Philips, still one of the world's largest consumer electronics companies, hasn't had a big presence in the United States for some time, at least not in the TV market. Samsung, Sony, LG, Panasonic and VIZIO seem to be dominating that space. Philips still has a strong European presence and a reputation for high quality, reliable products.
In the mind of this correspondent it's primarily a problem of marketing, distribution and perhaps their choice of technology. But we did catch them earlier this year at the Pepcom Digital Experience in Las Vegas and they were showing something we hadn't seen before: a laser-powered TV.
Before you start holding your pinky to your lips and doing your best Dr. Evil impersonation, this TV doesn't actually shoot lasers out of the screen. In fact, it produces images using a fairly traditional LCD panel, just like most of the LED/LCD sets on the market today. But what makes it different is the laser light source they use as the backlight to light up all those beautiful pixels.
Now, we've all heard about Ultra HD TV, 4K, Quantum Dots and OLED, but Philips Smart Laser Backlight Ultra HDTV, with its combined laser/LED backlight was unique enough to earn the CES 2015 Innovation Award Honoree. The TV is expected to be available next month in a sixty-five inch version (65PLF8900/F7) for $3499.00 as well as a 58-inch size (58PLF8900/F7), priced at $2999.99.
The panel resolution is Ultra HD (3840x2160 pixels) and Philips claims an effective motion rate of 240 Hz. The Ultra HD panel includes a high contrast glossy filter with a hybrid backlighting source of Red Laser combined with Cyan LEDs for rich textures and vivid color saturation. Philips states that its unique light source allows it to recreate 80% of the advanced BT2020 color spectrum. Wider color gamut such as Digital Cinema's P3 and BT2020 are expected to become more popular as advanced 4K content (including both streaming content and Ultra HD Blu-ray Discs) come to market.
The sound specs ain't bad either. With two detachable side-mounted speakers, each containing a vertically vectored tweeter, a front firing tweeter, a mid-low range driver and two passive radiators, powered by 60 watts of amplification, the set pumps out at goodly amount of what Philips calls "spatial 3D sound." Philips also makes some interesting sound bars (including one with wireless rear speakers) but with this set, you may not even need one.
Being a smart TV there is Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b/g/n/ac) connectivity on-board with network services available in 4K including Netflix and YouTube along with a host of other streaming services in HD. Sporting three HDMI 2.0 ports (with HDCP 2.2 support) and on-board H.265 HEVC and VP9 decoding, the TV should be compatible with the next generation of Ultra HD source components and streaming providers.
We got to see one of these bad boys close up and the image did look impressive with deep saturated colors and nice detail. Hopefully next month others on these shores will also get to experience the latest laser-powered TVs.
