Philips Ambilight PUS8508: 65 inches Philips - Review 🏆

The Philips 65-inch PUS8508 Ambilight TV is a premium 4K LED TV that offers an immersive viewing experience. Part of Philips' 8000 series, it combines stunning 4K Ultra HD resolution with Ambilight technology and high-end features like Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos sound.

With its 65-inch screen size, the PUS8508 is well-suited for large living rooms where you want an impactful home theater setup. The 4K LED panel delivers vibrant colors and excellent clarity in a slim profile frameless design. Images appear sharp and detailed even in bright rooms thanks to the high peak brightness and wide viewing angles.

But the standout feature is Ambilight, Philips' unique ambient lighting technology that extends the action on-screen to the surrounding wall. Using rear-mounted LEDs, Ambilight analyzes the colors around the edges of the picture and projects matching colored light onto the wall behind the TV. This creates an immersive effect that reduces eye strain and pulls you deeper into the content. You can customize Ambilight to suit your viewing preferences.

With the PUS8508's combination of 4K picture quality, Ambilight immersion, and premium smart TV features, Philips aims to provide a next-level entertainment experience.

Design & Build Quality

The Philips Ambilight PUS8508 has an attractive design with minimal bezels and a sturdy central stand. The TV has a metal frame with plastic backing and is finished in dark gray.

The bezels around the screen are impressively slim, measuring just a few millimeters on the sides and top. This helps keep the focus on the large 65-inch 4K screen.

The stand has a crossfoot design and is made of metal with a matte finish. It provides sturdy support for the TV and has a small Philips logo on the neck. The stand can be removed to wall mount the TV if desired.

Overall, the PUS8508 has a premium look and feel. The slim bezels, metal construction, and centralized stand give it a robust yet sleek aesthetic that should fit nicely in most living rooms. The dark color scheme also helps keep the TV from standing out too much when viewing content.

The Philips Ambilight PFS6908: 32 inches is another excellent model in the Philips range. It offers a more compact viewing experience but still features the Ambilight technology, which enhances the visual immersion by projecting light from three sides of the TV. This model also boasts a sleek and modern design, perfect for smaller living spaces or bedrooms. Its user-friendly interface and connectivity options make it a versatile choice for any household. For more details, follow this link: Philips Ambilight PFS6908: 32 inches.

Display Quality

The Philips PUS8508 features a 65-inch 4K Ultra HD LED display with a 3840 x 2160 resolution. The 4K resolution delivers crisp, detailed images with excellent clarity.

The display supports HDR10+ for a wider range of colors and contrast. This results in more realistic images with brighter highlights and deeper blacks. Scenes appear more true to life.

Brightness levels reach up to 500 nits for vivid and punchy visuals even in well-lit rooms. The high brightness allows you to appreciate HDR content without dimming.

The TV has wide viewing angles thanks to Philips' unique Ambilight technology. Ambilight projects light onto the wall behind that matches what's on the screen. This creates an immersive viewing experience while also reducing eye strain. You can enjoy the picture quality from any seat in the room.

Overall, the display quality is excellent with sharp 4K resolution, vivid HDR10+ colors, bright visuals, and wide viewing angles for a premium viewing experience.

If you are looking for a smaller option, consider the Philips Ambilight PUS8108: 50 inches. This model offers many of the same superlative display features in a more compact 50-inch size. The Ambilight technology remains, providing an immersive viewing experience and enhancing the picture quality by extending the light beyond the screen.

Smart TV Features

The Philips 65PUS8508 runs on Android TV, providing access to Google Play Store and a wide selection of apps. It comes preloaded with popular apps like Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video, Disney+ and more. You can easily download additional apps for streaming, gaming, social media and other services.

For controlling the TV and navigating menus, it supports hands-free voice control through Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. The built-in microphones allow you to search for content, launch apps, control smart home devices and more completely hands-free. Voice commands work well and make using the TV more convenient compared to only using the remote control.

Overall, Android TV provides an excellent smart TV experience on the 65PUS8508. The interface is smooth and intuitive. Streaming performance is reliable with quick launch times for apps. Extensive app support and robust voice control features make this a very capable smart TV platform.

Audio Quality

The Philips Ambilight PUS8508 TV comes equipped with a decent 20W speaker system that provides ample volume to fill medium to large sized rooms. It supports Dolby Atmos, providing an immersive, cinematic sound experience.

The two 10W speakers located at the bottom produce clear audio with minimal distortion even at high volumes. The sound has decent bass and clear treble. Dialogue in movies and TV shows sounds crisp and clear.

While the built-in speakers are good enough for everyday TV watching, home theatre enthusiasts may want to connect the TV to a dedicated soundbar or speaker system for a truly immersive surround sound experience.

The TV supports various audio formats including Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Pulse, MPEG-1/2/2.5 Layer I/II/III (includes .mp3), WMA, HE-AAC, and AAC LC. So you can enjoy high quality audio from different sources.

