woofers.
One Philips innovation was the Ambilight – a set of light bars behind the top and sides of the TV, designed to provide a coloured backlight to the TV to complement the on-screen image. I’m surprised that’s still around. I’ve always found Ambilight distracting – the first time I experienced it was fifteen years ago on an $8,000 42-inch plasma. Fortunately, you can switch it off.
This is 2020, so the Philips 804 OLED TVs are smart. Philips has sensibly gone for Android as its OS on these TVs. That means a host of apps readily and freely available. Plus Google Assistant voice control. The TVs are also localised for Australian conditions, so they support the Freeview Plus broadcast enhancements.
In Australia, the Philips 804 OLED TVs come in two sizes: 55 inches ($3,495 RRP) and 65 inches ($4,995 RRP) and is available now.
For more information, visit Philips.
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Marc Rushton
StereoNET’s Founder and Publisher was born in England and raised on British Hi-Fi before moving to Australia. He developed an early love of music and playing bass guitar before discovering the studio and the other side of the mixing desk. After writing for print magazines, Marc saw the future in digital publishing and founded the first version of StereoNET in 1999.
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