Philips OLED909 vs TCL A400 PRO

Philips OLED909 impresses with its HDR quality, achieving up to 1500 nits of peak brightness in tested scenes. This is an excellent result, placing this television among the best OLED models on the market. The MLA panel, also used in models such as the Panasonic Z95A and LG G4, plays a key role here, allowing for exceptionally bright and detailed reproduction of dynamic scenes. However, it is worth noting that in the most demanding scene from the film The Meg, brightness drops to around 700 nits. This is a typical phenomenon in OLED technology, where intensely bright full-screen images cause a limitation in luminance. Nevertheless, the HDR effect still looks very good, and the television performs better than most of the competition under similar conditions. The wide colour gamut coverage also deserves praise. The OLED909 offers 95% coverage of DCI-P3, ensuring that the television can display vibrant and realistic colours.

The TCL A400 Pro is a moderately bright TV. Its peak brightness reaches around 600 nits. That level already allows for a real HDR effect, and in many films it does produce a noticeably more attractive picture than in SDR. However, it is not a level that overwhelms with sheer brightness. The A400 Pro therefore isn’t one of those TVs that ‘attack’ the viewer with a powerful flash in every eye-catching scene. The biggest limitation is seen with small bright elements on a dark background. Because of fairly aggressive local dimming control, the TV can significantly reduce their brightness, in extreme cases even to around 100 nits. This means that small lights, sparks, stars or individual highlights can be much less visible than they should be. It’s worth adding, however, that this isn’t without reason. The A400 Pro does this to maintain as deep a black level as possible and to limit the halo effect around bright objects. So it’s an intentional compromise: the TV more often opts for deeper blacks rather than maximally bright, point-like highlights. On one hand this can be understood, especially given the limited number of dimming zones, but on the other you should be aware that the HDR effect won’t always be as strong as the peak brightness alone might suggest.

On the plus side, the colours are a strength. The PFS LED filter used here, marketed by the manufacturer as QLED, allows for suitably saturated colours. Coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut measured around 94%, and BT.2020 around 74%, which is a solid result for this class.

Just like with other televisions, the Philips OLED909 has been tested for colour reproduction in factory modes. The best mode turned out to be Filmmaker Mode, however, despite its name, it is not without flaws.

The biggest problem is the white balance. In both HD and 4K HDR content, there is a noticeable dominance of green and red hues, which causes a distinct yellowing of the screen. This effect is particularly evident in test materials, for instance in a scene with Tom Cruise in the foreground, where the difference compared to a calibrated image is very apparent.

As for brightness characteristics, in HD material the gamma was overly boosted – it was below the reference value of 2.4, which gave the image a “milky” filter and affected overall clarity. In the case of 4K HDR content, we noticed the opposite phenomenon – at the beginning of the EOTF curve, there is a noticeable drop, indicating problems with reproducing the smallest details in dark scenes. Although Filmmaker Mode offers acceptable quality, noticeable errors in white balance and brightness characteristics show that the television requires additional calibration to fully demonstrate its potential in colour reproduction.

As standard, we performed colour measurements in the best‑tuned Filmmaker Mode, the mode that is designed to be closest to the creators' intentions. The A400 Pro of course also offers other picture modes, but in practice these come with considerably larger colour errors and interfere more with the character of the image. Therefore we will not deal with them in detail in this part of the test. So how does the out‑of‑the‑box colour reproduction fare? In short: really very good. Actually, looking at our measurement results, downright excellent. Both the white balance and the luminance response were set surprisingly precisely. The errors were so small that during measurements we genuinely rubbed our eyes in amazement. Such good factory settings do not happen often, even in TVs operating in Filmmaker Mode. All the more credit is due to TCL, because the A400 Pro right out of the box can deliver an image very close to how the source material should look. The results were so good that one could easily think someone had already given this unit extra attention and tried to calibrate it.

Our nitpicking really comes down to just one thing. In SDR content the image was slightly brighter than the dark‑room reference intends, because the factory gamma was set closer to 2.3 than to 2.4. This is not a large error and most viewers will probably not even notice it.

It should, however, be noted that we are talking about our specific test sample. With factory colours there can always be some variation between units, production batches or screen sizes. We do not assume, therefore, that every A400 Pro will look identical straight out of the box.

Philips OLED909 offers tools for image calibration, which significantly improves its quality. After calibrating the Filmmaker Mode, the television presents a much more natural colour representation. The white balance after calibration looks very good. Although we noticed slight deviations in the blue tint in HD content, the errors are within acceptable limits, and the image gives a much better impression than in the factory settings. The brightness characteristics, including gamma and EOTF, have also been clearly improved. The television no longer has issues with excessive brightening or darkening of the image. Both dark and bright details are now rendered correctly, making the image look very good in every scene. After calibration, the Filmmaker Mode in the Philips OLED909 offers excellent image quality that will meet the expectations of even the more demanding users. Calibration fully utilises the potential of this model.

