I want to be upfront and direct at the start of this review: This is the worst TV I have ever used, primarily because of the software. And my family have worked in broadcasting, so I've used a lot of TVs. I'm aware this is a slightly older model, but it's important to share my experience in case someone comes looking for information.

The interface is slow and laggy, even for the most basic of functions like showing the source selection list or the channel list. Occasionally inputs are completely ignored from the remote control despite the light on the TV itself blinking to show it's been received. A hard reset has been needed to fix this a handful of times, including one occasion where the TV was off and the Ambilight button worked fine but nothing else did. The remote itself is one of those "flat plastic button" types, where the buttons barely protrude from the plastic around them.

Switching between modes (e.g. antenna to HDMI) is often an arduous process navigating through menu levels: sources, wait, up, across, down, across, OK. Creating "favourites" lists for channels is possible, but you can't mix satellite and antenna, and I've had it erase my list at random. Searching through satellite channels can filter by free-to-air or encrypted, though there is no provision to show only free-to-air and those which your CAM can decrypt.

Multiple channels of the same name (e.g. regional variations) do not collapse to a single entry. At one point, an over-the-air update for Fransat (for which I have a CAM) somehow replaced the Philips interface, and non-Fransat channels were unavailable. This happened twice in total, until I found a setting deep in the menus to stop the TV doing this.

By default, every input source enables motion smoothing. This makes most broadcasts look a little odd, and makes sports like football downright nauseating to watch, with players ghosting if they change direction quickly. I disabled it for every input as soon as I could, and the result is that the panel itself is nice to watch when in the right picture mode. The Ambilight is actually quite pleasing, and is one of the few upsides to this set.

When the TV was first bought, I was able to navigate to a network drive and play video from it. At some point, again seemingly at random, that stopped being possible and now the set refuses to find anything on the network. It simply keeps asking me to enable some mode, which I keep doing to no avail. USB playback is great, including 4K HDR MKV files, but if a USB drive is still connected after power off then the TV regularly turns back on completely at random. This happens with multiple different drives.

The sound quality from this set is lacking too. It's considerably worse than a much older Samsung panel I use, but I almost feel like the aim for many modern TVs is to have you connect it up to an external speaker. You can do this either via the HDMI ARC, or the optical Toslink port. Output from the Toslink port for me was working fantastically, until I went to swap the cable.

Pulling downward (the normal way to release the friction fit) didn't budge the cable initially, and then the port on the TV had gripped the connector so hard that it tore the end off. No amount of cajoling has been able to free it, and Philips outright refuse to even look at it under warranty. This is not my first negative experience with Philips support.

Overall, the panel for this TV is good. If you get it in the right picture mode and processing, you can make it look quite passable especially with the Ambilight added for extra depth. Tuning is also good, with it happily supporting even DiSEqC 1.0 for up to four LNBs. But the software on it is abysmal; it is consistently frustrating, slow, and buggy, and the painful experience of using this TV - as well as the other non-software issues above - has put me off buying Philips TVs again.

The screen quality, clarity and refresh is genuinely amazing. It's the saving grace of the entire product.

Everything else though, is at best, weak. The sound is hollow, in every profile, presets and manual. I tried to hookup my soundbar, but the sound is out of sync with the tv, and while you can set an optical out delay, it desyncs with the integrated speaker (so you can't use it just to fill), or if you disable the speaker to rely on the soundbar, the desync only seems to apply in TV mode, not in any other app or source, so you need to regularly toggle it on and off through an awkward menu if you switch source often.

The apps seem to be one at a time, no background threads, and no save/restore state, so you can't switch contexts without losing what you were doing, especially annoying if you are streaming something over your network or watching youtube, then switch to any other source (even TV mode) it will lose where you were at, and doesn't support resume. Likewise with youtube, netflix and any other app I tried.

As for the TV mode, not sure if it's signal processor or the upscaler or what, but it either introduces jagged lines everywhere (instead of artifacts) or ghosts, drags/pulls, no matter the settings (tried every profile and setting I could find, it has quite a good range, but none of them are really great). It feels sluggish even when displaying the TV, in all modes. There are plenty of options for motion and compression/noise management, but none of them even come close to doing a good job. They best I could setup after a couple hours was 'well, I guess I can live with that'. Dvds and other low-res media, including streaming has similar problems.

