Tech review: Philips OLED+ 984 offers top-notch visuals and audio

The Philips Oled+984 TV comes with a Bowers & Wilkins sound system that appears to hang just below the screen. PHOTO: PHILIPS

If you are spending thousands of dollars on a premium television set, you might as well show it off.

That seems to be Philips' stance for its latest premium TV, the OLED+ 984. While some TVs resemble a picture frame in order to blend into your home, the 984 is an imposing, unmissable presence.

Mounted on a shiny stand, the 984 comes with a Bowers & Wilkins sound system that appears to hang, suspended in mid-air, just below the TV's 65-inch Oled screen.

True to Bowers & Wilkins' style, a decoupled tweeter hangs between the screen and the speakers' fabric-covered enclosure. B&W says separating the tweeter prevents the sound from being diffracted by the speaker cabinet.

Inside the enclosure are three speakers, each self-contained so as not to introduce undesirable vibrations in its neighbours.

The end result is impressive. The 984 has a lively sound that fills the room and produces extremely clear vocals and movie dialogue. The bass, while not earth-shaking, has unexpected depth. Audio effects in movies seem to come from the left or right of the screen.

There is, however, no way of decoupling the speaker system from the TV. You also cannot add more speakers to it. Wall mounting, though, is possible - remove the part of the stand below the speaker system to do so.

The 984 comes only in one screen size - 65-inch. Its top half is reasonably thin, though it gets thicker near the bottom where the internal electronics and ports are located. The TV has the usual four HDMI ports (version 2.0b) and two USB ports. But it lacks support for the latest HDMI 2.1 standard, which supports higher resolutions and refresh rates.

The TV supports Philip's Ambilight feature - rear-mounted LEDs that change colour to match the screen content or the audio - on all four of its sides.

The resulting (and constantly-changing) halo around the screen can either enhance the viewing experience or detract from it, depending on the viewer. I find the colour shifts a pleasant distraction while listening to music, though I would turn it off for movies.

Like other Oled TVs in the market, the 984 uses an LG-made Oled panel, so you can expect deep and vibrant colours. It supports high-dynamic range (HDR) formats such as HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, which are available in select shows from streaming sites Amazon and Netflix, as well as certain Ultra-HD Blu-ray discs.

  • FOR

    • Excellent picture quality

    • Superb audio

    • Spectacular design

  • AGAINST

    • Android TV interface sluggish compared to other TV interfaces

  • SPECS

    Price: $6,999 (65-inch only)

    Picture features: Maximum resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels, HDR10+, HLG, Dolby Vision

    Audio features: 3ch (20W x 3) speakers, Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos

    Operating system: Android TV (version 9.0)

    Connectivity: 4 x HDMI, 2 x USB, Optical output, headphone output, Ethernet, Wi-Fi

  • RATING

    Features: 4.5/5

    Design: 5/5

    Performance: 5/5

    Value for money: 4/5

    Overall: 5/5

    ST Tech Editor's Choice

The image processing by Philips' latest third-generation P5 Pro Perfect Picture Engine is superb. Colours look fresh and vivid, especially in animated films like Netflix's Sol Levante. There was almost no colour banding - I glimpsed only a hint of that in the orange sky of Las Vegas in Blade Runner 2049.

The TV also upscales 1080p content extremely well, making it nearly indistinguishable from 4K quality to my eyes. The upscaling feature does not work as well for 720p content, but it still improves over the native version.

But I did have to turn motion processing to the minimum - images looked too artificial and distracting otherwise.

Philips continues to use the Android TV platform, which in addition to the major streaming apps such as Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and YouTube, also offers plenty of third-party apps, such as the Spotify music app, TED TV for informative videos and several Final Fantasy role-playing games.

In fact, the TV remote control has a dedicated Netflix button, though its best feature is the Qwerty keyboard (on the rear of the remote) that makes it so much easier to input passwords or user names.

You can even use the remote's built-in microphone to issue commands to the TV's built-in Google Assistant.

Like my past experiences with TVs powered by the Android TV platform, I found the interface to feel sluggish, probably because the TV processor is much slower than the ones in an Android smartphone or tablet.

But aside from these minor grouses, the Philips OLED+ 984 is a stunning and stylish TV that offers top-notch visuals and superb audio.

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