The Philips 974 Series OLED is a Sam's Club exclusive that's only available in the US. Unlike the Philips OLED models released in Europe, this model is made by the budget-friendly Skyworth brand, which licensed the Philips name in North America. Despite its cheap price tag, the TV has numerous modern features such as HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on two ports, 4k @ 120Hz, VRR, Dolby Vision, and HDR10+. The TV runs the Roku TV OS smart system, which supports some smart features like voice control, and gives you access to a wide variety of streaming apps. We bought and tested the 65-inch model, which is the only size available.
Our Verdict
The Philips OLED TV is decent for mixed usage. It looks good in a dark room thanks to its perfect blacks and vibrant colors. However, it's not bright enough to handle glare in a well-lit room, despite having solid reflection handling. HDR content also lacks impact due to this limited brightness. The TV has a full suite of gaming features to take advantage of your modern console, and its wide viewing angle makes it a solid option for watching TV with a group of friends. Just make sure you use it in a dimly lit room.
Near-infinite contrast ratio for perfect blacks with no haloing around bright highlights.
Very wide viewing angle for a consistent image from the sides.
Colors are vibrant and accurate in SDR.
Direct light sources are noticeable on the screen.
Too dim in SDR to overcome glare in well-lit rooms.
Poor HDR brightness leads to a lackluster HDR experience.
The Philips OLED TV is good for a home theater overall. Like any OLED, you get perfect black levels with no haloing, so the image has nice depth to it. Colors are vibrant enough to enjoy, and they're very accurate in SDR without needing calibration. HDR color accuracy is only decent, so enthusiasts will likely want to get the TV calibrated. Unfortunately, the TV is very dim. This doesn't matter too much for viewing SDR content in a dark room, but highlights and bright scenes don't pop out as they should in HDR, so HDR movies and shows lack impact.
Near-infinite contrast ratio for perfect blacks with no haloing around bright highlights.
Colors are vibrant and accurate in SDR.
Doesn't passthrough most DTS audio formats.
Poor HDR brightness leads to a lackluster HDR experience.
Noticeable stutter due to the TV's fast response time.
Poor low-quality content smoothing.
The Philips OLED TV is mediocre for bright rooms. Color vibrancy and the deepness of blacks are mostly unaffected by ambient lighting, so you're not making a big trade-off with image quality when you have your lights on. The TV's handling of direct reflections is okay, but you still see mirror-like reflections on your screen if you have a light source placed opposite it. Unfortunately, this model has poor peak brightness, so it doesn't overcome glare in a bright room. Because of this, the TV is best suited for a dimly lit room.
Colors are vibrant and accurate in SDR.
Blacks remain deep and colors stay vibrant in a room with ambient lighting.
Direct light sources are noticeable on the screen.
Too dim in SDR to overcome glare in well-lit rooms.
The Philips OLED TV is not a bad model for watching sports, as long as you're not in a bright room. Even though the TV has solid reflection handling overall, this is a very dim TV that doesn't overcome glare in a well-lit room, and it's much better suited for a dimly lit setting. Outside of that, you get vibrant colors that are mostly accurate, so jerseys and playing fields look lifelike. Additionally, motion in fast sports like racing is crystal clear thanks to the TV's nearly instant response time. It even has a very wide viewing angle, so its image quality holds up when you're watching from an angle.
Very wide viewing angle for a consistent image from the sides.
Colors are vibrant and accurate in SDR.
Direct light sources are noticeable on the screen.
Too dim in SDR to overcome glare in well-lit rooms.
Poor low-quality content smoothing.
The Philips OLED TV is a very good gaming TV overall. It has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on two ports, 4k @ 120Hz, and VRR, so it pairs great with modern consoles. It delivers low input lag for a responsive feel, and its nearly instant pixel transitions lead to sharp, clear motion. It looks good in a dark room when gaming in SDR, thanks to its vibrant colors and perfect blacks. Unfortunately, the TV is very dim, so it's not suitable for bright rooms. Furthermore, HDR games lack impact since highlights and bright moments don't stand out the way they should.
Low input lag, especially at 120Hz, for a very responsive experience.
Nearly instantaneous pixel transitions for no noticeable blur behind fast motion.
Colors are vibrant and accurate in SDR.
Poor HDR brightness leads to a lackluster HDR experience.
The Philips OLED TV has poor brightness overall, which is its one major flaw. It's not nearly bright enough in SDR to overcome glare in a bright room. HDR content looks muted since the TV isn't bright enough to make highlights in darker scenes pop, and bright scenes look dim.
Too dim in SDR to overcome glare in well-lit rooms.
Poor HDR brightness leads to a lackluster HDR experience.
Like all OLEDs, the Philips OLED TV has perfect black levels. Blacks are deep and inky when viewed in a dark room, with no haloing around bright highlights.
