two minute review
Everyone is going crazy for mini LED TVs in 2022, and we can see why. They offer high brightness and exceptional contrast in one package. But can the technology really challenge OLED for the title of best TV technology?
Of the Philips 9636 models, we're ultimately not entirely convinced, but make no mistake, the Philips 65PML9636 is surely one of the best non-OLED TVs you're likely to like.
From an imaging perspective, it all comes down to deliciously deep black levels. Created using the sets' 1096 mini LED zones that create a 32x32 grid of individually dimmable zones, the contrast between light and dark, and the attractive look of the dark, is unlike any other LCD TV we've seen.
Can this new backlight technology reach OLED levels? In black levels, almost; the 2000PML65's 9636 nits peak brightness (1500 nits on the 75PML9636) makes it noticeably brighter and thus arguably more color accurate when viewed in HDR, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision.
However, when looking at the 65PML9636 alongside an OLED of the same size, we did notice slight difficulties with contrast, shadow detail, and movement. Philips and its state-of-the-art P5 image processing engine got rid of most of the ugly LCD during high-contrast scenes and fast-paced action scenes, but not all. You'll always find better motion handling, and therefore more detail, on OLED TVs.
Elsewhere, the 9636 impresses with a rather slick Android 10 UI (flagship apps galore and Google Assistant), a sleek leather remote, and a built-in Bowers & Wilkins speaker with Dolby Atmos. The latter impresses, although 'AI mode' doesn't do much, so we'd like to see a 'music mode' shortcut on the remote.
Finally, Philips' Ambilight polarized lighting feature, included in the 9636 in its four-sided form (best if you're wall-mounting the TV - this option is included in the box). It's colourful, sharp and really gives content a wow factor when viewed in a blackout, which the 9636's new panel makes perfectly possible.
Overall, the 9636 impresses as both a tech demo and a great value all-in-one TV that significantly bridges the gap to OLED. There's room for improvement here, but it's solid performance for the successor to traditional LED-LCD TVs.
Price and release date
The 9636-inch 65 is one of four mini LED TVs in the Philips 2022 TV lineup. It and its 75-inch partner in the 9636 series have the same Bowers+Wilkins speaker support as the OLED+ series. 2021.
The 9636 series and step-down 9506 series feature 4K resolution, mini-LED backlight technology, and four-sided Ambilight, but while the 9636 has a brightness of 2000 nits and supports Bowers and Wilkins 3.1.2ch, 70W speakers, this the latter has 1500 nits, fewer locally dimmable zones, and weaker built-in speakers.
Here is the price breakdown of each model:
- Philips 65PML9636 (1999€)
- Philips 75PML9636 (2399€)
- Philips 65PML9506 (€2,099)
- Philips 75PML9506 (2199€)
Integrated
- Four-sided Ambilight TV
- Bowers & Wilkins 70W 3.2.1ch speaker stand
- 4 HDMI 2.1 inputs
Filled with an ultra-slim brushed aluminum silver bezel, the 9636 is a stylish TV, the highlight being the built-in Bowers & Wilkins speaker mount. It can't be removed and can't be used with other devices (there's a proprietary cable that connects it to the TV), but it can stay in place if the 9636 is wall-mounted (there's a 400x200mm VESA mount in the box). .
Philips 9636 Specifications
Screen sizes: 65, 75 inches | 4K: Yes | HDR10: Yes | GLH: Yes | Dolby Vision/Atmos: Yes/Yes | Panel technology: LED-LCD | Smart TV: Android TV | Curved: No | 3D: Yes | Inputs: 4x HDMI 2.1 (1x eARC), 3x USB, RF, satellite, ethernet | Outputs: optical, subwoofer, headphones
This speaker measures 880x100x286 mm (for the 65PML9636 and 75PML9636). The speaker design is surely its tweeter design on top, though the 9636's overall design is four-sided Ambilight, which can be kept four-sided for wall mounting and changed to three-sided if not.
The 9636 has many ins and outs. Good to see the HDMI 2.1 inputs here: two ARC-compatible on the side and two on the rear (including one eARC-compatible for Freesync and VRR) along with three USB, Ethernet LAN, satellite and RF inputs, and outputs for audio. optical, headphone and a useful subwoofer output.
One of the HDMI inputs handles 4K at 120Hz, variable refresh rates (VRR), and auto low latency mode (ALLM) for gaming, but only at half the resolution.
