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Tom's Guide
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
TV backlights take your movies and shows to the next level — here's my top picks
Adding some personality to a TV can amplify the immersion of your home entertainment setup. Whether it's improved surround sound with Dolby Atmos speakers or one of the best streaming devices for a sleeker interface, there's a variety of ways you can do it. But one of the best ways I've found to set the mood for my favorite shows and movies is by adding a TV RGB backlight. These LED lights, which attach to the back of your TV, can spruce up any and all experiences, especially if you get the kind that syncs to whatever is playing on the screen. Problem is, if you're not buying one of Philips' new 2025 Ambilight TVs — which you're probably not if you live in the US — you'll have to find the right one on your own, and it can get pretty confusing. With two major types in the market, you might not know which among them meets your specific needs. I went through the trouble of trying out two different TV RGB lighting kits for myself. Here's a few tips on picking the right one for your home setup and turning your display into one of the best TVs with a touch of backlit color. The first and arguably most expensive kinds of RGB backlighting are AI sync box kits. You can often buy these separately or in a bundle that includes LED lighting for your TV. As the name implies, these packages come equipped with a large box that houses a sophisticated AI program that reads incoming data from the connected devices to match the color output displayed on the LEDs behind your TV. Thus, you'll be connecting separate devices like the PS5 Pro or Sony's new 4K Blu-ray player so that on-screen content gets that extra kick of synced color. The best part is you don't need to do anything. It's pretty much all plug and play, minus affixing the lights to the TV. This can take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes, depending the size of your TV, but it's not a very difficult task. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. In my testing, I tried out Govee's HDMI Sync Box 2 on a 65-inch Samsung S90D OLED TV, connecting it to my PS5. It gave games some serious pop, especially in Elden Ring Nightreign, and I didn't have to worry about any lost performance given that it supports HDMI 2.1 with 4K up to 144Hz. (The PS5 tops out at 4K/120Hz, but If I wanted to connect one of the best gaming PCs to the sync box I could, and still get serious performance to boot.) This AI sync box spices up your TV entertainment with an array of colors that splash on the wall behind the screen via LED strip lights. It uses a powerful AI model to match the colors from the connected devices with the backlighting for extra immersion. Listed above are the 55-inch to 65-inch configuration, but you can buy it in a 75-inch to 85-inch set, as well. As already mentioned, these can be pretty expensive. The high asking price is certainly worth it given the performance on offer, however. Govee's model worked wonders for me, though I'm sure the one made by Philips is just as good, if not better, given that it will run you back almost $500 bundled with the lighting kit. But there's one major downside for picking sync boxes like these: they don't cover everything displayed on the screen, just whatever's connected to them. For instance, streaming platforms available on most modern smart TVs would miss out on the colorful upgrade these boxes provide — unless you connected a streaming device directly to the AI sync box, like the Apple TV 4K. Despite the high cost, most people will likely want the convenience and performance gains provided by an external sync box. Despite the high cost, most people will likely want the convenience and performance gains provided by an external sync box. To be fair, the sync box definitely was the better buy, in my opinion, and it makes sense. But there's another option you could go with that might be more suitable for some buyers. The second kind of TV lighting is camera-based. This requires a camera to be attached to the top of the TV, which analyzes what's displayed on-screen to match the most accurate colors. Like the AI-based system, some camera-based systems can even be synced together with other lights around the home, so they all mirror each other for a unified visual experience. The problem is, not everyone wants a camera draped to the TV for a number of reasons, privacy and aesthetics being two major factors. To put camera-based lighting to the test, I used Govee's new TV Backlight 3 Lite. It's a pretty nifty TV lighting kit, but it's much more hands-on than the simple plug-and-play of the sync box. With the Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite you get colorful immersion at your fingertips. This backlighting setup combines the power of an LED strip with a camera to give your movie nights a pop of synced hues. It adds that pop of personality, and one you can customize on the fly using the Govee app or even via Google Home using voice controls. Setting up the lighting requires you to get accurate readings with the camera