Netflix and Prime are okay, not awesome, but my net isn't fast enough to stream 4k, so I'm probably watching 720p/1080p upscaled, it's 'fine'. If you're playing only UHD blu-ray tho, this screen really is great, the HDR is stunning. Works really well for Xbox and PS4 too. I suspect the 65" is just too big for the software/cpu to compensate for low-resolution content in time, so it has a lot of problems rendering anything smaller than full 4k.

The software is also fairly glitchy, 3 days in and it's already crashed and rebooted randomly a couple of times, froze up once when had to power off at the outlet, because the hardware power button (the only physical button) did nothing and it would not turn on. It doesn't make me optimistic for how well it will last.
Hopefully this can be improved by patches, but since this is last year's model, I'm not holding my breath.

Edit at 20 days. Revised to 2 stars: The software is really glitchy. Crashes every day (seems to be some kind of stack overflow or something cos it slows down and stutters shortly before rebooting), always interrupts whatever you're watching. Avoid this TV and anything using this software.

Ordered ar 5.30pm on day onearrived 10.30am day two so fantastic delivery as always with Prime.
TV itself is good. Picture is great, especially when using my ps4, the gaming setting and ultra hd is really maximised.
Ambilight is great and has multiple settings so can be used for ambient light, dynamically with the screen or a more party setting for music.
Alexa functionality is good thoigh. Similar to other reviews turning the tv on via Alexa doesn't always work but volume, channels and turning off has been pretty seamless.
Sound seems adequate but I generally use a soundbar for anything that requires a bit extra.
Main drawback is the general operating system. TV guide, settings etc are sluggish and sometimes unresponsive. Core apps like Netflix work well but doesn't seem so good with Prime video. Navigating from apps to tv can be a painful and once or twice I have lost patience and just turned off and on again. Controller is fine but very basic and lightweight.

Overall happy with the purchase and I think what you get by way of positives for the price do outweigh the negatives.

UPDATE 1/5/2022
Updates to the firmware have now removed the use of the USB port to play video content. Everything that used to play fine now has a 'cannot play video format' error message and you can't roll it back.

The picture is great especially if used with a 4k signal on either Prime/Netflix/YouTube/4k Blu-Ray etc. Great clarity and the HDR+10 is a useful addition if you come across such content. It has Prime and Netflix built in but the lack of app availability is limited otherwise, mainly to radio stations and foreign channels and movies. It does not support Android or Apple so many apps are unavailable. I wanted WWE Network but you can't get it so having to access that through the built in Internet Explorer, which is slow and often unresponsive, awkwardly moving an arrow cursor around the page.

The built in speakers are pretty good although they are underneath so if you use the stand/table top some sound gets muffled and lost into the table. Better if placed up on a wall where the speaker sound is more open. The Ambient light feature is a good addition but I can't really see what difference it makes other than I can use it to sort of light the room and save on main room lights. Its a clever function but I suspect the first thing to go on this TV is likely to be the bulbs which are inside the back panel. Alexa is ok but if you already have one in the room, you will need to silence the microphone on that one first or they just get confused!

It has a handy USB connection which I have been using to watch films on a USB stick. It seems to handle most formats of MP4 and MP3. What with a SKYQ UHD box, 4K Blu ray player and Sound Bar, the HDMI slots have quickly filled up, there is never enough!!

Its a decent bit of kit at this price bracket and overall I would recommend, even though its not perfect, but what is these days!

