Philips' Ambilight Plus is looking unmissable

Mike Lowe discusses the OLED 959's monolithic design, Ambilight Plus' debut, and mega Bowers & Wilkins soundsystem

- Mike Lowe

Gone are the days of all major TV brands launching their latest sets at the Consumer Electronics Show in early January. Instead there’s a staggered launch cycle to see what the future of TV is all about and Philips held back a few weeks before revealing its 2024 range.

The Philips OLED 909 and OLED 959 models both use the brightest consumer OLED panel out. That panel is supplied by LG, as the Korean maker is the key producer of such things, but Philips adds its own processing to give its images distinction when it comes to picture quality.

But it’s not actually the panel or the brightness or the processing that’s most caught my attention about Philips’ forthcoming OLED TVs. It’s Philips Ambilight – the rear-positioned LED lighting technology that expands an on-screen image beyond the panel and onto surrounding surfaces – that sees a real step-up in the 2024 range for a couple of reasons.