first. It comes with these foam boxes you need to attach to the TV, which the camera then reads for syncing capabilities. To make sure you get an accurate measurement, you need to ensure the surrounding lighting is adequate and there are no nearby RGB lights that could interfere with the camera. Because ambient lighting can cause some issues, you'll want to do the setup process at night. Even though it's a bit more involved, you get some stellar performance out of the camera-based lighting, as it can not only detect what's being played on external video sources but will sync with built-in streaming services, too. When you're not watching something, the light will work even when the TV is turned off. I'm not one to leave this on for too long, but it is pretty nifty having an extra light around even if my TV's powered down, adding a touch of personality to my living room without something like museum art or family photos playing on the screen. So which is the better buy and, generally speaking, are lighting kits worth it? This really comes down to your preferences. Are you willing to shell out to get enhanced color volume behind your TV, but only for your various connected devices? Or do you want a cheaper pick that casts the widest net that will sync with all on-screen content? Despite enjoying the plug-and-play performance of the AI sync box, I tended to use the camera option more. If you don't mind the extra work during the setup process, I think the former is the right one to go with if you're primarily gaming or watching content like Blu-ray DVDs. However, if I were shopping for myself, I'd just stick with the camera model, largely because it's cheaper but also because it covers everything on the TV. The best part about them is they're both Matter-compliant and work with Google Home. So, whichever you choose, you can turn either on using voice controls and customize them to your liking without ever pulling out your phone. TV backlighting is a luxury add-on to a TV setup, and therefore might not be the first purchase you make after buying a new TV, but it adds that splash of color where it counts. It's not the end-all-be-all approach to immersive content, but it definitely gives it some polish and life. If that's what you're looking for, backlighting kits are for you.
Telegraph
21-05-2025
- Telegraph
Philips OLED+959 TV review: A top-end OLED with a unique wow factor
What is the Philips OLED+959 TV? Released towards the end of 2024, the OLED+959 is Philips' best OLED TV. Its Meta 2.0 OLED panel uses billions of micro lenses to focus and brighten the image. Supplied to Philips by LG Display, it's one of the best TV screens currently available, but what makes this TV unique is its Ambilight system. With this, a ring of coloured LEDs project the on-screen colours onto the surrounding wall. This gives an immersive experience similar to being in the cinema. Philips have made this their hero feature since its debut in 2004 but the latest version, which can project four different halos simultaneously, offers a greater sense of depth and detail. This combines with a surround-sound system by British high-end audio company Bowers & Wilkins, with a total of 18 drivers delivering a combined 102 Watts of power and performance equal to all but the best soundbars. None of this comes cheap. The OLED+959 costs a fifth more than the competitors' flagship OLEDs, such as Samsung's S95D OLED and LG's flagship G5. Whether you think it's worth the premium comes down to how you feel about the Ambilight and the Bowers & Wilkins sound. Personally, I think they're huge assets. Read my full review below for more detail. JUMP TO: How we test TVs Every TV is tested at home for a minimum of two weeks (in this case, six). We play a variety of content in standard, high and ultra-high definition, from movies to nature programmes, sport and daytime viewing. We also assess the quality of 4K content and the upscaling capabilities, where applicable. We evaluate the picture and sound, see how easy the TV is to set up and operate and check how well it performs with gaming consoles and other peripherals. We're looking for everyday usability as well as the wow factor. Why you can trust Telegraph Recommended Our tech experts continuously conduct in-depth, independent, real-world tests, scoring devices against pre-set testing metrics and industry benchmarks, so we can deliver definitive and comprehensive buying advice. Telegraph Recommended reviews are never shared with product manufacturers before publication, we don't accept payment in exchange for positive reviews, nor do we allow brands to pay for placement in our articles. Visit our Who We Are page to learn more. Design and technology Scored: 10/10 My videos above don't quite do justice to the Ambilight, which works best when placed against a wall. Even with the OLED+959 standing in a corner, it still made a sensational centrepiece, a cross between a flickering hearth and an old-fashioned cinema. Interestingly, the original purpose of Ambilight was to reduce eye strain. When you look at the back of the TV, you can see how it works: a ring of LEDs are each capable of projecting nine colours at four different