Philips OLED809 review: HDR picture quality
Arguably no other TV brand likes putting on a show with its pictures more than Philips – especially with HDR content. This aggressive (and in many ways lovable) tendency is very much on show with the OLED809’s default settings.
In its default Crystal Clear mode (the TV even defaults to this setting with Dolby Vision sources) the contrast range is mammoth for a television that doesn’t use MLA technology. Black levels are gorgeously rich and deep and stay that way no matter how many intensely bright elements they might be punctuated by. Those bright highlights gleam with an intensity that no other non-MLA OLED screen can match. Measurements confirm a peak brightness of around 1380cd/m2 in Crystal Clear mode.
Since this is an OLED TV with self-emissive pixels, you can even have the OLED809’s brightest pixel right next to its darkest without any compromise between the two. The light delivery doesn’t just excel at its extremes, though. The P5 engine maps light with great subtlety right across the available light range, producing an image with as much insight and nuance as dynamism.
The default Crystal Clear HDR mode delivers the same startling level of impact and vibrancy that it does with SDR – and again, this is very alluring at first glance. Over time, though, you notice how some colour tones can come on too strong, and that some peak brightness highlights can look slightly too stark to feel like a natural part of the image.
The Dynamic Tone Mapping system Philips applies to HDR10 images in the default Crystal Clear mode is ultra-aggressive, too, again generating a few distractingly extreme elements and causing some obvious light jumps following abrupt dark-to-light or light-to-dark cuts.
This disappears if you feed the TV a Dolby Vision or HDR10+ source, but otherwise, you’ll need to set the HDR tone mapping feature to Static or select “More Detail” within the Enhanced tone mapping setting. However, both of these solutions result in a notably darker picture that undermines the eye-catching point of the Crystal Clear mode. But at least there is a choice available between punch and consistency.
Again, the Crystal Clear setting isn’t interested in staying true to industry HDR standards. Colour, greyscale and EOTF-tracking errors are fairly substantial according to Calman Ultimate. There can be a touch of black crush in the Crystal Clear mode, too. Overall, though, its pictures can still look gorgeous after a little tweaking.
As with SDR, a Filmmaker Mode is available for enthusiasts who want a more accurate HDR experience. This tracks very closely to the correct HDR EOTF values and RGB Balance, and pinpoints most test colours on a colour checker routine with a Delta E error of under four – an impressive effort for an HDR display. Tests also show the OLED809 can cover 98.3% of the P3 HDR colour spectrum and 74.7% of the BT2020 spectrum.
Filmmaker Mode pictures do lose a lot of the dynamism that Philips’ other HDR presets can give you, but there’s a lovely sense of balance and refinement to its images, as well as more consistent shadow detailing in dark scenes. What matters is that Philips offers a choice between punch and accuracy, both of which can look great in their different ways.
One final oblique picture quality enhancement worth mentioning is Ambilight. Yet again you need to be careful how you use it; leave it too bright and set to react too sharply to image changes and it can become distracting. Set up correctly, though, it can quickly become a feature you no longer want to live without.
To test the Philips OLED809 we used Portrait Displays Calman colour calibration software.
