Philips The One (PUS8959 / PUS8919 / PUS8909 / PUS8949 vs Haier K85F

The luminance graph for Philips PUS8959 shows that the television can achieve around 550 nits of brightness, which can be considered a satisfactory level. Such brightness allows you to feel the effects of HDR, which stand out particularly in more demanding scenes. In the tested patterns, the television performed quite well, even in challenging sequences like those from "Sicario 2". Due to the lack of local dimming, the television does not dim small bright elements, and they shine at the full "power" of the television but at the cost of silvery blacks, which we mentioned in the paragraph about black levels. It’s also worth praising Philips PUS8959 for its good coverage of the DCI-P3 colour palette, which is around 94.5%. This ensures that the colours are vivid and close to the creators' intentions, which further enhances the quality of HDR effects and the experience of watching high dynamic range content.

Let’s now move on to one of the hottest topics in the world of televisions, which is the quality of HDR performance. In the case of the Haier K85F model, we unfortunately have to make it clear: if you’re looking for equipment to watch content in a wide dynamic range, you should steer clear of this model. The main issue is its very low peak brightness, which during our tests barely reached 250 nits. To give you a better idea of what that means – this level is fine for watching standard SDR content, but it’s absolutely insufficient to show any real benefits of HDR. The image simply doesn’t have the "power" to generate bright, striking highlights. All of our measurements and tests on specialised test patterns confirmed this. As if that wasn’t enough, the television also struggles with colour reproduction. In this budget build, there are no technologies that broaden the colour gamut, such as quantum dot layers (marketed as "QLED"). As a result, the coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space, which is crucial for HDR content, is only around 80%. In practice, this means that the image will not only be dark but also devoid of the vibrant, saturated colours that the director wanted to show us.

The television Philips PUS8959 has been tested in the best, theoretically most precise picture mode – Filmmaker. Although the name suggests film quality, it unfortunately falls short of perfection. The biggest issue in this mode is the white balance, both in HD and 4K content. It is characterised by a significant dominance of the red colour and drops in the green levels, resulting in unnatural colour reproduction. For example, white elements of the image have a noticeable pink hue, and the green is less intense, which diminishes the overall naturalness and colour balance. The ColorChecker test confirms these errors – it is clearly visible how the colour samples "deviate" from the proper values, which can best be observed on the sample squares that should precisely reproduce the colours. The lack of accuracy in this regard affects the realism and fidelity of the image, which is particularly undesirable in Filmmaker mode.

As for the brightness characteristics, the gamma graph resembles a roller coaster – with small elements displayed on the screen, the brightness is excessive, causing details to become overly exposed. Conversely, at higher gamma values, the image loses contrast and becomes too dark, making the whole appear lacking in dynamism. Similar problems can be observed in the EOTF characteristics – the television is unable to accurately reproduce the brightness levels, negatively impacting the overall picture quality.

Alright, how does the television handle colours straight out of the box, without any intervention from our side? The Haier K85F offers a whole range of picture modes, such as Dynamic or Eco, but for anyone wanting to watch films according to the creators' intentions, there's essentially only one that matters: Film mode. This is where we focused our tests, and unfortunately, its name has little to do with reality. The picture on factory settings is very far from what we could call cinematic fidelity and requires many adjustments. Let's start with the white balance, which has a clear deficiency of red colour. In practice, this means the entire image has a cool, bluish tint. Even worse is the issue of brightness management, that is, the gamma curves (for SDR) and EOTF (for HDR). Their graph resembles a true rollercoaster, which terribly impacts the viewing experience. This results in unnatural dimming of SDR content, causing details in the shadows to be lost, and in the case of HDR – an excessive brightening that further exacerbates the problem of clipping. Such a combination, which consists of too cool white combined with chaotic brightness and too much blue colour saturation, leads to enormous errors in colour reproduction. Our measurements on a specialist ColourChecker chart showed errors (Delta E) regularly reaching and exceeding values of 8-9. To put it simply: errors above the threshold of 3 are easily noticeable to the naked eye, so such a result means that the colours on the screen are simply heavily distorted.

After calibration, the Philips PUS8959 shows a significant improvement in colour reproduction, especially in HD content. The white balance is exceptionally even, and the Delta E error values are below 1, which can be regarded as an outstanding result. Additionally, the gamma, which affects brightness in lower quality materials, performs very well, maintaining a stable level at 2.4, leading to an appropriate balance between bright and dark areas of the image.

When it comes to 4K HDR materials, there is also a noticeable improvement. The white balance, although not as perfect as in HD content, no longer suffers from excessive red exposure, making the image appear more natural and harmonious. Unfortunately, regarding the EOTF characteristic, it’s difficult to speak of any significant improvement, which stems from the structural limitations of the television that prevent substantial enhancement in this aspect.

Nevertheless, overall, it looks much better after calibration, making the Philips PUS8959 one of those televisions where it's truly worth investing time in precise calibration to achieve satisfactory image quality.

No good, but can anything be done about this picture? Is professional calibration able to save the situation? The answer is both yes and no. It needs to be said clearly that there are certain things we cannot overcome. The limitations of the construction itself, namely a poor panel and its narrow colour coverage, mean that you can forget about a sensible HDR effect – we won't be pulling the wool over your eyes on that. The biggest beneficiary of our adjustments is undoubtedly the SDR mode, and it is for watching such content, after calibration, that this television starts to make sense. We managed to tame the white balance in our own way. Although the television only offers basic, 2-point adjustment (rather than precise, 20-point), it's not perfect, but we successfully eliminated that unpleasant, cold "chill" in the picture. Above all, though, we noted a huge improvement in brightness management. The gamma curve, which previously resembled a rollercoaster, looks like an almost perfectly straight line after calibration. This is a sign that the television can finally display an image without artificially dimming or brightening it. The conclusion is simple: even with such a cheap television, professional setting correction can achieve a great deal and extract the maximum potential from it.