Awesome!!We bought this TV to replace our previous 32" model. I'd noticed for some time that the picture quality on our old TV appeared to be getting worse....either that or my cataracts were developing quickly. Well, the picture quality on the Philips TV convinced me that I needn't be overly concerned about my eyesight. Quality is simply amazing. Sound is also amazing. It is also easy to quickly alter picture and sound by using some pre-sets depending on whether you are watching a film, game, music etc. Now, shortly after getting the TV, my son-in-law came to visit. He was rather impressed to then said, "Oh, it's a 4K TV" "Is it?" I replied. He looked at my vague expression and said, "You don't know what 4K is, do you." I admitted defeat. He then explained that 4K was ultra high definition TV. Apparently there are not many 4K broadcasts at the moment although there is some 4K content on Prime Video and Youtube. He selected a 4K Youtube video of an aquarium to show me. It took a while but eventually I did manage to drag my jaw back off the floor. The video quality actually appeared to be more real that reality itself if that makes any sense. I now find myself often playing Youtube 4K video during breakfast; aquarium, log fires, snowfall all look wonderful.
The TV quickly links to Amazon Echo or you can talk to the TV through the remote. You can control some basic functions with your voice. I'll be honest, I find it really cool to simply say, "Alexa, turn on Philips TV" and the TV turns on (my name is actually Philip).
Ambilight was another feature that I didn't fully understand when I bought the TV. It is a collection of LED lights on the back of the TV that glow onto the wall behind your TV. Their colours change, synchronised to what ever picture is showing on the TV. Now, at first I thought that this was just a clever gimmick that wouldn't often get used, however I'm finding that it really is a very pleasant feature, causing a nice ambient glow in the TV corner of the room.
In short, a fantastic bit of kit. I've stopped worrying about my eyesight.

Update 2 - 1 month +a couple days
Tv started making a loud bong bong sound every 2 seconds, over everything we tried to watch. Unplugged the tv, let it sit for 20 minutes. Power back up and off we go loud bong bong every second - it was a form of torture !After a few hours figured out the tv has lost internet connection. I found it hard to believe the Tv was designed to do this. After further investigation I found it was Alexa built into the Tv. When it loses internet it demands remedy by playing bong bong every second..... Disabling Alexa appears to have fixed the issue. That was a very annoying few days to figure that out!

Update 1 month In - Still struggling to get it reliable
Flirting with returning this. It is so unreliable. It shows that Ambilight Hue is enabled every time you turn on the TV - but to actually turn it on you have to go dumpster diving deep in menus to turn Ambilight Hue Off then On again - then it it actually works - having to do this EVERY time you turn it on is miserable, but that pails in to insignificance with everything else.

Power up the TV and Sound system and you have a fight on your hands, first of all it will report that the cable to the sound system is missing, this will block you form changing to the tuner or anything else until you have unplugged and plugged the HDMI lead back into HDMI 1. Then you get picture but no sound. Philips shows it is send ing sound through the HDMI to the sound system but the sound system is not getting any sound. Change the Philips to use the TV Speakers and you get sound through the TV, change it back to use HDMI (sound system) and Philips declares it has lost the cable again. Keep messing around plugging things in and out again and it will eventually work.
I have tested the sound system and AppleTV against a Panasonic TV and it works great out of the box

If you spend an hour every time you turn it on it will eventually all work. You have to be determined.

Original Review shortly after purchase:
Ideally there would be a way to disable the Smart TV elements so you can add Smart TV elements through the HDMI ports supplied. The Menu and Smart TV elements are very slow and clunky - takes 4 seconds to respond to remote presses and the SmartTv overlay insists on coming up when not required.

I really like the picture. I really like the Ambilight.

For reasons best known to Philips the Ambilight +Hue option turns itself off and you have to menu folder dumpster diving to turn it back on.

Also discovered if you have too many bulbs/devices attached to the Hue Hub the Philips TV reports that there are no hue lights attached to the Hue Hub. That was head scratcher for a while, until I realised that the Philips TV adheres to the device/bulb limit much more strictly than the Hue Hub does.

I have added an AppleTV 4k and an Panasonic vsx-934 to it to make a great home theatre. This gives me Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos all the way.

The Satellite tuner is awful - it found over 800 channels 80% of which are locked and can't be accessed, the ones you want to access would normally come in a FreeSat package but that isn't there so it make navigating TV very painful indeed. The Freeview appears to be Ok - but I have a poor Freeview reception so wasn't able to test it.

Tried setting up the DVR on the TV but it just plain refuses to see any USB drives attached to it, will keep trying but harder than it should be.

