Philips 8100 Series 50-inch Smart TV Review

• Philips 8100 series smart TVs are available in 4 sizes - 43-inch, 50-inch, 65-inch and 70-inch
  
• The smaller 43-inch TV starts at a price of ?39,500.
• The smart TV line-up supports 4K UHD resolution and Dolby Vision.

The smart TV market is not short of options anymore. We now have TVs available at different sizes, price points and of course by different brands offering a multitude of features. While we have seen the segment being taken over by affordable TVs when it comes to more masses, brands like Samsung, Sony and LG are leading the charge on the other end of the spectrum. Philips with its new line of smart TV’s is trying to be an alternative to these obvious choices. But does it? I have spent a month using the Philips 8100 series TV and here is my comprehensive review.

Price & Availability
The Philips 8100 series 50PUT8115 4K LED smart TV starts at a price ?39,500 for the 43-inch variant, the 50-inch variant is priced at ?48,900. There is another 55-inch variant offered at ?52,490 and a 65-inch variant is priced at ?89,900. Finally, there is also a 70-inch variant available for ?1,04,990. The TVs are available on Amazon and selected offline retail stores.

Design & Build
The Philips TV leaves a lot to be desired aesthetically. Sporting an overall black theme, the design is rather traditional and we don't get to see anything extra attempted by the design folks at Philips. Yes, we can pass it off as a minimal design choice but something as simple as a silver trim on the chin would have made it look slightly better.

Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean the TV looks bad sitting in your home. But if you have a vibrant room, then it might look off with your decor or will look rather bland to be precise.

While most TV’s are generally placed in a dedicated space, it’s still expected to sport a sturdy build quality. Although the Philips 8100 series TV is mostly plastic, it still feels sturdy and is easy to move around. The slim profile of the TV also makes it easier for its mobility.

The installation process is also quite simple. You can either put it on the stands provided in the box or or use the wall mount to hang it on the wall.

Philips provides you with a plethora of connectivity options on the TV. There are 4 HDMI ports, all of which support 4K UHD resolution, 2 USB ports, and a TV antenna port. There is also a digital audio output port, a network port, and an earphone jack.

Placed on the back towards the left side, the position of these ports is favorable for cable management as well. I had plugged in my set-top box and Playstation simultaneously and I didn’t find any issue.

Philips bundles a remote controller with the TV. Combining both Bluetooth and IR the remote is chunkier than what we see on other smart TVs. It runs on two triple-A batteries which are provided with the TV.

Display

The 8100 series TV features a 50-inch 4K Ultra HD LED display wiith a 3840x2160 pixels resolution. The TV has a peak brightness of 400 nits which is fairly impressive on paper. But how’s the performance? Nothing extraordinary. But that doesn’t make it bad.

The 4K panel produces vibrant images and the color accuracy is top-notch. The colors look rich, close to the source, and life-like. The images produced are crisp and the black levels are also satisfactory. The TV also supports HDR10+ and Dolby Vision which kicks in when you are watching supported content, and yes it does make a difference.

While I played Marvel’s Moon Knight on it, Dolby Vision kicked in automatically and enhanced both the visual and audio experience. I could count the grains in the sand while Mark Spector was racing through Egypt.

To test its proficiency further I switched to Netlflix and watched Tik Tik Boom. The Andrew Garfield movie is in HDR10+ format, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it as it is supposed to be.

In my experience so far, I have not come across any banding issue as such. Basically, there was no overlap of RGB color tones. As the case is with black levels in the TV, the light uniformity is also favorable. There were occasional misses on some shades of red, but nothing that would spoil your experience.

Viewing angles is a tricky affair on this one. While the image quality stays intact when I am standing at around 30 degrees from the display, it spoils beyond that. To give you a reference - the TV is in my drawing room and my sofa is placed not exactly opposite to it. I had to move my sofa in front of the TV for a better experience. So if its a viewing party with multiple people in the room, some of you might have to sit on the floor.

Like most other Smart TVs in this range, there are multiple picture modes on the 8100 series. Namely, there is a standard, vivid, sport, movie, game, and energy-saving mode.

Each of them brings upon a dedicated preset which is customizable. The specifications include backlight, brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, and sharpness. While I made sure that I watch content specifically made for each mode, I saw myself coming back to the Vivid option more often.

Having these options is great, but a user needs to scout back to the home menu to change the setting which can be annoying. I wish, Philips had added a dedicated button on the controller for this function, as they have for input modes.

If you are someone who enjoys console gaming a lot, then with a 60Hz refresh rate the Philips Smart TV performs decently well. However, even with the dedicated game mode picture setting, there were glares on the TV that spoiled our experience.

The display has been paired together with a dual speaker set-up providing a total audio output of 20W. The audio quality of the TV is fairly good and bassy. With Dolby Atmos support it is further enhanced for better audio detail. Where it lags behind is the volume level, the audio levels fall short if you have placed the TV in a bigger room in my experience.

Performance & User Experience

Running on Android TV 10 out of the box we are greeted with a stock UI layout once we turn on the Philips TV. The UI is easier on the eyes, and even if you are not familiar with a smart TV set-up, you will learn your way around it quickly.

A certified Google OS also means access to a well-rounded library of Google apps like Google movies and even the Playstore. Yes, the TV already comes preloaded with 3rd party OTT apps like Netflix and Amazon Prime, but you can download more.

With available storage of 4.5GB, the TV cannot store multiple apps simultaneously. This is underwhelming since the competition like the Redmi TV provides 16GB of internal storage.

It also cut shorts the potential of a Google-backed OS. Yes, you might say we use a Fire TV stick, so we don’t want internal storage, but then why do you need a smart TV at all?

Fortunately, the apps that you finally retain onboard are managed well. The 1.5GB RAM smoothly handles applications and retains them for longer periods of time. I would switch between Youtube and Prime after a period of 2 hours sometimes and the TV would jump straight to the time code I left my movie on.

There are other important Google features onboard like Google voice assistant which can be accessed from the bundled remote. So far, the TV has not missed a single voice command. Take note of this since many TVs suffer from accuracy issues on voice commands, even in the premium segment.

You also get Google Chromecast built-in so, if you have to make certain presentations on it, you are good. The connectivity is seamless and it works in a jiffy.

Verdict
Philips 8100 series smart TV packs in all the desired features that you expect from a product of this caliber, where it lags behind are the price. At ?48,900 for 50-inch, it is costlier than its counterparts from Xiaomi and TCL, and also lags behind in terms of specs and features. The panel quality is impressive but the overall offering falls short of its competitors that offer a bigger screen with same feature set.