Philips PUS8500 vs Philips PUS7000

When it comes to HDR performance on the PUS8560, it's safe to say that it's rather average. The brightness of the panel is around 350 nits, so we consider this to be the absolute minimum for watching content in this format. However, it’s not a result that will impress viewers looking for the best possible picture.

On the plus side, it's worth noting that the PUS8500 series – including the PUS8560/12 tested here – is marketed as a QLED television. And indeed, we can expect a wider colour gamut here. This model is equipped with an additional filter (PFS), and the DCI-P3 coverage of around 90% should suffice for most users. This filter operates very similarly to quantum dots. As a result, colours are quite well-saturated. It's not an outstanding result, but it's entirely sufficient for watching movies and series from streaming platforms.

Unfortunately, the PUS7000 is not suitable for watching HDR content. This screen is simply too dark. A brightness level of 200 nits is insufficient to display this format correctly. Even if a HDR signal message appears on the screen, the image will resemble a standard SDR recording. Therefore, it’s better to stick with the latter format to avoid errors in displaying bright scenes, as you will read below. The situation is worsened by the fact that this is a classic LCD model without additional layers that improve colours, such as QLED or PFS. As a result, colours in HDR may seem washed out. Ultimately, this provides a worse effect than in the standard SDR format, which is simply better suited to the capabilities of this panel.

We tested the television on the best available factory settings, that is, in Film/Filmmaker mode – this is the mode we recommend for everyday viewing. Unfortunately, it is not without its flaws. Both in HD and HDR content, the image had a distinct tendency to pinkness, caused by an excess of red and blue in the white balance. Another issue turned out to be excessive brightness of the image, as confirmed by both the gamma graph and the EOTF curve. This characteristic was responsible for the loss of detail and washed-out colours in more challenging HDR scenes we mentioned earlier. All of this led to quite significant colour reproduction errors – in extreme cases, the delta E value exceeded 7, while the threshold for visibility of errors for the human eye is about 3. This situation can be improved through calibration, and you can read about its effects below.

We tested the television in movie mode, which theoretically should provide the best and most natural colours. And indeed, this mode is quite correct; however, when we connected the calibration equipment, its biggest flaw became apparent. The PUS7000 has significant shortcomings in displaying reds. Poorly tuned white balance and too low saturation of this colour cause the image to appear too cool. As a result, one might get the impression that the displayed content lacks vibrant colours. The situation is worsened by the fact that both SDR and HDR content are excessively brightened. This is confirmed by the gamma curve and EOTF graphs, which show that the television displays the image brighter than it should. This causes scenes to lose their depth and can make them seem slightly washed out. Fortunately, in the Philips menu, we find plenty of features to improve these aspects, so we immediately proceeded to calibration to see what we could extract from this screen.

The Dutch manufacturer offers quite a large dose of settings in its products, so as usual, we decided to tinker with them a bit. The effects are immediately noticeable – we managed to correct the white balance, which made the image cease to appear overly pinkish. The brightness characteristics were also partially equalised, of course within the limits that the television itself allows. The picture is no longer so excessively brightened, and the overall reception after calibration is definitely better than in the factory settings of the Filmmaker mode.

You could only nitpick about the characteristics of the EOTF curve, which still indicates that the image tends to brighten HDR content. Despite our efforts, the darkest parts of the scenes can still be too bright, and the brightest ones do not always reach their full contrast potential. However, it must be clearly stated that we are dealing with a typically budget-oriented design – one cannot expect reference-quality rendering of HDR content from it.

Calibration has definitely helped this model – it improved the balance, toned down the aggressive colour palette, and brought the image closer to what one can expect from a well-configured movie mode. However, there are certain limitations that cannot be overcome.

After professional calibration, it’s evident that the PUS7000 responds well to image adjustments. In this price range, that’s not a given. The effects are best evaluated in two scenarios, depending on the content we plan to watch. SDR performs the best. After our adjustments, the image looks really good. Most colour errors have dropped below level 3, which is the threshold at which discrepancies usually become visible to the naked eye. Movies, series, sports, and regular television present naturally, without unpleasant deviations. If someone mainly watches classic channels or streams in HD quality, the difference after calibration will be noticeable straight away. However, it must be said clearly that the PUS7000 is still not a television suited for proper HDR, and calibration doesn't change much in this regard. The reason lies in the hardware: colours remain too unsaturated. The television lacks solutions that widen the colour gamut, such as PFS filters or a quantum dot layer, so the panel simply cannot display the intense colours required by HDR. This is most evident in reds, which still look washed out. This limitation cannot be circumvented through menu settings, as it stems from the design of the backlighting and the panel itself.