A highlight of the 9636's final design is the remote, a long, slim, leather-wrapped aluminum case that lights up when pressed. It's easy to use and the buttons are well placed, but while we appreciate the Netflix and Amazon Prime shortcut buttons, we're not sure UK users would want Rakuten TV… surely Disney+ would be better?
Smart TV (Android TV)
- android 10
- Quad core processor
- Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney+, Youtube and Apple TV
The 9636 has the Android 10 operating system which has a colorful user interface for Smart TV options. By default, the 9636 comes with apps; Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney+, YouTube, Apple TV, all in 4K, plus BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4, My5, UKTV, Red Bull TV, Spotify and the Google Play Store.
También hay Rakuten TV and a web browser. Naturally, it also has the Google Play app store for Android TV, so you can sign in to a Google account and download other apps to its 16GB innards, but you don't have to. hacer. In general, the attention is centered in the discovery of content and the content personalizado.
Philips provides its quick menu for choosing a source and changing picture and sound settings, but it's not always that easy to use.
In addition to some keyframe settings hidden too deep in the system, we had some trouble accessing picture and sound settings when apps were running. For example, we couldn't access the Quick Menu or Ambilight menus from BBC iPlayer; call the quick menu and the app just closes, returns to the home screen and only then does the context menu appear.
We were also disappointed that our Virgin Media set-top box was not automatically selected as a source when switched on.
Image quality
- P5 AI Picture Perfect Engine
- Dolby Vision/HDR10+/HDR10/Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG)
- 120Hz variable refresh rate
What is the interest of the Philips 9636? With OLED everywhere, even across the entire Philips TV range, the decision to also have a few different high-spec LCD TV options might seem strange.
In short, is mini-LED better than OLED? The Philips 9636 offers bold performance, and it greatly impresses in brightness, contrast and colour, but in a power outage it doesn't quite reach the levels of the best OLED TVs.
The 9636 uses Mini LED backlighting, the latest and greatest in LCD TV technology. The LEDs that make up its direct LED backlighting are so miniaturized that 1024 independently dimmable zones are slotted into the panel in a 32x32 grid. It's impressive, but it's still not pixel-level control like you'd find on an OLED.
The 9636 is bright across the board, with no obvious LED clusters, and only seems to suffer from a slight reduction in contrast and color if viewed from a wide angle.
With excellent color reproduction, it is also capable of achieving very deep blacks and, just as importantly, deep blacks and bright whites side by side without any noticeable spillage between areas or light haloing (something also known as flowering). So how black are black people? They're decent, inky black, though we did notice during a few scenes that there was a slight loss of detail inside.
Sure, there's the odd moment where you see bright white letters on a black background that form a halo and stars in the night sky that aren't quite as bright as on an OLED, but that's never a major issue. . The subtitles seem perfectly legible.
The Phillips P5 image processing engine features plenty of image adjustments, though they're not particularly easy to access. It's only when you're viewing regular fare that the 9636's AI Picture Style menus come to life.
Here you have a few presets to choose from, including Vivid, Home Theater (which introduces smooth enough video interpolation), Standard, Filmmaker Mode (which removes all processing and suffers from motion blur), Game, Monitor, ISF Day, ISF Night, and Calman (an industry standard color accuracy calibration package).
We opted for home theater for TV and ISF Day and ISF Night for movies, but the main problem remains that the 9636 makes it difficult to balance realistic skin tones and perfect color saturation in the rest of the image.
When it comes to HDR, the 9636 has you covered, with support for HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision and HLG, the latter of which is used by broadcasters; a presentation of Planet Earth II on the BBC iPlayer app showcased the 9636's abilities in color and detail.
While reviewing Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime Video in Dolby Vision, we noticed that in some night scenes it was very difficult to see what was going on, with bright streetlights in dark science lacking in flavor.
The 9636 also offers HDR10+Adaptive, which automatically activates whenever an HDR format type is detected. What it's doing here is measuring ambient light levels in a room and adjusting the brightness of HDR content on the screen on a scene-by-scene basis, but it seems to work just fine in a living room. Look into HDR and you'll get AI picture style options like HDR Vivid and HDR Home Cinema and, where available, Dolby Vision Bright (Philips' own mode) and Dolby Vision Dark (the original Dolby Vision mode).
At the other end of the scale, the 9636 impresses with...