distances. On the back, you'll also find the subwoofer in the centre of the TV. No other manufacturer offers Ambilight and only Panasonic, with their range-topping Z95A, can offer better built-in sound. All this top-end technology requires a screen five or six times thicker than the competition to fit it in, but the pale fabric covering gives it a 'posh hi-fi' vibe. Picture processing comes from a new, eighth-generation P5 AI dual engine, which can optimise the dynamic range to the brightness of the room. This made a huge difference when watching dark content during the day. It's also used to upscale lower-definition content to ultra-HD, although some competitor AIs can pull off this trick better. Finally, the AI can detect when you're watching football and turn on a dedicated motion-smoothing setting. This saved me a lot of trouble, since I hate motion smoothing on anything but sport and usually waste hours of my life turning it off and on again. Overall, the OLED+959's unique design easily justifies full marks, assuming you're on board with the whole Ambilight thing. Picture quality Score: 9/10 When it was released, the OLED+959's picture was as good as they come. It's only the imminent arrival of tandem OLED panels, with an extra light-emitting layer, that will make it look anything like second best. Here, brightness and dynamic range are boosted by a layer of 40 billion tiny lenses called a micro lens array, although Philips call it 'Meta'. I tested the OLED+959's dynamic range first by watching The Batman, a distinctly dingy film in which people dressed in black fight in the shadows. This is the kind of content that OLEDs are designed for, because their pixels can be turned all the way off to show 'true black'. Until recently, you'd have to be viewing in a darkened room to get the benefit, but the Meta 2.0 technology in the OLED+959 allows brighter peaks and a greater dynamic range in between, so that the fine gradations of shade are visible in a bright room. There's a setting to make them even more distinct, but I was impressed anyway with crispness and lack of smudge. At the other end of the dynamic range, Dune Part II has scenes set in the blinding glare of the desert where you need to be able to differentiate between white sand, white costumes and white smoke while also seeing detail in the shadows. Again, the OLED+959 impressed, although you may get slightly more subtlety at the peak end with non-OLED 4K TVs like the Panasonic MX950. Finally, I tested the colour gamut with ultra-HD nature documentary A Real Bug's Life. There was a gorgeous range and realism, with sparkling peaks and subtle hues, although competitor TVs from Sony and Samsung, which use colour-enhancing quantum dots can offer slightly more wow-factor here. The OLED+959 is compatible with most of the high dynamic range formats, including Dolby Vision, which Samsung TVs don't support. I'm a cinephile who hates motion smoothing, so I always test to see whether a TV has a smoothing setting that doesn't make everything look like a soap opera. The OLED+959, in common with all other OLEDs except the Hisense A85N, can't quite manage it. Where it definitely succeeded was in preventing colour banding, where large uniform areas like interior walls get divided into splodgy stripes. I only saw this once in six weeks of watching, which is way better than the 20 or so other TVs I've tested. Sound Score: 10/10 A big win here, although a hard one to illustrate with a photo. With the Bowers & Wilkins sound system hidden behind a fabric mesh, the best I can do is to show my cat mesmerised by the sound of squirrels. I can vouch for the realism and detail at the quietest end of the volume range. At the loudest end, action movies such as Dune Part II sounded thrilling. Its 102 Watts is a lot of power, but more important is the separation and sense of space. Hidden behind that fabric panel are front-firing left, centre and right speakers with tweeters to cover the mid-range and treble frequencies. There are two speakers on each side of the screen to fire left and right, while two more on top fire upwards. The big subwoofer at the rear has passive radiators to widen the sound. The combined effect is decidedly cinematic when watching Dolby Atmos films: you can hear jet planes passing overhead and explosions rattling the floor. Listening to music in isolation, heavy rock guitars and drums sound a bit indistinct, but classical, jazz and acoustic music are gorgeously detailed. Overall, this is one of the very few TVs that don't need an additional soundbar to create immersive surround-sound (although of course, it can connect to one or to any compatible home speaker via DTS Play-Fi). All this comes at a cost, but perhaps not such a high one when you consider that Bowers & Wilkins speakers can cost as much as £11,000. Operating system and usability Score: 9/10 The OLED+959 uses the Google TV operating system familiar from Sony, Hisense and TCL tellies, although there are a lot of modifications specific to Philips, not least the ability to choose various styles of Ambilight using one big button on the remote control. There are also a wider-than-usual range of settings for the 12-channel