Philips PUS7000 vs LG OLED B6

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

The LG B6 is a moderately bright OLED. After calibration it reaches about 800 nits, roughly 200 nits more than last year’s B5. That’s thanks to the new budget OLED SE panel from LG Display. In practice it simply gives a bit more headroom and makes HDR in many scenes look fuller than on last year’s lower-tier OLEDs. That doesn’t mean the B6 has no limits. In very bright shots, when a large part of the screen is strongly lit, brightness can drop below 400 nits. This behavior is typical for OLED TVs (especially those from this segment) and that’s when you see the biggest difference versus more expensive models. All things considered, we rate the B6’s results as really solid. It’s still not a TV for breaking brightness records, but the HDR effect is strong enough that you can really feel the step up from ordinary SDR in films.

Color gamut

Using the OLED SE panel has slightly affected wide color gamut coverage. Compared with last year’s model, results fell by a few percentage points. DCI-P3 reaches about 96%, and BT.2020 around 71%. That doesn’t mean the colors on the LG B6 are weak. In most movies and series they look lively, well saturated and simply pleasing to the eye. You only notice a difference in very bright, highly colorful scenes. Then colors lose some intensity compared with QD-OLED panels. This comes from the WOLED panel construction. Besides red, green and blue subpixels it also uses a white subpixel that helps boost brightness. It comes at a cost: at very high luminance some color is effectively “diluted” by the white light, so saturation of some colors can be slightly lower. In everyday use this isn’t a big issue, but you can notice it in the most demanding scenes.

We tested the television in movie mode, which theoretically should provide the best and most natural colors. And indeed, this mode is quite correct; however, after connecting the calibration equipment, its biggest flaw became apparent. The PUS7000 has significant deficiencies in displaying red. Poorly tuned white balance and too low saturation of this color cause the image to appear too cool. As a result, one might get the impression that the displayed content is simply lacking in vibrant colors. The situation is exacerbated 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 may appear somewhat washed out. Fortunately, the Philips menu offers many functions to improve these aspects, so we immediately proceeded to calibration to see what could be squeezed out of this screen.

We tested the LG B6 in Filmmaker Mode, which is the best picture setting available right out of the box. ISF modes deliver very similar results, but in our tests we always stick to Filmmaker Mode for better comparison with other TVs. Each of those modes is, after all, a much better starting point than Vivid or Eco mode, where the picture is heavily boosted and noticeably less natural. With SDR content, the factory settings perform really well. Color errors are small, gamma behaves properly, and the image looks natural during ordinary viewing and does not seem overly "pumped up." It's a bit worse with HDR. When you play that kind of content you can quickly see that the white balance hasn't been set perfectly. Too much blue and red causes the image to shift toward a slightly pink tint. This is also confirmed by measurements of the color gamut and the ColorChecker, where samples clearly drift in that direction. It's not a flaw that completely ruins the picture, but you can notice it in HDR films. So people who care about the most faithful image should consider the calibration we describe later in the review.

After professional calibration, it is clear that the PUS7000 responds well to image adjustments. In this price range, this is not a given. The effects should be assessed in two scenarios, depending on what content we plan to watch. SDR performs the best. After our corrections, the image looks really good. Most color errors fell below level 3, which is the threshold at which distortions typically become visible to the naked eye in measurements. Movies, series, sports, and regular television present themselves naturally, without unpleasant deviations. If someone primarily watches classic channels or streaming in HD quality, the difference after calibration will be noticeable immediately. However, it must be made clear that the PUS7000 is still not a television suitable for sensible HDR, and calibration does not change much here. The reason lies in the hardware: colors remain too undersaturated. The television lacks solutions that expand the color gamut, such as PFS filters or a quantum dot layer, so the panel simply cannot show the intense colors required by HDR. This is most evident in reds, which still look pale. This limitation cannot be bypassed with menu settings, as it results from the design of the backlighting and the panel itself.