The ARC and RC relay were surprising features that made very remote control everything else and the sound automatically relayed to the AV Receiver. Ran into issues of randomly losing sound when AppleTV 4k plugged directly into TV which was solved when I connected AppleTV into the receiver direct. I suspect it was to do with Audio formats that just confused the TV.

Once I had everything worked out, set a limited number of channels in the Sat TV Tuner to Favourites - it made using it much simpler.

All in all this would be much better TV if you could disable all the SmartTV parts and just lock it to only ever seeing/using one HDMI then plugging all the Smart stuff into the AV Receiver.

But thoroughly enjoying UHD Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos experience.

Just wish it had been a little easier to get all setup and working right.

There appear to be three variants of this Philips TV, with this being the middle one. The cheaper one doesn't have Alexa and comes with a different stand that doesn't cater to my needs. The more expensive one is 'compatible with Alexa' as opposed to Alexa being 'built in' to this one. That one also comes with Android for the smart stuff but I've read conflicting reports about that and was overall happy to go with this one.

I'm still happy I did. It's a great TV for picture, smart functionality and gaming, only let down by the tinny sound of the speakers. If you own or are planning to get a soundbar alongside it, everything else is just about five stars for the price range.

IMAGE QUALITY
Excellent. I'm restricted to TVs of this size and my previous one's claim that it could do HDR was never backed up by the washed out HDR image it produced. This finally feels like proper HDR. Obviously, it can't compete with the top end OLED displays and it's the darkest scenes that can sometimes show its limitations, but overall a very pleasing upgrade over my three-year-old Samsung.

Beyond HDR, the basic 4K, HD and SD images are all very pleasing with enough calibration options to find your sweet spot. I've started using the Natural mode on this. Don't @ me. Movie mode was usually my go-to before this model but Natural actually lives up to its name here.

If you're a fan of the infamous dynamic contrast option, you might be disappointed. You're always told to switch it off but I found it had its uses on my Samsung. Here I think it looks legitimately bad, but the picture never really needs it.

This TV did take a while to calibrate and I spent the first two days looking at and tinkering with the menus as much as I did watching anything but it's settled in nicely.

As for motion, it’s immaculate to my eyes. Perfect whether you’re watching a film or sport. Smooth, correct and no detectable ghosting.

VIEWING ANGLES
Often a bugbear, this TV is not completely immune to the problem of many modern TVs but it's acceptable. If you're not sat directly in front, the backlight can show through the edges in darker scenes and washes out the blacks but lighter scenes retain a good sense of colour and contrast. It's a shame about a bit of backlight bleeding here and there, then, but I've sent TVs back for viewing angle issues before and this one passes the test while, for the purposes of this review, not being perfect.

SOUND QUALITY
As I said at the start, it's the weak spot and the one downgrade from my Samsung. Again, a little bit of calibration can make it bearable to live with and the AI option does a decent job of doing the best with the speakers it has to work with, but the talk of Dolby Atmos is lost on said speakers. If you're in the least bit fussy about these things, a soundbar will be essential. With a soundbar, though, I think it has all the necessities to create a rich sound for this size of TV.

SMART APPS
The usual suspects are included. YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, iPlayer, Freeview Play, Rakuten TV, as well as the ITV, Channel 4 and 5 on demand apps. All very easy to pair your account on an existing device and the apps run fast and the wifi has no problems with keeping a 4k stream going. Image quality on them is impressive, although the recent football match on Amazon was missing the HDR signal. I don't use the absent Now TV so I'm pretty happy to carry on using these apps rather than adding another device to one of the three HDMI ports. That said, I did test it with an Xbox One X and it displayed the football match in HDR. Speaking of which...

GAMING
Gaming was a major factor for me and I'm happy with the results. Each HDMI port utilises full 4k HDR and whether it's the Nintendo Switch displaying games at 720p/1080p or the Xbox One X doing the full monty, both consoles in Game mode have been given a new lease of life in my home. Gears 5 on the Xbox, for example, looks absolutely stunning and a true step up from what I had before.

