Philips has announced a brand new Ambilight-capable OLED TV that costs under £1000. The OLED705, which also boasts support for all major HDR formats, will set you back just £979 for a 55-inch model and £1499 for a 65 incher.
Judging by the spec sheet, the OLED705 belies its budget roots with HDR support for Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG, as well as Dolby Atmos audio. It also gets DTS Play-Fi multi-room audio support.
The OLED705 is powered by Android TV and features Google Assistant built-in (as well as support for Amazon Alexa). A button on the remote launches the voice assistant, so you can speak into it to, for example, open your favourite app.
Talking of apps, the OLED705 packs in plenty of streaming services. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, YouTube and Spotify are all present and correct, although there's no mention of Apple TV+.
The 'near-frameless' design seems to hide the very same 50W 2.1 sound system you'd find in last year's Award-winning OLED805, and it also boasts three-sided Ambilight, which we've always found to be both spectacular and beneficial in terms of increasing perceived contrast and making the screen seem bigger than it really is.
As you'd expect, Philips has made the odd compromise to keep prices keen, and the 705 misses out on the firm's P5 AI Perfect Picture Engine, which uses AI to optimise picture quality. As Philips has now confirmed to us, this model gets the 3rd Gen P5 – the one before AI arrived.
If you're a gamer, this TV could turn out to be something of a mixed bag. On the upside, you get a basic Game Mode and support for 4K@120Hz. On the downside, none of this model's four HDMI sockets support eARC.
Still, the option to buy a 55-inch OLED TV from a big-name brand for less than £1000 is certainly welcome. Both sizes are on sale at Amazon and Currys now. Better still, Amazon has already discounted the 65-inch from £1499 to £1439 – that's a saving of £60 right off the bat!
Not keen on compromise? Philips tells us that it plans to launch a higher-spec (and more expensive) OLED706 TV "later in the summer".
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