During calibration we focused primarily on HDR content, because that's where the factory settings required the biggest corrections. We didn't neglect SDR mode, though, which after adjustment was brought almost to perfection. Colors are very accurate and brightness is handled as it should be. The biggest improvement in HDR came from correcting the white balance. After removing the excess red and blue, the pinkish tint disappeared and the image became much more natural. Skin tones, whites and all colors that had been shifting toward magenta improved. After calibration most errors fell below a Delta E of 2–3, the threshold at which the average viewer stops noticing differences with the naked eye. The LG B6 can therefore deliver a very accurate image, especially for the manufacturer's entry-level OLED model.

The PUS7000 handles digital image processing quite well. The distortion reduction feature deserves praise, as it effectively smooths out unwanted tonal transitions even at a low setting. However, it has a flaw: if the action is too aggressive, it can introduce undesirable artifacts on the screen. It’s a good idea to experiment with this setting to find the sweet spot between a smooth image and detail clarity.

The upscaling, which is the enhancement of lower quality materials to 4K, is adequate. The image after processing is very "soft," which is typical for almost all Philips televisions. 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 to achieve a more pronounced effect.

The LG B6 handles lower-quality sources very well. Much of the credit goes to effective digital image processing, which can mask some source imperfections without overly smoothing the whole scene. The feature "Smooth Gradation" proves particularly useful. It can significantly reduce posterization, which we mentioned earlier, especially in darker areas of the image. The safest choice remains Low or Medium. The function still effectively smooths harsh tonal transitions, but does not yet interfere too much with fine details. The most dedicated purists can, of course, leave it off. Upscaling to 4K also performs very well. Full HD and 720p content retain a good amount of detail, and the image is neither overly sharpened nor excessively blurred. Some limitations become noticeable only with very poor sources below 720p, where the smallest subtitles and fine elements are not always perfectly sharp, but this is true for almost every other TV on the market.

In this regard, we don't really have any 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 standard, and it's hard to expect more. However, the worst part is that the TV does not have any motion smoothing features. There are no supporting systems for either movies or sports. We have to accept that the image on the PUS7000 is processed "raw." This means that during dynamic scenes or fast camera movements, the motion may appear choppy or unclear. We have no way to enable any smoother that would soften this effect.

One of the biggest advantages of OLED panels is their very fast pixel response time. This keeps the image sharp and prevents the visible smearing that often appears on LCD TVs. However, there is a downside. During slow camera pans, motion can look more choppy than on LCD screens, where the slower panel naturally masks some of that effect. Fortunately, on the LG B6 you can easily soften this with TruMotion. With the motion smoothing properly adjusted, you can achieve smoother motion without giving the picture an excessive soap-opera effect.

Although the PUS7000 is not marketed as a gaming TV, it does not perform as poorly in this category as one might expect. While there is no support for 120 Hz refresh rates, which is understandable at this price point, the manufacturer has included several important features that genuinely improve the comfort of playing on a console. The most significant of these are VRR and ALLM technologies. VRR is responsible for synchronizing the screen with the number of frames generated by the console. This prevents the image from "tearing" and keeps it consistent even during sudden frame drops in the game. In turn, ALLM is a solution that automatically switches the TV to the lowest latency mode right after detecting a signal from the console. All of 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 overview of current settings and connection status without interrupting gameplay, which is a very convenient solution.

LG OLED B6 offers a powerful set of advantages for gamers; it's simply a complete platform for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, or a solid PC. It has four full-size HDMI 2.1 ports with 48 Gbps bandwidth, so you can skip the annoying cable swapping when you want to connect several newer devices at once. We get the full suite of sync technologies – from classic VRR to G-Sync and FreeSync. The screen seamlessly matches the refresh rate to the frame output produced by the console or graphics card. Of course ALLM is included: the B6 automatically detects a running game and immediately cuts input lag to a minimum. HDR handling is also excellent. The TV supports Dolby Vision, and a properly implemented HGiG standard means that after an initial calibration in the console settings the picture won’t suffer from blown-out highlights or lost detail in bright areas. The cherry on top is the Game Bar. Instead of digging through the full menu during gameplay, one click lets you adjust shadow visibility, tweak selected settings, or simply check the display’s current operating mode. All of this makes the LG B6 a great choice for gamers.