Philips PUS7000 vs Philips OLED811

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.

Philips OLED811 uses the new generation WOLED EX panels, also found in models like the LG C6 and Samsung S90H. After calibration we measured around 1500 nits, which is a very good result for an OLED TV. You can see it clearly in movies and series. All kinds of light flashes have the right intensity, especially when they appear on a dark background. In such scenes the OLED811 can deliver truly impressive HDR. Of course, that doesn't mean you'll see that peak brightness in every shot. When the screen is filled with a large area of white or a big explosion, brightness falls to around 600 nits. That's still a good result, but those scenes no longer have the same punch as small, bright elements on a dark background. This is a known limitation of OLEDs, and the OLED811 is no exception.

Colors

Aside from HDR brightness, colors also matter, and Philips performs very well here too. It covers almost the entire DCI-P3 gamut, which contains most of the colors used in HDR movies and series. So you get rich reds and lush greens, and while watching it's hard to find major faults in this area. It looks a bit worse with the much wider BT.2020 gamut — its most saturated shades are already beyond the reach of this panel. Added to that is the issue of the white subpixel the WOLED panel uses to help boost brightness. With very bright colors you can see some "whitening": the color is bright but loses some of its saturation. In exactly these situations QD-OLED panels from Samsung Display have the advantage. In most movies and series, however, this won't be something that immediately stands out.

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.

The movie mode on the Philips OLED811 is sensibly configured right out of the box. Most color errors are minor, both in SDR and HDR, so you can sit down and watch without first adjusting the settings. There are no major inaccuracies that would immediately pull attention away from the film.

It's not perfect, though. The white balance shows a slight deficiency of red compared with green, so whites and grays can have a faint greenish tint. It's not a strong cast, but measurements clearly show it. There are also small brightness deviations in SDR: some areas of the picture are slightly lifted, and the deepest blacks aren't always rendered evenly. In HDR the TV tracks the reference much more closely, although in places it slightly pulls details out of the shadows. These are generally things to refine. The factory movie mode provides a good starting point, and calibration will show how much more you can get out of it.

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.

After calibration the Philips OLED811 produces an image very close to the reference. We managed to even out the white balance and remove the subtle color cast visible in the factory settings. Errors in Color Checker measurements for SDR and HDR dropped to around 1 to 2, and many samples even fall below 1. That's a level at which it's hard to spot differences from the reference image with the naked eye. We also improved the gamma, and only in the brightest whites a slight brightening remains. In HDR the EOTF curve also stays close to the reference, although the TV still tends to slightly boost the brightness of small elements like stars or subtitles. That gives the image a bit of extra glow that shouldn't be there, but otherwise there's little to complain about. It was already good out of the box, and after calibration we managed to refine most of the remaining shortcomings.

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 OLED811 handles lower-quality content reasonably well, though it's far from perfect. The "Artifact Reduction" feature helps smooth tonal transitions and on the low setting delivers a pretty good result. It doesn't remove banding between shades as effectively as similar solutions from some competitors, but at least it doesn't introduce new artifacts. That's a sensible setting for everyday viewing. Still, there's some disappointment, because the MediaTek Pentonic 800 chip used here can, in other manufacturers' implementations, deal more effectively with heavy compression even at similarly low settings. A lot therefore depends on how each manufacturer uses its capabilities. We have a few more reservations about the 4K upscaling itself. There is plenty of detail, but the overall image looks fairly soft. Edges are heavily smoothed, which robs the picture of some sharpness and clarity. You can partly correct that with the sharpness slider in the menu, though that will just emphasize outlines rather than recover detail. On the plus side, there is no overscan, so even with an SD signal the TV does not crop the edges of the picture.

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.

In terms of motion handling, the OLED811 performs excellently. At 120 Hz, which is useful for console gaming and watching sports, the image stays clear and moving objects don’t leave noticeable trails. The fast response of OLED pixels helps here; you can see it clearly in the UFO test, even on dark backgrounds. There are also motion-smoothing controls. For movies you can adjust the strength of smoothing to your taste, ranging from preserving a cinematic feel to much smoother motion. A separate motion blur reduction control is useful for fast-paced content like live sports broadcasts.

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.

OLED811 has almost everything you could expect from a gaming TV. It supports 120 Hz at Full HD, 1440p and 4K resolutions, and when connected to a PC can reach 165 Hz. It also has VRR, which helps avoid screen tearing with variable frame rates, and ALLM, which automatically switches to game mode. So you don't have to dig into the settings every time you power up your console.

HGiG also works correctly, so once you enable HDR on the console the TV doesn't apply its own brightness adjustments. There's also a Game Bar that lets you check signal parameters and quickly change settings useful while gaming. The list even includes Dolby Vision for games, but there's a significant catch, which you'll read about below.