Philips Ambilight 7900 Series 55 inch Ultra HD LED TV Review: Unique concept, but expensive!
Philips 55 inch 55PUT7906The /94 variant comes for Rs 99,990 which is a standard Ultra HD LED TV from the company’s Ambilight 7900 series. It has Ambilight LED lighting on three sides. There is also Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos support. It runs on Android TV operating system. Is this the most interesting TV you can buy in India under Rs 1 lakh? Let’s find out in this review.
Philips Ambilight 7900 Series 55 inch Ultra HD LED Android TV (55PUT7906/94) Design and Specifications
Philips Ambilight 7900 Series TVs come in three sizes including 55 inch, 65 inch and 75 inch TVs. Their price ranges from Rs 99,990 to Rs 1,89,990. All three TVs have similar specifications and features, including three side Ambilight LED lighting on the back side of the TV.
From the front and back, this TV looks like any modern budget TV or mid-range TV. The borders around the screen are slim, there is a logo at the bottom, a module for the IR receiver, indicator lights and a multi-function physical button for power and volume control.
The TV is slightly thick but is slim at the edges which allows easy access to the left side ports even when mounted on a wall. The 55-inch variant weighs 14.2kg without the stand. It is compatible with VESA wall mounts which are not provided in the box. There is a table stand provided in the box which can be fixed near the corners of the TV. This means you will need a large table to place the TV.
Philips Ambilight 7900 series TV looks like a normal TV from the outside, but when you turn the TV on, its main features are revealed. LED lights are provided in the frame of the TV which are fitted on the left, top and right sides. These spread colorful light on the wall behind the TV. These lights are quite bright, so even if the TV is kept on a table, it spreads a lot of light on the wall behind it.
Most of the ports on the Philips Ambilight 7900 Series 55 inch TV are placed at the back in a rectangular slot that faces downwards. This means that you will have to make most of the connections upfront before you mount the TV on the wall. The ports on the back include digital audio-out (TOSLINK), a USB Type-A port, an RJ45 Ethernet port, an antenna socket, and three HDMI ports.
The ports on the left side are quite easy to access, even if the TV is wall mounted. These include an HDMI port (with ARC support), a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a USB Type-A port. The company has done a smart job by providing an ARC enabled port on the side.
The Philips Ambilight 55PUT7906/94 LED TV features an Ultra HD (3840×2160 pixels) screen. It supports HLG, HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision in high dynamic range. For sound, the TV has two full-range bottom-firing speakers with a total sound output of 20W, and support for various audio formats up to Dolby Atmos. The TV has Bluetooth 5 and dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity. There is 8GB of internal storage for apps and app data, as well as a quad-core processor to power the software and interface, which has not been specified.
Philips Ambilight 7900 Series 55 inch Ultra HD LED Android TV (55PUT7906/94) Remote and Features
The company has provided a full-size remote with the TV which is a bit bigger than required. The remote has buttons for navigation control, playback control, input selection and a classic number pad. Hot keys have been provided for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play and YouTube as well as Google Assistant. A microphone is also available in the remote for voice commands.
There is an info button on the remote which tells the resolution and internet speed. Apart from this, there is also an Ambilight button which can be used to quickly access the Ambilight menu and turn the Ambilight effects on or off, as well as modify the settings.
Initially, the remote worked fine. But after a few weeks, I found that it was only working when pointed at the IR receiver. This happened in just one night whereas it was working fine on the first day. Replacing the battery and resetting the TV did not make any difference. Bluetooth connectivity was only working for Google Assistant. Surprisingly, after a few days, the remote started working fine again, so it was important to report this problem here.
Apart from Ambilight, the Philips 55PUT7906/94 TV is quite basic in terms of features. The TV has built-in Chromecast for content casting and Google Assistant for voice commands.
Philips Ambilight 7900 Series 55 inch Ultra HD LED Android TV (55PUT7906/94) Software and Interface
Philips Ambilight 7900 Series 55 inch LED TV runs on Android TV, 10 OS. It looks somewhat similar to Google TV. It offers the same main experience as other Android TVs. The TV has access to Google Play Store which has more than 7000 apps and games.
Apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Youtube are pre-installed in the TV. Based on these, the TV also makes content recommendations. Even though it is a step behind the Google TV UI, the stock Android TV user interface is also a good option.
Apart from the issues with the remote, I also found the user interface performance to be a bit lacking. There was a slight delay in response time while navigating the UI, which was also visible as lag in the picture. Thankfully, I didn’t have any such issues while playing actual content, but I found switching to Chromecast with Google TV much easier and more convenient.
Performance of Philips Ambilight 7900 Series 55-inch Ultra HD LED Android TV (55PUT7906/94)
These days, you can get quantum dot or OLED TVs for less than Rs 1 lakh. It seems crazy to shell out that much money for the Philips Ambilight 7900 Series 55-inch LED TV. However, the Ambilight effect itself is quite unique. Brands like Govee and Philips now offer solutions to set up LED lighting in the TV even after purchase. Still, the company’s Ambilight feature is easy to use, and the ability to control it via the TV remote makes it special. But, I wonder if Ambilight alone is enough to make it premium?
The TV has an Ultra HD resolution LED screen with support for HDR up to Dolby Vision. Performance is pretty good with high quality content. The picture looks as sharp as it can be. But it has a few flaws which I would not expect in a TV worth Rs 1 lakh.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse would be a good place to start. While watching the movie, the bright colours were visible and the trippy comic book style visuals looked good. Watching this movie on the TV with the Ambilight function was fun and I was not disappointed.
The way Ambilight worked with the movie was quite impressive. The vibrant colours on the screen along with the bright lights behind the TV made the picture seem bigger and more vibrant than it actually was. The Ambilight effect was able to read colours sharply at the edges of the screen and flow with the screen, which made watching fast-moving colourful content a whole lot more enjoyable.
Ambilight didn’t do much with the monochrome scenes and muted colors in Better Call Saul. Here it was better to switch it off. I found that the effect looked better when the Ambilights fell on a white wall. The effect was diminishing on a textured blue wall.
It is easy to control the ambilight settings on the TV, which is a good thing. Presets have also been given for this, so that you can control its intensity. When set to long lighting, it has lighting in a single color. The picture was quite sharp in Into The Spider-Verse. The picture in Masaba Masaba was also quite colorful and bright. The colors looked good but were not at all punchy compared to the cheaper Xiaomi OLED Vision TV.
The backlighting of the display gave a whitewash effect in dark scenes, making blacks look dark grey. This is the kind of performance one can expect from an affordable LED TV, so I was disappointed here. The Philips Ambilight 7900 series TV is quite bright, thanks to its LED display. This makes it easy to watch even in a room with a lot of light. In such a situation, even if the light in the room is dimmed by drawing the curtains, the picture looks very good. TVs like the Hisense 55U6G are brighter than this and are also cheaper.
The TV supports HDR up to Dolby Vision, but the TV doesn’t really benefit from it. There is only a slight improvement in brightness and colours when switching to HDR compared to SDR content. This is not as good as seen in other televisions including the Sony X75K, which performs well even with only HDR10 capability.
The TV upscales low resolution content well. HD and FullHD movies and TV shows look good in terms of sharpness. There are no issues with motion, color and contrast. The sound quality of the TV cannot be called amazing, but it is not bad either. The 20W speakers perform slightly less than expected. The sound of the TV is sufficient for a small room. The volume has to be increased in a large room. Dolby Atmos does not improve the sound much. Overall the sound experience can be called okay.
Our decision
The Philips Ambilight 7900 series LED TV is quite unique. You can buy it because of its Ambilight system. While it may seem unnecessary at first, it proves to be very effective in enhancing the viewing experience. However, the lighting effect alone does not do complete justice to the price of Rs 99,990.
Talking about performance, the TV performs like TVs priced at Rs 60,000 or around that. Which also includes the company’s own 8100 series 55-inch TV. There seems to be a lack in black level. The overall brightness also does not make up for it. At the same time, some strange problems were also encountered with the remote.
If the Ambilight system is what excites you the most, then you can consider buying this TV. It works really well and definitely adds to the entertainment that customers want from a TV. If you are not too concerned about Ambilight, then you can check out the Xiaomi OLED Vision TV, which is a much better option than this Philips TV at the same price.
