Which 55" OLED - Sony A8 or Philips 805?

westsidejon

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Hi

I'm looking to buy a new 55" OLED in the BF sales. I have narrowed my choice down to either the Philips 805 or Sony A8. I have been able to view the Sony in my local Currys, but they didn't have the Philips.

In terms of what is important, I currently don't have access to any 4k content although I plan to upgrade my Netflix. Picture quality is the most important feature with the majority of my viewing evolving around TV through a BT box, BT Sport and Netflix. I believe the Sony is meant to be superior at motion handling for sport, but I haven't been able to compare it to the Philips. I'm also interested in which set has the best upscaling capabilities. Sound quality is not an issue as I will bypass the tv sound systems by connecting it to my active speakers. The TV will live in the far corner of my living room, which means it is never in sunlight.

Has anybody compared the Sony and the Philips? I would welcome any advice on the best tv for my needs, as due to lockdown I will not be able to demo the Philips set.

Thanks
 
I can't speak to the Philips from first hand experience, but I have a Sony A8G (last year's model, should be similar from what I know), and its upscaling is amazing. Sending a 1080p or 1440p resolution from my video card results in a perfectly clear picture displayed, even with small fonts. Looks like a native 1080/1440p display. It also has a sharpening feature you can enable for video that makes 1080 look closer to 1440 with no artefacting.

I vote sony, doubt you'll be disappointed. They're also known for making SD/HD look the best as they can.
 
I reckon most will say Sony. It carries a higher price tag for a reason.

Note that the 805 is very well reviewed on here, very well reviewed indeed.

It's your money, you just need to decide if the small gains the Sony arguably has over the Philips is worth the extra money. That's never an easy choice ... it doesn't stop because if you decide the A8 is for you, well look at the AG9, it's only a wee bit more than the A8 etc, etc.

Good luck ... I'm in the same boat!
 
GIven todays price reductions I am in a similar quandry...am trying to choose between a Panasonic TX-55hz1000b or a Sony KD-55A8 in the current situation I wont be able to actually see either one until early December...and who knows if the price reductions will still be in place then?

cheers

mike
 
I think I'm leaning towards the Sony, although the £200 saving for the Philips is tempting! Would you invest on getting burn in insurance or am I ok just being careful how I use the OLED?

Finally do anyone know if the Sony has the normal Fig 8 power connector? I have a nice Audioquest fig 8 connector I use on my current TV which made a small improvement to image quality.
 
GIven todays price reductions I am in a similar quandry...am trying to choose between a Panasonic TX-55hz1000b or a Sony KD-55A8 in the current situation I wont be able to actually see either one until early December...and who knows if the price reductions will still be in place then?

cheers

mike

How much is each TV?
 
I think I'm leaning towards the Sony, although the £200 saving for the Philips is tempting! Would you invest on getting burn in insurance or am I ok just being careful how I use the OLED?

Finally do anyone know if the Sony has the normal Fig 8 power connector? I have a nice Audioquest fig 8 connector I use on my current TV which made a small improvement to image quality.

If you want an anxiety free time with your TV, you need to get the burn in warranty. You probably won't get issues with normal use (non gaming or news/sports channel with permanent elements, especially yellow/red), but if you accidentally leave the TV on a bunch of times with netflix open and not playing, you could, over a couple years get the netflix logo burned in in the bottom right corner. It's there browsing shows, and it's there over videos of new shows used as the "screen saver" (some screen saver lol). So the hours it's displayed are likely to be racked up over time.

The TV has the standard cord you'd find on things like laser printers and guitar amps. It doesn't use the ground though, at least the models sold in Canada. From what I know about switching power supplies, the power cord shouldn't have much if any effect on the quality of power delivered. The switching frequency or duration (depending on design) would just increase to compensate for any losses in the wire used. Any rf picked up by the wire would be filtered by the power supply easily as it'd be much lower level than the noise needee to be filtered by the power supply's switching. Something to think about
 
OLED Burn In Risk - covered here. Don't assume it will happen to you, it depends on your usage.

Sony A8 has better built in sound, you need Philips 9 series to compare with sound quality.

Philips supports HDR10+ which the Sony does not.

I see upscaling mentioned above, but if you watch TV through an external tuner device and send the TV 4k already, no upscaling is handled by the TV at all. For example; the BT UHD Box. So its useless for one TV to have better upscaling than the other in this instance.

HDTVtest on youtube recently did a comparison of each brand TV.

Not being able to demo isn't a loss, if anything you are more likely to make the wrong decision by viewing a TV in a shop.
 
It is true that if you receive a 4k signal, the upscaler in the TV isn't being used, but the Sony TV has a feature similar to sharpening (beside the sharpening option actually) that when enabled takes 1080p on a 4k signal, and turns it into something that looks like ~1440p without any artifacting or appearance of post processing (and I mean any, I use it all the time it's so good). The option is called "Reality Creation". It goes from 0 to 100, and set to 20, it works perfectly for this and with 4k content. With 4k content, it increases the perceived resolution of it as well by a similar amount, with no unwanted effects.

When I can, I have a source match the content's resolution for upscaling on the TV to get the benefit of the TVs upscaling with the "Reality Creation" enhancement as well. If I have no choice of the source resolution, I just use "Reality Creation" on its own.