In terms of input lag, I don't know how to measure it properly (I've read 18ms and 20ms from various sources) so can only go on from what I feel. Which is to say, it's ok. I wouldn't say perfect but I don't feel like it's hindering me in the new Call of Duty. The HDMI ports also come with a monitor mode. I'm not entirely sure if it is what I think it is but the picture quality seems to be downgraded here IMHO (others might prefer the softer look) and has minimal calibration options so I would assume input lag is similarly decreased further over Game mode here. I struggle to be able to confirm that assumption while playing, though.

REMOTE CONTROL
Feels a bit cheap, to be honest, but it's alright and works fine. It could do with a few extras shortcut buttons. Also comes with a mic for Alexa, who is indeed on call to assist you and is easy to set up.

ALEXA
It's early days and also my first time with Alexa and I don't feel in a position to judge this aspect fairly so far. She can do stuff like operate the TV and tell me what the weather is for the weekend, though, and our relationship is blooming. Did I mention I really opted for this model number because of the stand?

AMBILIGHT
Oh yeah, best not to forget one of the main features. I like it and it works well. Particularly nice during these winter months. Who needs Christmas lights? I never knew I needed it but the area surrounding the TV feels duller if you turn it off and it's just about worth the additional energy consumption, whatever that may be.

FINAL WORDS
My first Philips TV since the 14" one with a built-in VHS player that got me through my formative years in my bedroom. It's been a brilliant reunion and I'm impressed with everything but the sound. For the price and size range, I couldn't ask for much more.

EDIT... After 10 months of ownership, there is one thing that's making me remove a star and that's the software.It's glitchy and annoying.My 2 TVs before this were Samsungs and I never had a problem.This one often won't load apps.So BBC iPlayer, for example, won't load and you have to turn the TV off and on.It re-orders the apps on the menu.We use BBC iPlayer a lot so I reordered the apps so that it's the first one.At some point later, it re-orders them so that Netflix is first again.Lastly, the adverts.Every now and then you get an advert for a new channel or something in the bottom left corner.Often, the only way to make it go away is to switch the TV off and on.It's like a little overlay but it sticks even of you open another app.Very annoying!

I bought a Samsung 49" 4K TV about 18 months ago and was generally really pleased with it.We moved things round and wanted something smaller as the Samsung was very imposing.I'd built an ambient light system for it with a Raspberry Pi and really liked it so the 43" Ambilight TV seemed a good choice.

Firstly, the picture quality is noticeably better than the Samsung.I don't usually pick up these things but watching His Dark Materials was a completely different experience on this.If I'm watching TV without my glasses and I put them on, you get that "wow" thing where the image is so much clearer.Moving from the Samsung to this gave me the same feeling.The contrast and sharpness of the picture is incredible.So a big thumbs up for that.

Sound is a bit pants but we had a nice soundbar on the Samsung that I've decommissioned for the moment.Using the built in speakers compared to a decent soundbar is never going to end well.I guess if that's what you're used to then it's fine.

The Ambilight is great.We've had the DIY system for about a year and it really does make a difference.The one I built had about 3 times the number of LEDs so the resolution of the light that it projected was a lot better but this is still really good.Ambient lighting that change according to the image is definitely something that we find gives a better overall experience.

The only thing that grinds my gears is the remote, and this is a really picky thing.Why have I got big Rakuten TV and Netflix buttons on it?I've paid for that for my convenience, not as an advertising platform for 2 paid services.

Anyway, annoying remote control aside, this is still a TV I'd recommend.

So far, so good, it ticks all the boxes of a good tv. The ambilight is amazing...really brings atmosphere to the room and is a visual treat.Sound is ok, however, I had to treat the tv to a soundbar which now gives a richer sound and makes it feel you're at the cinema when watching films. Definitely recommend.

******Update**** The TV is still amazing, however, the latest software update managed to muck up the connection between tv and remote control.

After a couple of days speaking with Amazon and Phillips, it seems the software for the tv completed successfully but it wasn't completed for the remote control, hence, every time we pressed the 'HOME' button on the remote control, it kept resetting the tv. This meant we could not access any of the tv settings.

After another few days, I had to download the updated software from phillips, buy a usb stick, unzip the downloaded software onto the stick and then plug it into the tv before turning it on in order for it to take the tv back to factory settings.Thankfully, after all this aggro, the remote control is working as it should with the tv.