Near-infinite contrast ratio for perfect blacks with no haloing around bright highlights.
The Philips OLED TV has good colors overall. Its SDR color volume is good enough that you enjoy vibrant colors in most SDR content. Additionally, the TV has excellent out-of-the-box color accuracy in SDR, so colors mostly look the way they should. On the other hand, bright colors in HDR content are muted due to the TV's limited brightness capabilities. Colors in HDR aren't as accurate as they are in SDR, but they're still decent, and most people will be satisfied.
Colors are vibrant and accurate in SDR.
Note: We're in the process of improving our tests related to image processing, but this score should give you a general idea of how a TV performs overall with its image processing capabilities.
The Philips OLED TV has unremarkable image processing. It has very good gradient handling, so you barely see any banding in color gradients. Its PQ EOTF tracking is decent, but some scenes are either darker or brighter than intended. Unfortunately, the TV's 'Noise Reduction' slider does nothing at all, so low-quality content has visible artifacts present. On the other hand, the TV does an acceptable job upscaling low-resolution content, but some finer details are hard to make out.
Poor low-quality content smoothing.
The Philips OLED TV has excellent responsiveness while using its dedicated gaming mode. The TV has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on two ports, 4k @ 120Hz, and VRR, so it's fully compatible with the Switch 2, PS5/PS5 Pro, and Xbox Series X|S. You also get a responsive feel when gaming due to its very low input lag, and fast motion is clear thanks to its nearly instant pixel transitions.
Low input lag, especially at 120Hz, for a very responsive experience.
Nearly instantaneous pixel transitions for no noticeable blur behind fast motion.
We're in the process of fixing the way we evaluate a TV's overall motion handling. This section is currently broken, and the score isn't indicative of how well a TV handles motion overall.
Performance Usages
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We bought and tested the 65-inch Philips 974 Series OLED (65OLED974/F7). This TV is only available in one size and is exclusive to Sam's Club in the US. It comes with a three-year manufacturer's warranty. This model isn't comparable to any of the Philips OLED TVs available in Europe.
| Size | Model |
|---|---|
| 65" | 65OLED974/F7 |
Our unit was manufactured in December 2024, as seen on the label.
Popular TV Comparisons
The Philips 974 Series OLED is the most affordable OLED on the market, but it has one major flaw. This is a very dim TV that's not nearly bright enough for well-lit rooms, so it's best suited for watching content in a dark room. Even then, HDR content looks lackluster since the TV isn't bright enough to make highlights pop. You can get superior brightness and better performance overall by spending a bit more on other entry-level OLEDs like the LG B4 OLED.
For more options, check out our recommendations for the best OLED TVs, the best gaming TVs, and the best TVs under $1,000.
The LG C5 OLED is better than the Philips 974 Series OLED. Both TVs display perfect blacks, but the LG is significantly brighter in HDR, so it displays an image with noticeably brighter highlights and more vibrant colors. The extra brightness of the LG also means it's much better suited for bright rooms. On top of that, the LG supports 144Hz and BFI and has superior image processing, so it's the more well-rounded option.
The LG G5 OLED and the Philips 974 Series OLED are both WOLED models, but they aren’t on the same playing field. The LG is the significantly better TV, with superior brightness, reflection handling, image processing, colors, and accuracy. All of this leads to an image that impresses more in a dark room with all types of content. The LG is also suitable for the brightest rooms, whereas the Philips is so dim that it’s only suitable for dark environments. Finally, the LG supports 165Hz and BFI, making it the better gaming TV overall.
The LG B4 OLED and the Philips 974 Series OLED both display perfect blacks, but the LG is the better TV all around. The LG is a lot brighter in SDR, so it fights more glare in a well-lit room. Additionally, the B4 is much brighter in HDR, so highlights and bright scenes pop out more, leading to a more impactful HDR experience. The LG also has superior image processing and is the more accurate TV out of the box, so it provides better image quality that stays closer to the content creator’s intent no matter what content you’re watching.
The Samsung S90D OLED is much better than the Philips 974 Series OLED. Due to its QD-OLED panel, the Samsung displays colors that are significantly more vivid and punchy. The Samsung has superior brightness overall, so it's more well-suited for rooms with the lights on, and it provides a more impactful HDR experience. Image processing is also superior on the Samsung, and it's more accurate in HDR out of the box, so all types of content look better on it. If you're a gamer, you also get better performance on the Samsung, since it supports 144Hz and has an optional BFI feature.
We buy and test dozens of TVs yearly, taking an objective, data-driven approach to deliver results you can trust. Our testing process is complex, with hundreds of individual tests that take over a week to complete. Most of our tests use specially designed test patterns that mimic real content, but we also use the same sources you have at home to ensure our results match the real-world experience. We use two main tools for our testing: a Colorimetry Research CR-100 colorimeter and a CR-250 spectroradiometer.
