Introduction and features
Philips is about to unleash its biggest UK TV range in years – and the 55PUS8601 is a great statement for the brand to lead off with.
Its design instantly sets it apart as one of the most glamorous-looking TVs I've seen. It's one of the slimmest around in terms of both the narrowness of its striking screen bezel and the trimness of its rear, and the build quality is outstanding.
Its edge-mounted legs are clever, too, both for the way you hardly notice them due to their 'edge-on' appearance, and the way they provide plenty of open space along the bottom edge to enhance the TV's four-sided Ambilight effect.
Ambilight, if you're not familiar with it, uses rear-mounted LEDs to throw out coloured light beyond the TV's edges – the colours can, if you wish, be set to track the colour content of the pictures you're watching.
If you're thinking this sounds pretty in your face, I guess it is. But you can adjust both the Ambilight effect's brightness, and how aggressively it responds to changes in the content you're watching; and actually the vast majority of people who live with Ambilight for any amount of time – especially a truly comprehensive, every-side-of-the-TV Ambilight solution like the 55PUS8601 offers – quickly grow to love its immersive, eye fatigue-reducing effects.
More innovation in the 55PUS8601's design comes from its unique detachable speakers. Running the full height of the TV, these slender 'pole' speakers are finished in a gorgeous seamless dark chrome and somehow manage to house 18 speakers capable of outputting 50W, despite each of them being just 17mm wide.
They attach to the TV magnetically, or you can take them off and slot them into optional floor mounts to enjoy a wider soundstage. These floor mounts also contain some extra speakers to ramp up the soundstage's bass quotient.
Unless you really are convinced that Ambilight is just too attention-grabbing for your tastes (and the effect can be switched off if you wish), the only potential problem with the 55PUS8601's design is the way its legs sit right at the ends of the TV's bottom edge – this configuration means you'll need a piece of furniture at least as wide as the TV if you don't want your gorgeous new telly to tip over.
Screen specifications
As you'd expect of any reasonably high-end TV these days, the 55PUS8601's 55-inch screen has a native 4K/UHD pixel count of 3,840 x 2,160. But that's just the start of its charms.
Its edge LED lighting system is capable of pumping out an unusually high 700 nits of brightness, for instance, making it potentially well suited to the delivery of the new high dynamic range (HDR) picture format that's about to become a big thing in AV.
I say potentially because unfortunately Philips doesn't think it'll be able to unlock the 55PUS8601's HDR capabilities via firmware update for a good few months yet. So obviously I wasn't able to test the TV with my currently small collection of HDR sources.
With brightness being a key part of the HDR experience, though, having 700 nits to play with (versus the 350-400 nits still commonly found in the LCD TV world) will surely help the 55PUS8601 deliver HDR's brightness peaks pretty well, even if the brightness spec doesn't meet the 1000-nit minimum required by the new Ultra HD Premium recommendations.
Micro Dimming vs Local Dimming
The 55PUS8601 doesn't apply a local dimming system to its edge LED lighting, but it does boast something called Micro Dimming, which breaks the image into more than 6,000 zones for more accurate analysis and at least a degree of local manipulation.
The 55PUS8601's pictures should benefit, too, from the TV's use of Philips' Pixel Perfect Ultra HD video processing engine. This is the most potent video engine Philips currently uses, and extends its tendrils into pretty much every element of TV picture reproduction – especially colour response, detailing and motion compensation.
It's worth adding, too, that as usual Philips enables you to adjust pretty much every facet of this processing engine.
Android smarts
When it comes to smart features, the 55PUS8601 solves Philips' traditional issues with not having many apps by carrying Google's Android TV platform.
There are things about Android TV that I don't like. Its interface feels cumbersome, doesn't offer enough customisation options and doesn't work hard enough to streamline access to your favourite sorts of content.
But it does certainly offer a vast amount of apps, including the 4K-capable versions of Netflix and Amazon Instant Video.
It's important to note, too, that the Philips version of Android TV runs much more stably and slickly than the version employed on Sony's current TVs.
While the 55PUS8601 ticks most of the feature boxes I'd expect of a 2016 premium TV, though, one thing that's conspicuous by its absence is 3D support. Philips has decided to call time on 3D across its entire 2016 range, starting with the 55PUS8601, apparently on the grounds that there's not enough 3D content, people don't really want 3D, and it makes using a TV more complicated.
I have no doubt there's a passionate minority of 3D fans out there willing to take issue with Philips' decision, but the sad truth is that the majority of TV buyers probably won't even notice 3D isn't there.
Picture performance
While the 55PUS8601's screen specifications and features make impressive reading in most ways, they do raise one concern based on past experience: can the TV's edge LED lighting array deliver the screen's high brightness levels without compromising the image's contrast? Especially as there's no heavy duty local dimming system in play?
Unfortunately the answer is that it can't.
For instance, dark scenes routinely appear on the 55PUS8601 behind a quite noticeable grey 'wash', especially – although not exclusively – if a mostly dark shot contains a bright light or object towards its centre.
Clouded judgement
These sorts of mixed-brightness shots also reveal signs of backlight inconsistency in the form of gentle clouds of extra light in parts of the screen where there shouldn't be any.
You can reduce the greyness issue and, especially, the clouding if you set the Perfect Contrast feature to maximum, reduce the brightness to 49, set the Bright mode to off and set the Contrast Mode to Standard.
However, some of these settings cause problems of their own, such as light instability, and nothing fixes the backlight issues to the point where the set delivers as satisfying a black level performance as some rival TVs in the same price range.