Despite its superb factory calibration, we couldn't resist checking how the TCL A400 Pro would respond to professional calibration. Since the starting point was so good, we were all the more curious whether there was anything more to be had from the TV. And here we must boast: we managed to reduce our unit's colour errors to absurdly low levels. Measurements below a value of 1 are not something you see every day, even in very good TVs. Such results are more commonly associated with professional reference monitors than with a lifestyle TV for the living room. In terms of white balance and colour reproduction the A400 Pro therefore simply performed exceptionally well after calibration. The only gripe we have after closer analysis relates to the luminance behaviour. The TV adjusts luminance depending on the content being displayed and quite often the picture is slightly darker than the reference calls for. This is most likely due to the way the Mini-LED backlight and local dimming algorithms operate in this model. However, this does not spoil the overall impression, because in terms of colour accuracy alone the calibrated A400 Pro showed a level that was really hard to expect.

The Philips OLED909 offers a distortion reduction feature aimed at smoothing tonal transitions. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of this function leaves much to be desired. Setting it to the "Medium" level brings certain effects, but it comes with the risk of blurring important details in the image. For this reason, we do not recommend using this option unless we are keen on mitigating visible artifacts at the cost of detail.

As for image scaling, the television presents a very plastic image, which may appeal to viewers who prefer a softer picture. Those expecting clearer sharpness will also find a solution, as image scaling can be adjusted according to individual preferences in the settings.

Digital image processing is, unfortunately, one of the weaker points of the TCL A400 Pro. That does not mean the TV performs badly, but it is hard to call it anything clearly above average. The upscaling itself is adequate: edges are smoothed fairly well, the picture does not look overly sharp or "pixelated", and lower-quality content can be watched without much discomfort. At the same time, the overall image is slightly soft and lacks the precision offered by the best image processors in more expensive TVs.

Much worse, however, is how it handles tonal transitions caused by strong signal compression. TCL has equipped the A400 Pro with a "Gradual Smoothing" feature that, in theory, should limit visible colour banding and artifacts in lower-quality material. In practice, though, its effectiveness is very limited. It does not improve tonal transitions in any noticeable way, and at higher settings it can also smooth out image details, giving the picture an artificial, slightly blurred character. For that reason, we think it is best to leave this feature off. The A400 Pro copes decently with basic image scaling, but if you often watch heavily compressed content with noticeable posterisation, this model will not be among the best choices.

The Philips OLED909 with a 144 Hz panel offers excellent motion smoothness, which should satisfy both film enthusiasts and gamers. Additionally, the television is equipped with a motion smoothing feature called "Motion Style", which allows for precise adjustment of motion fluidity to personal preferences. In the settings, we find two sliders: "Smoothness", responsible for regulating motion fluidity in films, and "Blur Reduction", which helps eliminate minor artifacts and distortions in dynamic scenes. This feature works well, ensuring that even rapid movements on the screen are clear and readable.

The TCL A400 Pro is equipped with a 144 Hz panel, but in practice we are most interested in its behaviour at 120 Hz. That is the frequency most consoles are limited to today, as well as many sports broadcasts and high-frame-rate content. At that rate the TV performs quite well. The sharpness of moving objects is really good, especially after properly configuring the motion smoothing. The "Motion Clarity" function is responsible for improving smoothness. Its settings include two sliders that let you tailor how the motion smoothing operates to your preferences, separately for lower and higher frame-rate material. This makes it possible to achieve both a more cinematic look and a noticeably smoother picture. Those who do not want to fiddle with manual configuration can use presets such as low, medium, high, cinema or nature.

The Philips OLED909 is a television that meets practically all the requirements of gamers. Equipped with ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode), VRR (Variable Refresh Rate), and support for Dolby Vision, it guarantees an excellent gaming experience. Additionally, the television offers very low input lag, ensuring that reactions to player movements are instantaneous, which will be particularly appreciated by fans of fast-paced games.

The television handles any resolution at 120 Hz without any issues, and even supports higher refresh rates. The HGiG feature, responsible for accurately displaying HDR content in games, works as it should, making the image in game mode balanced and aligned with the guidelines of console manufacturers.

The OLED909 is also equipped with the Game Bar feature, which allows for quick preview and adjustment of game-related settings. Although the interface of this solution appears less visually appealing than that of competitors, it serves its purpose well, offering all the essential options in one place.

In terms of features for gamers the TCL A400 Pro performs brilliantly. The TV has practically everything you can expect from a gaming TV today: support for 4K at high refresh rates, VRR, ALLM, correct implementation of HDR formats in games including Dolby Vision, and HGiG. That means it works well with both next-generation consoles and a PC. Another plus is the presence of the Game Bar, a special panel with the most important settings for gamers. From it you can quickly check basic information about the signal, refresh rate or active features, and also adjust the appearance and behaviour of some settings to suit your preferences. This solution may not change picture quality by itself, but it greatly improves the convenience of using the TV while gaming.

The only thing to complain about is the number of full HDMI 2.1 ports. The A400 Pro has only two such connectors out of the four available, and one of them also serves as eARC. In practice this means that if someone wants to connect two next-generation consoles and a soundbar, they may run into some limitations. In that scenario you will have to either swap devices or use additional equipment, such as an AV receiver or a soundbar with HDMI inputs. Even so, it is hard not to rate the A400 Pro very highly as a TV for gamers. The gaming feature set here is truly powerful.