Philips launches its first 4K TV: enter the 9000 series
TP Vision has introduced the Philips 9000 series TV, the company's first Ultra High Definition 4K set with three-sided ambilight
It might have taken TP Vision a little longer than other manufacturers, but there’s finally a Philips 4K TV. The Philips 9000 series Ultra High Definition TV was announced today at IFA, bringing 4K playback to the range for the first time.
It’s not the thinnest 4K TV, nor does it have the thinnest bezel, but that’ts to make room for a feature that’s unique to Philips. The 9000 series includes three-sided Amblight ambient lighting, which adds reactive multi-colour LEDs to give a greater sense of immersion when watching films or playing games.
The 9000 series is powered by a six-core processor, which should be powerful enough to handle 4K image processing courtesy of Philips’ Ultra HD engine. Ultra Resolution upscaling can apparently add clarity to 1080p content when expanded to 4K resolutions. Micro dimming and a 900Hz Perfect Motion Rate should result in smooth, judder free playback too, although we’ll have to wait to see some film footage before passing judgment – Philips was showing plenty of static shots on its IFA stand but little action.
From what we could see, Philips has certainly done everything it can to draw out the detail and vibrant colours from its 4K demo reels – everything looked incredibly crisp and colours practically popped off the screen, helped by the Ambilight lighting.
It should also come with the latest Smart TV platform, which will include the Cloud TV and Cloud explorer apps. The former should let you access “hundreds of TV channels through the web” and the latter will let you open pictures, music and video files stored in your Dropbox account. We haven’t seen either in action yet, but hopefully they perform a little better than the Full HD 6008, which was prone to hanging and jerky animations.
Launching later this month in the UK in both 65in (65PFL9708) and 84in (84PFL9708) models, we’ve been told to expect prices to start from £4,500 and £13,000 respectively. Both prices undercut the competition (quite dramatically in the case of the 84in) so we’re intrigued to see how it holds up in terms of picture quality and other features.