Overall, the 20W speaker system provides an enjoyable listening experience for casual TV viewing and streaming. But those looking for a true cinematic audio experience may want to pair the TV with a good soundbar or speaker system.

Ports & Connectivity

The Philips PUS8508 Ambilight TV comes with a good selection of ports and connectivity options. For HDMI, it has 4 HDMI 2.1 ports that support 4K at 120Hz, Variable Refresh Rate, and Auto Low Latency Mode. This allows you to connect 4K Blu-ray players, games consoles, and other devices while taking advantage of the latest HDMI 2.1 features.

For USB, there are 2 USB ports, with USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 support. This allows you to connect hard drives, flash drives, keyboards, and other USB accessories. Media playback is smooth from USB devices.

For wired networking, there is an Ethernet port supporting up to 1 Gigabit speed. This provides a stable and reliable wired internet connection for streaming and smart TV features.

For wireless connectivity, the TV has dual-band WiFi supporting the latest 802.11ac standard. It connects easily to 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks for smooth 4K streaming. The wireless connection is strong and reliable.

Overall, the connectivity options are versatile for different types of media devices, streaming, and smart features. The HDMI 2.1 and USB 3.0 support allow you to take advantage of the latest standards and performance.

Remote Control

The PUS8508 comes with a sleek and minimalist remote control that is comfortable to hold and easy to use. It has all the necessary buttons laid out in an intuitive manner, with quick access buttons for popular streaming apps like Netflix, YouTube and Prime Video.

The remote has a total of 18 buttons. At the top you have the power button, mute button, settings and directional buttons. Below those are the numeric buttons, volume controls, channel rockers, home button, back button, play/pause and quick access streaming service buttons. Everything is spaced out nicely and the buttons have a nice tactile feedback when pressed.

For voice control, the remote has a built-in microphone that allows you to control the TV with voice commands using Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa. The setup process is quick and painless. You can ask it to launch apps, search for content, control playback, change volume and more. This adds a lot of convenience and reduces button presses.

Overall, the remote is well designed, comfortable and responsive. The minimal button layout is easy to remember and voice control makes accessing content faster. It offers a great smart TV user experience.

Performance

The Philips PUS8508 delivers excellent performance for a TV in its price range. The quad-core processor ensures a very responsive user experience, with quick app launches and smooth navigation through menus.

Upscaling of lower resolution content to 4K is handled superbly by Philips' P5 Perfect Picture engine. Standard definition content looks crisp and detailed on the 4K panel without excessive noise or artifacts. Even fast moving scenes are upscaled smoothly without judder or motion blur.

Motion handling on the PUS8508 is very good for an LCD TV. Philips uses a 100Hz panel with Micro Dimming Pro technology to reduce motion blur inherent in LCD displays. Fast action movies and sports have minimal trailing artifacts or ghosting effects. The TV also supports native 24p playback for judder-free viewing of cinematic content. Gamers will appreciate the low input lag which provides a responsive gameplay experience.

Overall, the performance of the Philips Ambilight PUS8508 punches above its weight class. You get smooth upscaling, great motion handling, and low input lag - features typically found in more expensive models. For the price, it's hard to beat the performance you get with this Philips TV.

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Gorgeous 4K HDR picture quality with vibrant colors and deep blacks thanks to the P5 Perfect Picture Engine

• Ambilight feature creates an immersive viewing experience by projecting light onto the wall behind the TV

• Runs on Android TV for easy access to apps like Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and more

• Built-in Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa allows hands-free voice control

• Dolby Atmos support provides an immersive sound experience

• Slim design looks great in any living room

Cons:

• Only 60Hz refresh rate, some may prefer 120Hz for sports and gaming

• Mediocre 20W speaker system lacks bass, adding a soundbar is recommended

• Lacks HDMI 2.1 ports required for 4K/120Hz gaming

• Android TV can feel a bit sluggish at times

• No support for HDR10+ Adaptive for dynamically optimized HDR

• Stand only supports tilt adjustment, no swivel or height adjust

Verdict

The Philips Ambilight 65PUS8508 is an excellent 65-inch 4K LED TV that offers a fantastic viewing experience. It has a sleek and minimalist design that looks great in any living room. The Ambilight feature projects colors onto the wall behind the TV to match what's on screen, creating an immersive viewing effect.

The picture quality is superb thanks to Philips' P5 Perfect Picture engine and support for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. Motion handling is also excellent with low input lag, making it a great choice for gaming. The built-in sound system with Dolby Atmos decoding provides an immersive audio experience.

Smart TV features are robust with the Android TV interface providing access to popular apps like Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video, etc. It also has support for Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa for hands-free voice control. Connectivity options like HDMI ports and USB slots are ample.

Overall, the Philips 65PUS8508 is an outstanding 4K LED TV that delivers excellent picture quality, smooth motion handling, great sound and smart features. If you're looking for a future-ready 65-inch TV with Ambilight, this model comes highly recommended.