Philips has revealed the price of its flagship OLED908 range of TVs, and it puts the set in direct competition with the LG G3 OLED.
The company unveiled the 908 range’s pricing at a press event in Barcelona attended by What Hi-Fi?. During it, the company confirmed the set will be available in the UK from Richer Sounds from mid-October.
The smallest 55-inch option will retail for £2999, while the mid-sized 65-inch 908 will cost £3499. Finally, the largest 77-inch 908 will cost £4999.
Philips didn’t reveal Euro pricing, or availability at the event. We’ve reached out for clarification and will update this article when we get it. The TVs will not be sold in the US or Australia.
The pricing puts the OLED908 in direct competition with the LG G3 OLED. The 65-inch version of the G3 we reviewed in March carries an essentially identical £3500 guide price (though is now often available for quite a lot less) and also utilises the same next-generation MLA screen tech as the 908.
MLA (Micro Lens Array) is a new technology designed to help OLED sets deliver increased max brightness levels. It’s the reason most MLA sets can produce over 2000 nits of peak brightness – a marked step up on the 1200 nit peak we saw on the brightest previous generation OLEDs.
Philips, however, claims it’s taken things a step further by combining MLA hardware with its META brightness boosting algorithm, which apparently allows the 908 to offer a 2100 nits peak brightness – 100 nits more than the G3.
Max brightness is only one ingredient in the recipe that makes for decent picture quality, but the OLED908 does have a few other unique and atypical features.
Highlights include the next generation version of Philips Ambilight tech, which uses lights and sensors on the TV’s frame to colour match the TV's images with the room’s colour temperature, as well as a 7th Gen P5 AI processor and an 81W integrated 3.1 Bowers & Wilkins front-firing sound system.
Will this be enough for it to conquer the LG G3, to which we awarded five stars earlier this year?
It’s too early for us to make a call on that as we’ve only had hands-on sessions with the OLED908 and can’t fully gauge performance until we’ve had it into our own testing rooms for thorough review. However, based on our hands-on time with the Philips it could be a very close fight.
Even if it does win it will have several other heavyweight sets to beat if it wants to earn a place as 2023’s best TV.
The Panasonic MZ2000 is another potential rival, set to arrive in our test rooms very soon, which also features MLA.
MLA aside, we’re also expecting the competing Sony A95L, which we saw at a separate press event earlier this year, to appear in our test rooms in the very near future. The A95L uses the competing second-generation QD-OLED screen tech to offer similar max brightness levels, and from what we’ve seen during our hands-on sessions, could also be a strong rival to the 908 and G3.
More:
These are the best OLED TVs we’ve tried and tested
Check out our picks of the best Dolby Atmos soundbars
Not sure about the 908 but want a Philips? Check out of Philips TVs 2023 range guide
