John Archer enjoys an OLED TV offering beefier picture specs for less money.
First impressions of this well-priced 55in model, though, are mixed. Once you’ve got it screwed onto its remarkably slim open-frame stand it looks very pretty with its thin bezel and metallic feel. What’s more, this being a Philips TV you get the added design benefit of Ambilight, which here sees coloured light spilling from the set’s left, right and top edges. However, you can’t help but notice while attaching the TV to its centrally mounted stand that build quality seems uniquely flimsy for an OLED. The screen doesn’t weigh much, there’s a lot of plastic tucked away here and there, and that bar-style stand flexes and bends all over the place until you’ve got it fastened in. Just as well that when it’s all screwed together it actually never feels like it’s going to wobble or fall over.
Connections include four HDMIs (all HDCP 2.2-enabled), three USBs, plus wired and wireless network options. This is par for the premium TV course these days, and it’s nice to see Philips not limiting the capabilities of any of the HDMIs this time around.
The 55POS9002’s remote certainly is not par for the course, thanks to its two-sided approach that places a full QWERTY keyboard on one side, and normal remote buttons on the other.
The handset is a weighty, well-built item, but unfortunately its main navigation zone on the normal side is seriously fiddly to use, resulting in numerous accidental wrong presses. I find it pretty stressful.
This story is from the September 2017 edition of Home Cinema Choice.
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This story is from the September 2017 edition of Home Cinema Choice.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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