Philips 55PUS8601 review

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.