It's important to stress, too, that getting the deepest and most consistent black level performance from the 55PUS8601 means taking quite a lot of brightness out of the picture, which can lead to some subtle detailing getting crushed out of the darkest areas.
HDR could bring trouble
You have to think, too, that when the 55PUS8601 becomes enabled for HDR the last thing you'll want to have to do is remove too much of that 700 nits of brightness. In other words, I can't help but suspect that getting a suitably punchy HDR performance out of the set will mean having to put up with clouding issues and washed-out blacks.
To be fair, this is only speculation on my part, as the HDR firmware update is not yet available to test. Also, I don't think the 55PUS8601 will be by any means the only TV that potentially struggles to control its backlighting effectively when trying to handle HDR.
None of this, however, alters the fact that even with the standard dynamic content I could test, the 55PUS8601's contrast performance was only fair to middling.
In most other respects, thankfully, the 55PUS8601 is more accomplished. Particularly impressive is its sharpness with native 4K content; it does an excellent job of delivering the extra detail and clarity 4K is capable of.
Incredible 4K sharpness
This 4K impact isn't just a result of having so many pixels in the screen, either. The raw resolution is backed up by excellent colour tone subtlety and some exceptionally polished motion handling from the Perfect Pixel Ultra HD engine, which is capable of removing essentially all of the judder and blurring issues LCD screens can suffer when showing motion.
The motion processing can cause some distracting, unwanted side effects if you use it on its highest setting, but even on its low or mid setting it really is effective in making sure motion doesn't spoil the 4K effect.
Colours look bold and punchy despite the impressive amount of tonal subtlety on show (at least if you use the set's occasionally over-enthusiastic Colour Enhancement feature) and the 55PUS8601's screen proves more adept than most at soaking up on-screen reflections too.
Unfortunately we have to finish this section on another negative note, though, as the 55PUS8601 is unexpectedly average at upscaling non-4K sources to the TV's native 4K screen.
Colours look less natural and balanced, and unless you use the Ultra Resolution feature upscaled images look really quite soft; and if you do use the Ultra Resolution feature pictures tend to look a bit noisy and processed.
Usability, sound and value
Usability
This isn't a strong area for the 55PUS8601, for two reasons. First, as noted earlier, I'm not a big fan of the Android TV smart interface. If feels confusing, overwhelming and dictatorial versus the slickest, most intuitive and most focused efforts – namely LG's webOS and Panasonic's Firefox TV interfaces.
The other usability issue is that I found myself spending much longer dabbling around in the 55PUS8601's picture set-up menus to adapt pictures for different types of content than I would expect to do with any other brand of TV.
This is the downside, I guess, of Philips giving you a degree of control over almost all of its various video processing systems. Although actually – especially having experienced dozens of processing-heavy Philips TVs over the years – I'd be more inclined to say that the time I spent in the 55PUS8601 menus was more a function of the panel's contrast and non-4K softness issues than problems with all the processing per se.
Sound
Those detachable speakers sound even better than they look. They handle everything from thumping action soundtracks to chamber music with exceptional detail, finesse and accuracy, yet also have the raw power and dynamic range to deliver plenty of well-integrated, never-overwhelming bass, and a real sense of mid-range expansion when required to shift up a few gears.
Dialogue always sounds clear, well rounded and 'human' (rather than synthetic), and it's a relief, too, to find local effects in a mix always appearing from the right place on the screen. In other words, despite the speakers' slender design and position at the left and right extremities of the screen, local effects and dialogue don't sound dislocated from the onscreen action.
If you detach the speakers from their magnetic screen mounts you may find you need to angle them towards the screen to keep the sense of detail positioning correct, but this is a small price to pay for the audio quality the 55PUS8601 offers overall.
Value
Compared with its once 'premium' past, Philips is all about value these days. And the 55PUS8601's £1,700 price tag really isn't excessive for a TV offering HDR, 4K, 700 nits of brightness, the Android TV operating system, a sumptuous design (complete with four-sided Ambilight) and Philip's top level of video processing.
The only thing stopping it from being an outright bargain is the way some issues with controlling all that brightness it has at its disposal can cause a few distracting picture quality issues during dark scenes.
Verdict
The 55PUS8601 is a bold declaration of UK intent from a newly-invigorated, newly-confident Philips brand. Its Ambilight-driven design is unique and gorgeous, and the set ticks all the key feature boxes – or at least it will when high dynamic range support is added via an update later in the year.
In the end it falls short of the very best sets where picture quality is concerned, but it's still great to see Philips getting serious about TV again.
We liked
The 55PUS8601's detachable speakers, four-sided Ambilight system and ultra-thin, beautifully finished bodywork combine to make almost every other TV look drab by comparison. Those speakers sound great too, and there are apps galore courtesy of the new Android TV engine. The set's pictures often look great with native 4K sources too.
We disliked
The screen struggles to control its high levels of brightness during dark scenes, leading to a slightly washed-out look in areas that should look black, and some occasional minor clouding. These issues are unlikely to be helped by the arrival of HDR.
The picture can look a bit processed at times, especially when you're watching anything that isn't native 4K, and some aspects of the operating system are hard work.
Verdict
The 55PUS8601 isn't perfect. Its backlight system struggles to deliver dark content with total conviction, and its pictures only really explode into life if you feed it native 4K content – which is a pity given how little of that content currently exists.
Despite this, though, Philips' first TV of 2016 still does enough with its unique design, expansive feature count, cracking audio and well-implemented new Android TV smart system to make it clear that the Philips brand is not only back in business, but still willing to take the sort of creative risks we always used to love it for. Philips is definitely a brand worth keeping an eye on once more.
