Philips PUS8500 vs Samsung R85H / R86H

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.

When it comes to brightness, the R85H performs quite well. In most of our test scenes the TV reaches around 800–900 nits, and with larger bright elements it can exceed 1000 nits. These aren't, of course, on the level of the most expensive Mini-LEDs, but they're more than enough for watching films and TV series in HDR and the effect can be quite noticeable. The problem reappears in more demanding scenes, where there's a small bright element on a very dark background. Here the TV can greatly reduce its brightness to avoid lighting up too much of the screen. In our measurements such small highlights fell as low as around 200–250 nits, so it's clear that a limited number of local dimming zones combined with the specific behaviour of the algorithm has consequences here. Fortunately, it doesn't affect viewing all the time. In typical, mixed HDR scenes the R85H looks good and can provide good image dynamics. It's just that with very small points of light you shouldn't expect as strong an effect as on TVs with a much larger number of zones or on OLEDs.

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.

In Filmmaker mode our R85H sample in SDR performed adequately, but a few issues immediately stood out in the measurements. In the white balance, as brightness increased more red was added while blue decreased. As a result, the brighter parts of the image had a slightly too-warm tint. Gamma only held the target value at the start. It then gradually fell, which left most of the image a little too bright. The combination of these two factors also affected the colours, with errors growing particularly in the brighter and more saturated samples. It did not look bad, but for Filmmaker mode we expected a bit more accuracy. Interestingly, our sample fared noticeably better in HDR. The white balance was much more even and the individual components stayed close to one another across most of the range. Only in the brightest parts did red start to be lacking, causing white to shift subtly. The EOTF curve looked very good, tracking the target luminance across almost the entire range. That does not mean HDR colours were perfect. The Colour Checker still shows some deviations, especially for some of the more saturated colours, but the errors are clearly smaller than in SDR.

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 calibration the R85H shows it has really substantial colour reproduction capabilities. SDR performed best: white balance could be brought almost perfectly into line, and gamma stays very close to the target value across most of the range. That also translated into very low errors in the ColorChecker, so there's really little to criticise here. HDR also shows a clear improvement, although some issues can't be corrected as well. At the highest brightness levels the character of the backlight itself becomes apparent and the individual components of the white balance begin to diverge. The same applies to the most saturated colours, which don't always land exactly where they should. Despite these limitations the overall picture is considerably more accurate than factory settings, and the biggest difference is definitely visible in SDR. However, there is one thing calibration can't fix. With heavily saturated elements the colour can slightly bleed onto adjacent bright areas of the image. It's easiest to notice on white, which can pick up a faint tint of a neighbouring hue. It doesn't occur in every scene, but when the material is demanding the effect can be visible. This is more a feature of the way the RGB backlight operates than an issue with picture settings.

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).

In the R85H, image processing is handled by the Micro RGB AI Processor. The name is new, but when it comes to upscaling lower-quality sources, the TV's behaviour is very similar to what Samsung has shown before. And that's not a bad thing, because Samsung has handled this aspect quite well for years. Lower-resolution material is displayed cleanly, edges don't become overly soft, and the TV doesn't try to artificially extract detail at all costs. The result is simply balanced, and for regular TV or older recordings the R85H performs as you'd expect from Samsung at this level. There's still a small downside: overscan, which can't be completely switched off at the lowest resolutions. Another matter is the extra processing applied to low-quality sources. The R85H can smooth posterization and tidy up heavily compressed footage, but it's worth emphasising that it does so relatively aggressively. At stronger noise reduction settings it starts removing not only compression artefacts but also fine detail and the natural film grain. So it's best to use it only when the source actually needs it.

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.

R85H has a 144 Hz panel, so motion handling is really good here. You should remember that the extra hertz above 120 will mainly be used when connected to a computer, so in this category we don't treat them as any particular advantage. For films and TV, what's more important is that the panel is fast enough to provide access to an advanced motion smoothing feature, "Motion Clarity", which lets us set motion from more film-like to very smooth. The panel's response time is a bit worse. Since it's a VA panel, fast-moving objects can leave a slight trail. On a bright background this isn't very noticeable, but the darker the scene, the more noticeable the smearing becomes. This is a typical characteristic of this type of panel and it's easiest to spot in dark scenes.

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.

Samsung has been steadily expanding its gamer features for several years, and the R85H really doesn't lack anything important. The TV supports 4K at 120 Hz, VRR and ALLM, so it can easily make full use of the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X. HGiG also works properly, so when HDR is set correctly on the console, games maintain their intended brightness and you don't unnecessarily lose detail in the brightest parts of the image. The only bigger omission is Dolby Vision Gaming, which Samsung doesn't support on any of its TVs.

The Game Bar is also very useful, a handy menu you can bring up without leaving the game. You can quickly check the frame rate, VRR status or change the key picture settings. Samsung also includes a few less obvious features, like the ability to change the aspect ratio or Game Motion Plus, which can further smooth games running at 30 or 60 fps. Of course this comes at the cost of higher input lag (around 55 ms), but for slower-paced titles it may be an interesting option for some.