When it comes to smoothing tonal transitions, the "Distortion Reduction" function in the minimum position performs quite well, effectively smoothing tonal transitions without excessive impact on other elements of the image. In testing, I did not notice that the reduction negatively affected the structure of the image, such as film grain or details of objects – everything remains in its place, which is a big plus for users who value the natural look of film material.

As for digital processing, the image looks pretty good, although it features very softened contours, giving it an almost "leafy" character. This effect may evoke mixed feelings – some users will appreciate the fluidity and delicacy of this type of presentation, while others may find it too gentle, losing detail. It is a matter of individual preference, but it must be admitted that Philips PUS8959 provides quite subtle yet effective tools for improving tonal transitions without excessive interference with the natural character of the image.

Let’s move on to digital processing and image scaling, specifically how the Haier K85F handles lower resolution signals, such as from regular television. Right off the bat, we encounter an incredibly annoying and completely incomprehensible issue – the overscan is enabled by default. This means the television artificially enlarges the image, cutting off its edges on every source, even 1080p. To see the full frame, you have to dig into the screen settings each time and manually switch the format to "stretch to 16:9." It's a minor detail, but devilishly frustrating. The scaling of content to 4K resolution can be described in one word: acceptable. And that's about it. The image processor doesn't strip detail from the image, nor does it generate jagged edges or other artifacts. It simply does its job, without any bells and whistles. It’s alright, but nothing more. The most significant and noticeable shortcoming in the digital processing section is, however, the absence of a tone transition smoothing feature. This is an algorithm that could significantly reduce the annoying banding effect we mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, the manufacturer did not foresee such a solution, condemning us to watch the imperfections of the panel and low-quality material in all their glory.

Philips PUS8959 TV is equipped with a 120 Hz panel, which should satisfy more demanding users, especially those who love watching dynamic sports broadcasts or playing games. Such a high refresh rate allows for significantly smoother images, being a key aspect during dynamic scenes and fast actions.

For those who prefer watching movies, the TV offers an additional motion smoother that allows adjustment of the frame rate according to personal preferences. The Philips PUS8959 features a 10-step adjustment for functions called "Smoothness" and "Motion Blur Reduction". The "Smoothness" function increases the number of frames through interpolation, making movement on the screen smoother, reminiscent of the so-called "soap opera effect". Meanwhile, "Motion Blur Reduction" focuses on minimising streaking and improving motion clarity, which is particularly noticeable in dynamic sequences such as action scenes or fast sports shots.

The panel in the K85F model operates at a native refresh rate of 60 Hz, which sets certain expectations for image smoothness right from the start. However, we must admit that we were very positively surprised when we found two separate motion control sliders in the settings menu: one labelled "Motion Blur Reduction" and the other "De-Judder." Such generosity in this price segment is an absolute rarity, as manufacturers usually offer at most one shared option. Unfortunately, our enthusiasm faded as quickly as it appeared. It soon became clear why Haier was so "generous" – the slider responsible for reducing motion blur is simply a decoy. Sliding it makes absolutely no visible difference on the screen, so only one of the two options works.

Philips PUS8959 is a television that will surely please gaming enthusiasts. It supports most modern technologies useful during gameplay, such as HGiG, allowing for better representation of HDR effects in games. As a result, the image is more aligned with what the game developers intended to achieve.

The television also supports displaying images at 120 Hz, ensuring smoothness and dynamism, particularly important during action games and sports broadcasts. The Game Bar feature provides quick access to game settings, making it easier to adjust the image according to user preferences without interrupting gameplay.

Unfortunately, the Dolby Vision mode does not offer low input lag, which may be noticeable during dynamic scenes. Nevertheless, thanks to the HGiG feature and high refresh rate, the Philips PUS8959 remains an attractive choice for gamers, offering good image quality and suitable smoothness during gameplay.

Let’s move on to the features for gamers, although we must point out straight away that this is more of a proposal for the "occasional" ones. The manufacturer does boast in the specifications about having HDMI 2.1 ports, which looks impressive on paper, but in reality, it’s largely a marketing ploy. What good is a modern port when the heart of the television is a panel with a refresh rate of 60 Hz? It physically cannot display a signal at 120 frames per second, even at lower resolutions, which takes away HDMI 2.1’s key advantage. What a shame. (That’s why in our tests we note this as HDMI 2.0 ports). Another odd issue is the TV's response to an attempt to calibrate HDR from the console. Changes to brightness settings result in very unnatural image behaviour, which could suggest incorrect implementation of the HGiG standard. To be honest, one shouldn’t worry too much about this, as we have repeatedly mentioned, we simply do not recommend using any HDR content on this screen. However, to counterbalance the negatives, the Haier K85F does have two big and unexpected advantages. The first is the presence of ALLM, or automatic game mode, which switches the TV to low latency mode as soon as it detects a connected console. The second, even bigger surprise, is support for VRR, or variable refresh rate. While it operates within a very modest range of 48-60 Hz, its mere presence is commendable. Thanks to this, the image in games can “tear” less, which realistically improves the gaming experience.