The FLAW on this tv (and I think it's a big one) is the fact that you can only access the settings through the remote control and not the tv itself - I feel that, if we could have had access to the settings from the tv itself, it would have been really easy to take it back to factory settings in a flash. That said, I hope all future software updates are clean and that this problem does not happen again.

I purchased this TV (I'll call it the 'Philips' from now on) to replace my 40-inch Samsug HD set, which after 5 years was looking lost and lonely in the corner of my living room. I watch a lot of physical disc media as well as YouTube and Amazon Prime streams; I am very concerned with quality of picture detail, sound and colour, and felt after 5 years I must upgrade from HD to 4K UHD, despite not owning any 4K media. My understanding was that 4K would improve the quality of HD Blu-ray and DVD. The 65-inch screen size would allow me to display those physical media bonus features (photo galleries, advertisement literature, etc) at legible proportions.

I measured up the space I could allocate to a TV and 65 inches was just about right. It's vital you take measurements, because the TV at first looks gigantic until it is situated in its final resting place. Even better if you can go study a 65-inch TV in the real world so you're prepared for the size of it. I purchased the Philips via Amazon Prime with a £200 discount for £699 and it was delivered 48 hours later by two gentlemen who carried it into my living room.

The box is intimidating and heavy, approximately seven feet-long. The enclosed instruction sheet made the connection of the stand easy, though the sheer mass of the TV can make lying it flat to commence the operation quite tricky. The rear connections are easy to fit. The power cord is plugged into the opposite end of the set. My choice of TV is the silver rim, which is accompanied by a white back-panel (to reflect the Ambilight more efficiently). The remote-control is white and two AAA batteries are included. I stood my Philips on the existing reinforced glass, metal and wood cabinet. I was dubious concerning the stand because it seems very small compared to the set, but it's absolutely fine, heavy and sturdy (secured with seven screws, two clips and a white back-plate).

Onto the Philip's settings, of which there are many, which means, for a TV-phile like myself, a range of options to perfectly fine-tune all operations. I disabled all image enhancement filters because one should always discover what a TV's default standard is before fiddling with settings in case they are undesirable or superfluous; so far, I've seen no need to reactivate any. I wirelessly connected the Philips to my broadband, then paired the remote-control to the TV; no trouble at all. I don't watch anything but discs or internet streams, so skipped the TV channel detection and tuning systems.

I previously owned a Philips HD set with two-strip Ambilight and always enjoyed it. I jumped at the chance of obtaining a three-strip version covering a much larger area of wall. The new Philips set Ambilight is gorgeous, with many modes and options.

Now, and finally, the picture and audio quality. I played scenes from two Blu-rays ('Star Wars The Last Jedi' and a 'Hammer Horror film') to contrast two very different decades of film production. Star Wars was outstanding, a cinema-grade image; I was stunned how well a HD Blu-ray upscales. I am struggling to imagine how much better it could look via a 4K Blu-ray. I could clearly make out all the surface details of spacecraft, and reflections on the spacecraft portals. The surface of Crait (the mineral plant) looks beautiful, and the final battle there throws up so much texture and detail that it's almost 3D. The Hammer Horror film was full of grain, it being a lower-budget and older production, but every ounce of detail was present and looked larger than life on this massive screen; it made the 'horror' aspects once more seem creepy for this jaded old film buff. I also played some DVD format TV and film discs and they all look an order of magnitude superior to my old TV, even old black & white episodes of American shows from the 1950s that show no signs of enlargement deterioration and look better, more nuanced, than through my 40-inch HD Samsung.

Sound-wise, the Philips is quite good and I would advise you do not purchase a soundbar until you have studied the on-board audio quality because it's satisfying, particularly the AI-enhanced mode.

In conclusion - well, my praise is all over this review. This fantastic TV revitalises the home media experience and I can't wait to run all my favourite films and shows through it. It is a phenomenal piece of technology and I know that anybody upgrading from a smaller standard HD TV will be shell-shocked and delighted by the technological improvement. Don't feel intimidated by its size because the benefits are more than worth it. My set cost £699 via Amazon Prime and it's the best £699 I've ever parted company with.