surround sound set-up. The remote itself is my favourite on the market. With a brushed metal finish, it feels solid and has paddles, rather than buttons, to raise and lower the volume and scroll through lists. There are dedicated buttons for Netflix, Prime and YouTube and a fourth which takes you to all the other TV apps, such as Disney and Apple TV+. I found a response lag starting to creep in after three or four weeks, but a quick recharge via the USB-C cable fixed it. The Google OS is better than the proprietary systems used by Samsung and LG and roughly on a par with the Fire OS used by Amazon and Panasonic. One handy feature is that if your old TV used the Google OS, all your preferences are ported over to the OLED+959 when you sign in. Gaming and peripherals Score: 8/10 I spent a very long time playing Assassin's Creed Shadows on the OLED+959. It's a very challenging game for a TV to do justice to, given that most of it takes place in pitch darkness, but Philips pulled it off. There were rich details in the shadows and zingy sparks on flashing swords, while brighter scenes of swirling cherry blossoms looked stunning. An indicator shows you the frame rate: in this case 59.9Hz, which I had chosen for the best picture quality, but serious gamers can choose 120Hz or even 144Hz for faster response times, with latency as low as five milliseconds. Philips' Game Bar, triggered when you start playing, lets you choose sound, picture and Ambilight settings and save them as a profile. Accessibility features include a crosshair, centre zoom and colour filter, while the shadow-enhancer and edge-enhancer functions come in handy on dark, moody games (of which there are a lot). Most of these features are available on the latest TVs from LG, Sony and Samsung and in all honesty, their game bars are better-looking. Many also offer four HDMI 2.1 ports, compared to the Philips' two, which means they can have more latest-generation devices plugged into them. Nevertheless, this is a seriously good gaming telly, with the sound system making a huge difference to the experience. Technical specifications The closest rival to the Philips OLED+959 is probably LG's flagship G5 OLED. They both use screens made by LG Display, although the G5's is a new generation with an extra light-emitting layer, making it much brighter. LG's television has a far less impressive sound system than the Philips and its operating system can be annoying, but it does have a thinner screen and costs considerably less. Here's how they compare: Should you buy the Philips OLED+959? Brighter OLEDs are being released this year and some offer more dazzling colours. Costing £600 more than even those newer competitors, it's hard to argue that this is a bargain, but it has a wow factor that you just can't find elsewhere. It's well built, with superb built-in surround sound and whether fixed to the wall or placed on a stand, it makes TV-watching a deeply satisfying experience. Yes, if: You're looking for an impressive centrepiece to the room You care about sound quality You love movies and games and like to be immersed No, if: You can't place it against a wall (Ambilight needs a wall) You'd prefer a 2025-generation OLED and separate surround-sound system Philips OLED+959 FAQs What makes the new Ambilight Plus on the OLED+959 different? In the new system, each of the coloured LEDs has four lenses which can spread light at four different distances. This allows for better immersion as the shifting on-screen colours spread to the wall behind. There is also a new AI algorithm that matches the Ambilight to the content you're watching, the lighting in the room and the colour of the wall. How good is the integrated Bowers & Wilkins 5.1.2 sound system and do I need a separate soundbar? It is superb, delivering 102 Watts of power through a total of 18 front, side and upwards-firing drivers, including a subwoofer. You can add separates (you can link your entire home speaker system using DTS Play-Fi), but this is one of the few OLED TVs that really doesn't need a soundbar. What is the picture quality like? Equal to any other OLED from 2024 and only beaten by the very recent 'tandem' OLED panels, which may dominate the next generation. What are the gaming features of the Philips OLED+959? Latency is as low as 5 milliseconds with 144Hz inputs. It's compatible with Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync VRR formats, as well as Dolby Vision Gaming. The TV automatically detects gaming and activates AI-optimised sound, picture and Ambilight settings which can be tweaked in the Game Bar. Overall, it's the equal of any gaming TV except those that offer four HDMI 2.1 ports. This only has two. Does the Philips OLED+959 support all catch-up TV apps? It uses the Google OS, so it only has the apps Google supports. That currently doesn't include Freeview Play and in my experience there were a few problems with ITVX and BBC iPlayer: some episodes of ongoing shows couldn't be found on catch-up. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney + and Apple TV+ are all supported, but not the new Freely system, which allows live streaming of the terrestrial channels without an aerial.