Philips PUS8560 offers a deinterlacing function, hidden under the name “distortion reduction”. And while it indeed serves its purpose, smoothing out problematic tonal transitions, it operates a bit too broadly. In practice, it affects not just colourful gradients but also softens faces, clothing textures, and furniture surfaces. This undermines the authenticity of the image – especially in films where natural texture is of great importance. However, if someone is looking for smoothing at any cost, it’s best to set this option to “Low”. For cinema image enthusiasts – we definitely do not recommend it.

On the plus side, the quality of scaling older materials is worth noting – the PUS8560 model handles them surprisingly well. The image retains a natural softness without artificially boosted sharpness. It’s also worth mentioning that the TV correctly displays very low-resolution content, avoiding issues with image cropping (so-called overscan).

The PUS7000 handles digital image processing quite well. The distortion reduction feature deserves praise, as it effectively smooths unwanted tonal transitions even at a low setting. However, it has its downside: with too aggressive operation, it can introduce undesirable artifacts on the screen. It would be a good idea to experiment with this setting to find the golden mean between a smooth image and the clarity of details.

The upscaling, or enhancing the quality of lower materials to 4K, is decent. The image after processing is very "soft," which is typical of almost all Philips TVs. The edges are plastic and smooth, making the image look cohesive. If someone finds it too soft, it can always be adjusted with the sharpness slider in the menu for a more pronounced effect.

The Philips PUS8560 is a television equipped with a 60 Hz refresh rate panel, which already limits its capabilities for displaying dynamic content right from the start. Watching sports or playing on a console is not one of the more enjoyable experiences. The situation is further worsened by the absence of any option to improve film fluidity. In the menu, you won’t find settings that would allow for the activation of motion smoothing or even a slight motion blur for films recorded at 24 frames per second. You can imagine the effect. The image can appear choppy, especially in shots with panoramic camera movements.

In this regard, we actually have no good news. It might seem that the biggest downside is the lack of a 120 Hz panel, but in this price range, that's actually the norm, and it's hard to expect more. However, the worst part is that the television has no motion smoothing features. There are no supporting systems in place for either movies or sports. We have to come to terms with the fact that the image on the PUS7000 is processed "raw." This means that during dynamic scenes or fast camera movements, motion can appear choppy or unclear. We have no option to enable any smoothers that could alleviate this effect.

Although the Philips PUS8560 is not designed with gamers in mind, the manufacturer has equipped it with a few features that may prove useful when connecting a console. Onboard, we find automatic switching to game mode (ALLM), as well as a simple connection status information bar – the so-called Game Bar. It doesn't make a particularly visual impression, but it serves its purpose. The presence of variable refresh rate (VRR), operating in the range of 48 to 60 Hz, may come as a surprise. This is not a wide range, but for less demanding games or titles with unstable frame rates, VRR can help reduce the tearing effect. However, this is the only element that can be considered beyond the minimum.

It must be clearly stated that the PUS8560 is not equipment for gamers looking for a responsive screen and full support for modern console features. It lacks HDMI 2.1 ports, the refresh rate is limited to 60 Hz, and the panel's response time is not among the fastest. This model may at best suit people who play occasionally and want to enjoy the Ambilight system.

Even though the PUS7000 isn’t marketed as a gaming TV, it doesn't perform as poorly in this category as one might expect. True, it doesn't support 120 Hz refresh rates, which is understandable at this price point, but the manufacturer has included several important features that significantly improve the console gaming experience. The most important of these are VRR and ALLM technologies. VRR is responsible for synchronising the screen with the number of frames generated by the console. This means the image doesn't "tear" and remains consistent even during sudden drops in frame rates while playing. On the other hand, ALLM is a solution that automatically switches the TV to a mode with the lowest latency immediately after detecting a signal from the console. All these parameters are easily accessible thanks to the Game Bar feature. This is a special control panel for gamers that can be brought up on the screen at any time. It allows for a quick view of current settings and connection status without interrupting gameplay, which is a very convenient solution.