Philips rings the changes

Brighter OLED TVs, revamped image presets and a new home audio ecosystem are on the tech giant's 2022 agenda, reports Steve May

- Steve May

A FEW YEARS back, I was discussing the merits of the almost universally reviled Vivid TV preset with Philips' picture quality guru Danny Tack. Despite the mode being widely disparaged, thanks to colour oversaturation and obvious edge enhancement, Philips' own variant continued to perform strongly in blind tests, its powerful colours and high dynamics catnip to even the purest of videophiles.

‘Vivid has a bad rep, but yours looks good,’ I declared sagely. ‘You should just rename it.’

And this year, Philips has done just that. Making its debut on the brand’s incoming OLED807 TV, we get the all-new Crystal Clear. The artist formerly known as Vivid now has rebalanced sharpness, colour and contrast levels for, as Tack puts it, ‘an even more harmonious picture performance.’

These label changes – Philips engineers have even been busy renaming other old favourites too: Standard has become Eco, while ISF Day and ISF Night are now Expert 1 & 2 – are just the tip of an innovation iceberg coming from the brand this year. During an online preview of its upcoming AV hardware (a proposed product reveal in Amsterdam was cancelled due to coronavirus), the Philips team went to great lengths to sell the benefits of its incoming new-look OLED, and a flexible soundbar/speaker ecosystem where, thanks to its evergreen Ambilight technology, sound and vision truly meet head on.

EX-rated OLED