Telegraph
09-04-2025
- Telegraph
The best TVs of 2025, expert tested and recommended
All the TVs on this list do the same thing: they show your content in great quality. But what if there was something else? How about a full set of rear-mounted LEDs on the TV to cast colours across the wall in sync with the on-screen action? That's what Ambilight does and it's the preserve of Philips TVs. The Philips PML9009 is a mid-range Mini-LED TV offering good value for money in this space, which is why I've picked out this model. If you're interested in Ambilight then don't think you have to stop here: Philips also offers some excellent OLED models, running to the excellent OLED 809, which would be my choice for its balance of performance and price if you're after an OLED with Ambilight. Ambilight can be a dividing technology. Personally, I'm a huge fan and my TV of choice at home is an Ambilight. I think it brings more immersion with colours splayed across the walls. Football gets a wider green spread, BBC News gets the red colours reflected across the walls and so on. At the same time, I accept that it can be a distraction – and dark moody moments might lose some gravitas when there's a glow coming from around your TV. If you don't like it, don't buy Ambilight or simply switch it off. Elsewhere, the Philips PML9009 is a competent mid-ranger and while the picture performance for this particular model doesn't quite compete with some of the TVs on this list from a pure quality perspective, that's reflected in the price, as you can get this 65-inch model for close to £1,000. The Titan OS is easy enough to use, giving you access to all the streaming services, with a 144Hz refresh rate and the HDMI 2.1 connections for gaming. The remote is a little fiddly, however, and only works via line of sight, which feels a bit basic in 2025. Key specifications TVs FAQs Which TV is best: QLED or OLED? OLED is usually regarded as the best technology for picture performance. This comes down to the ability to switch off at a pixel level, so complete black can be represented. QLED dims in zones and even though these zones are numerous it can't (yet) replicate the control that OLED offers. The flip side to this is brightness: QLED TVs are often much brighter than OLED, so can look more dramatic, while also having the brightness to punch through reflections on the screen from lights or windows. For a controlled home cinema room (or just a room with shutters or heavy curtains) then OLED is best, but on your bright kitchen wall next to bi-fold doors, QLED's brightness might be needed. Which type of TV is best for image quality? Image quality is governed by several factors. Currently, all TVs have access to the same content through streaming services or discs but it's a combination of detail (resolution), colour, contrast and motion. HDR has boosted the impression of quality and I'd always want 4K Dolby Vision or HDR10+ to get the best image. Then you have processing, which is where some of the high-end brands like Samsung perform well when it comes to motion handling. Processing can clean up an image, upscale it for a larger display and reduce things like banding and ghosting with motion. OLED generally gives better overall image quality, because of the ability to more precisely control the light, but in a bright room, you might lose that advantage because of screen reflections. Which TV brand is best for sound quality? There are a number of TVs that offer more advanced sound systems. The Panasonic Z95A is our top choice thanks to the built-in soundbar, but the Philips OLED+ models with a built-in soundbar also sound great. Then you have various models with Dolby Atmos speakers in the TV that will work with compatible soundbars, like the Samsung Q-Symphony, for a more immersive experience, but you'll have to spend more to get that system. Sony also has some great sound options, with the Acoustic Surface system in the Bravia 8 and Bravia 9 with speakers behind the display. What is the best 55-inch TV? All the TVs listed above come in a 55-inch size. The best 55-inch TV would be the LG OLED C4, for its combination of picture quality and performance for the price.