It sounds gimmicky, but marketing has to do something with the feature
 
It is true that if you receive a 4k signal, the upscaler in the TV isn't being used, but the Sony TV has a feature similar to sharpening (beside the sharpening option actually) that when enabled takes 1080p on a 4k signal, and turns it into something that looks like ~1440p without any artifacting or appearance of post processing (and I mean any, I use it all the time it's so good). The option is called "Reality Creation". It goes from 0 to 100, and set to 20, it works perfectly for this and with 4k content. With 4k content, it increases the perceived resolution of it as well by a similar amount, with no unwanted effects.

When I can, I have a source match the content's resolution for upscaling on the TV to get the benefit of the TVs upscaling with the "Reality Creation" enhancement as well. If I have no choice of the source resolution, I just use "Reality Creation" on its own.

It sounds gimmicky, but marketing has to do something with the feature
When you use it with a 4k source it won't be upscaling, its some form of sharpening/extra picture processing. Might work well together with upscaling on less than 4k sources. With 4k sources it may sharpen them more.

I don't have a problem with people lauding the upscaling of Sony TVs, they are very good. I just think a lot of people think its important without first considering they will actually use it or not... and this isn't aimed at you or anything, just a general comment.
 
When you use it with a 4k source it won't be upscaling, its some form of sharpening/extra picture processing. Might work well together with upscaling on less than 4k sources. With 4k sources it may sharpen them more.

I don't have a problem with people lauding the upscaling of Sony TVs, they are very good. I just think a lot of people think its important without first considering they will actually use it or not... and this isn't aimed at you or anything, just a general comment.

Thank you for restating what I said lol. Anyway, if you play a 1080p blu-ray, usually 1080p is sent to the TV (most blu ray players are 1080p). Players which upscale usually let you choose whether or not to use it. If you play a 1080p video with the TV through mass storage or over the network, it's being upscaled by the tv. If you're playing Netflix or Prime in an app, it's being upscaled by the TV. Playing PS4 /Xbox, upscaled by the tv. Unfortunately things like Apple TV can't be configured to output at the video resolution. In that case, with my Sony TV anyway, the reality creation post processing option set to 20/100 improves picture nicely with no unwanted effects. Similar amount of improvement is gained as using the built in upscaler instead of one that's sub-optimal
 
The philips is the best for 1080 cable tv content.. Nicest cleanest picture. But,.. I've come to this conclusion seeing these tv's next to each other in 2 different shops..
And as dodgexander says/wrote.. Not the best or the worst place.. But I question that..
 
Just trying to help the OP understand that its not upscaling. But something else you are talking about. OP needs to decide at what stage to do the upscaling.
Similar amount of improvement is gained as using the built in upscaler instead of one that's sub-optimal
I think this is your own view. Not sure it does anything but sharpen the image if you feed it with a 4k source.
 
Thanks for everybodies advice and help. My partner is now reluctant to have a 55" TV and her preference is the Sony KD48A9BU. I'm trying to persuade her a bigger TV is more immersive etc. Has anyone compared the 55A8 to the 48A9? They look like they have identical specifications, with the main differences being the stand and the remote? If the A9 is better than the A8 then I could live with the smalller TV. We sit around 10-12ft from the screen.
 
Aside from what you've mentioned the only difference I can see is with sound. The A8 has 1 less subwoofer and doesn't have auto sound calibration.

10-12ft away is really far to view, even from a 55".
 
Just trying to help the OP understand that its not upscaling. But something else you are talking about. OP needs to decide at what stage to do the upscaling.

I think this is your own view. Not sure it does anything but sharpen the image if you feed it with a 4k source.

Previously you framed things like you were correcting me, but you were just restating what I said. It was confusing. If you wanted to restate and expand, it would have been more useful.

To address your last sentence: no doubt sharpening is part of what happens to the image with "Reality Creation, but in the end "Reality Creation" and "Sharpness" have distinct effects on the image, they're different.
The function that Reality Creation performs seems to reverse the detrimental effect on video that devices with suboptimal upscaling have on it. I came to this conclusion because I have a device with good upscaling and one with not so good upscaling, and I played back the same content on both using my TV and enabling/disabling "Reality Creation".
 
@Michael7877 I've lost you here. All I'm saying is reality creation has nothing to do with upscaling if it can alter and improve a 4k signal post upscale. If the OP wants to buy a Sony TV because he values reality creation then that is another matter, but its almost certainly not upscaling.

I don't know for sure what reality creation is, like you I can only guess. I only mention sharpness because you made the comparison to sharpening. I realise (and read in your post) there's also a separate sharpening control, which exists on every TV. If I was to guess though, reality creation is nothing more than an intelligent post processing.

Since the OP mentioned they are interested in a TV with good upscaling, I'm not sure the relevance of this conversation any more. Perhaps if the OP does like the sound of reality creation though he, like you will see a benefit to a post upscaled 4k image.

The whole thing only started because I was trying to note its important to decide at which point you intend to upscale an image before assuming a TV with better upscaling is important. This only comes from countless experiences where I've seen people place upscaling as a high priority when shopping for a TV only to not even use, instead choosing to upscale at the source instead.
 

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