Philips TV 55PUK7150/12 review (1 Viewer)

[Stéphane Lenclud]

Here are documentation and opinions about that Philips 55PUK7150/12.

It's a 4K UHD Android TV from Philips' 2015 lineup. It notably features 3 sided Ambilight and passive 3D.

Pros:

• Overall nice picture in most situations.
• 3 sides Ambilight awesome.
• 4K passive 3D awesome.
• Ambilight controllable via REST API.
• Philips seems to be rolling out regular firmware updates.
• Support generic IR remotes.

Cons:

• Nasty image retention issues.
• Remote unusable from 3 meters away.
• RF remote means you can't teach universal IR remotes.
• Slight buzzing coil whine noise noticeable in very quiet room. Louder or quieter depending of the Picture profile you are using. Somehow after 6 months of regular usage this has improved to the point where I hardly ever notice it anymore.
  
• Takes quite a bit of testing to tune the picture quality to mitigate image retention issues.
• Narrow vertical angle sweet zone for passive 3D.
• Android TV UI does not support 3D.
• EasyLink - HDMI CEC connection lost after long spell in standby means you have to use a remote to wake up your TV, IR or RF both work.
• CEC remote can't open settings menu.
  
• Firmware update did not fix any of my issues so far.
• Split screen issue on 4:4:4 input.
• Worst input lag on the market. Users are reporting input lag as high as 180ms. Though I've clocked up more than 80 hours of non-competitive PC gaming and that did not bother me the slightest.

That's a lot of nasty cons and very few pros. Yet it looks like it's going to take at least 2 years or more before we maybe get affordable next gen 4K panels with passive 3D and Ambilight. If Philips ever goes back into 3D. So despite the ugly image retention issues it's possibly worth acquiring such a display at discounted price. At time of writing I've seen it available from various sources between 900€ and 1200€.

It has to be noted that I mostly tested that TV when used as a monitor for MP1 and PC gaming. I've totally skipped the testing of built-in tuners and most smart TV functionality. It looks like it was getting pretty bad reviews concerning software stability. I'm not sure if this was somewhat improved in the latest firmware update from April 2016.

Firmware tested:

• QV151E_R0.5.38.150 - December 2016
  • Introduced HDMI black screen detection that triggers reboots.
• QV151E_R0.5.38.117 - October 2016
  • Massive regression introducing major HDMI black screen issues.
• QV151E_R0.5.38.93 - August 2016
  • Funny HDMI screen scrolling behind settings menu, weird but harmless.
• QV151E_R0.5.38.52 - April 2016
  • Must have been updating to this firmware after getting that hardware in May 2016.

Related threads:

• 4K display green and zoomed in MP1
• Venset TS700A TV Lift review

 

[Stéphane Lenclud]

I've had picture quality issues with that TV connected to a Windows 10 PC via an NVidia GeForce GTX 1070.

With the TV set to UHD 4:4:4/4:2:2 and NVidia driver output color format set to 444 or RGB each half of the screen have a different hue so that you can see the separation between the left and right half on some picture. Most of the time it is not noticeable but sometimes it comes out and looks awful.

Here is the TV UHD settings:


Here is the broken picture with the separation between the halfs clearly visible:


If I set the TV UHD settings back to 4:2:0 the problem is solved:


Also leaving the TV UHD settings to 4:4:4/4:2:2 and putting the NVidia output color format to 4:2:2 instead of 4:4:4 fixes the issue.
Since other users have reported the same issue on similar Philips TV, I believe the TV is responsible for this issue rather than GPU or HDMI cable.

 

[Stéphane Lenclud]

Considering the poor quality of the TPVision's Philips branded TVs I'll definitely consider getting another brand next time and adding an ambient light solution to it.
It seems like BlindStick have an interesting solution with their BlindStick flex and associated Client Software. See also BlindStick Ambilight which source code is available on GitHub.