Philips OLED909 vs TCL P7L / P79L

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 biggest limitation of the TCL P7L in HDR is simply brightness. The TV does not have much luminance headroom, so strong highlights, the sun or small light sources can't clearly 'pop' out of the picture. As a result, even well-produced HDR material looks fairly restrained and, in terms of dynamics, is closer to good SDR than to what brighter models show. That does not mean the P7L completely fails at HDR. The issue is primarily a lack of backlight power.

Looking at colours, the situation is a little better. The TV covers around 91% of the DCI-P3 gamut and about 68% of the wide BT.2020 colour space, so for this price class the colour range is quite respectable. TCL markets this model as QLED, although the nature of the solution used is closer to backlighting that uses a PFS phosphor than to a classic quantum-dot layer. What matters most to the viewer, however, is the effect: more saturated colours are on offer.

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.

In Film mode the TCL P7L performs quite respectably without major changes to the settings, particularly with ordinary SDR material. White balance is relatively even, though as brightness increases there is a slight rise in red and blue and a touch too little green. This does not, however, produce a strongly visible tint and most colours remain close to their reference points. The Colour Checker confirms this, with a large portion of errors falling below the level that should be particularly noticeable during normal viewing. We have more reservations about the gamma response. In the darkest parts of the image the TV runs it noticeably above the reference value, so some shadow detail can be a little too subdued. The characteristic then calms down and across much of the range it is close to the intended behaviour. As a result SDR generally looks natural, but in dark scenes the P7L can lose some subtlety.

In HDR the factory calibration is less precise. As brightness increases the excess of blue becomes more pronounced, which can make the image look cooler than it should. The number of larger colour deviations also grows, particularly in brighter hues. As for the EOTF curve itself, it is handled fairly conservatively, with the TV showing the image darker than the reference across much of the range. For such an inexpensive model, the factory Film mode settings are not bad.

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.

After calibration the TCL P7L can deliver a genuinely pleasant picture, especially with conventional SDR material. We managed to even out the white balance very well, and the gamma curve now tracks close to the target value of 2.4. This is also reflected in the colour measurements: most errors have fallen noticeably, and in everyday viewing it is hard to point to any obvious inaccuracies. Films, series, YouTube and ordinary broadcast TV therefore look more natural, without unnecessary warmth or a cool tint. For a model in this price bracket the SDR performance is really very good.

With HDR the situation becomes more complicated. Calibration helped improve the white balance and tidy up some deviations, but here the panel's limitations become increasingly apparent. The P7L has relatively low brightness and cannot maintain adequate luminance for more saturated colours, so some errors remain even after careful tuning. In other words, settings can improve the way the TV interprets the signal, but they cannot overcome its physical limits. That is why calibration makes most sense for this model primarily in SDR.

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.

In this respect the TCL P7L performs surprisingly well, especially for such an inexpensive TV. The banding-reduction feature, which in many budget models does little or nothing, actually manages to improve the picture here. It does not remove all banding entirely, but it can noticeably reduce posterisation and make more challenging gradients look more natural. At this price point that’s a genuinely pleasant surprise. Upscaling itself also performs well. Lower-resolution material is scaled correctly, without over-sharpening or adding artificial outlines around objects. Of course the P7L won’t turn a very poor source into a 4K-quality image, but for regular TV the result is simply solid. For a model in this class there is little to criticise.

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 P7L uses a panel with a native 60 Hz refresh rate at 4K resolution, and that's how it should be regarded in everyday use. When watching films the TV mainly offers frame interpolation, so it can smooth motion and reduce the characteristic judder, but it does not deliver the fluidity typical of true 120 Hz panels.

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.

For such an inexpensive TV, the P7L has quite a lot to offer gamers. It has ALLM, VRR, Dolby Vision for gaming, and TCL also includes its Game Bar, which lets you quickly check the key information or change some settings without leaving the game. Not everything is perfect, though, because HGiG doesn’t work here as it should, but at this price point it’s hard to complain about the feature set. The most interesting part starts when you give up 4K. At that resolution the TV runs at up to 60 Hz, but at 1440p and 1080p it can display at 120 Hz. And that’s not just a line in the specs. In fast-paced games that support that frame rate you can really notice the improvement in smoothness, so if you value smoother motion more than maximum image detail, that mode can make a lot of sense. Of course, that doesn’t turn the P7L into a proper 120 Hz TV. Even so, those extra modes are exactly what make the P7L perform very well for gaming.