Test Results
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The Philips OLED TV has poor HDR brightness. Smaller highlights barely pop in darker scenes, and entirely bright scenes look dim, so HDR content lacks impact.
Our results above are with the TV set to HDR Dark with 'HDR Tone Mapping' disabled. Below are the results with this feature turned on, which increases the brightness of the image at the cost of accuracy.
- Hallway Lights: 415 cd/m²
- Yellow Skyscraper: 390 cd/m²
- Landscape Pool: 184 cd/m²
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The TV is slightly brighter in Game Mode, but it's barely noticeable.
Our results above are with 'HDR Tone Mapping' disabled. Below are the results with this feature turned on, which increases the brightness of the image at the cost of accuracy.
- Hallway Lights: 430 cd/m²
- Yellow Skyscraper: 372 cd/m²
- Landscape Pool: 116 cd/m²
The Philips OLED TV has poor SDR brightness. It's not bright enough to overcome glare in even moderately lit rooms, so it's best suited for dim and dark settings.
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The TV has a nearly infinite contrast ratio, giving it perfect contrast. Due to OLED's self-lit pixels, it displays bright highlights next to perfect inky blacks, making it very impressive in a dark room.
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Since OLEDs don't use lighting zones and instead have individual pixels that can be lit up to their maximum brightness next to pixels that are turned off, there's no haloing when bright elements are surrounded by deep blacks.
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This TV is an OLED without a backlight, so its self-lit pixels give it the same performance as a TV with perfect local dimming and no zone transitions. We still film the zone transition video so you can see how it compares to an option with local dimming.
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Because OLEDs can turn off individual pixels, the TV has perfect black uniformity with no halo effect around bright objects.
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The Philips OLED TV has good SDR color volume. Like almost any TV, it has full coverage of the most commonly used BT.709 color space. It also covers the vast majority of the DCI-P3 color space, but it does struggle with the lightest colors. Still, it's a decent TV to watch the rare SDR content mastered in the DCI-P3 color space, or if you like to force BT.709/sRGB content into DCI-P3 for increased color saturation.
Unfortunately, its coverage of the widest BT.2020 color space is unremarkable, and here, it struggles to cover most shades. It's not a good choice to watch the odd SDR content mastered in this very wide color space, and colors lack the vibrancy they should have if you like to force normal SDR content into BT.2020 for the most vivid colors possible.
| Volume ΔE³ | DCI-P3 Coverage |
BT.2020 Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| L10 | 90.44% | 60.85% |
| L20 | 96.27% | 66.23% |
| L30 | 98.03% | 68.83% |
| L40 | 98.50% | 71.23% |
| L50 | 98.49% | 71.94% |
| L60 | 97.96% | 71.19% |
| L70 | 92.12% | 61.25% |
| L80 | 87.69% | 55.07% |
| L90 | 82.79% | 51.67% |
| L100 | 50.48% | 35.68% |
| Total | 92.27% | 63.12% |
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The TV has decent HDR color volume. It displays dark, saturated colors very well, and its ability to display bright whites is okay. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the luminance needed to display bright colors with impact, so colors look muted in HDR content.
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The Philips OLED TV has excellent SDR color accuracy out of the box. Its white balance is outstanding overall, with just a bit too much blue and not quite enough red in some shades of gray. This partially contributes to the TV's slightly too cool color temperature, but it's still close enough to 6500K that most people won't notice the difference. Gamma is very close to 2.2, but darker scenes are displayed dimmer than intended. Still, color accuracy is outstanding overall, with only minor inaccuracies that even color purists won't notice.
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If you want the most accurate image possible, this model is easy to calibrate and has fantastic accuracy afterwards. Any minor issues in white balance, color temperature, gamma, and color accuracy are gone, leaving you with an SDR image that is incredibly accurate.
See our full calibration settings.
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This model only has decent HDR color accuracy out of the box. Its white balance is okay overall, but there are errors throughout most shades of gray. Color temperature is still close to 6500K, but the image is a bit too cool. Overall color accuracy is decent, but there's mapping errors throughout its range of colors, most notably in well-saturated colors.
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After calibration, the TV has very good HDR color accuracy. Its white balance is now great overall, but it's not perfect, as there are still inaccuracies in some dark grays and mid grays. Color accuracy is good overall, but colors still have errors that will bother enthusiasts, especially in warmer tones. Color temperature is unchanged, and it's still slightly cooler than the industry standard 6500K.
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The TV has decent PQ EOTF tracking overall. Blacks and highlights are displayed dimmer than intended, and some midtones are displayed brighter than they should be. There's a sharp cutoff at the TV's peak brightness, which means any details in specular highlights are lost. This is a bit unfortunate for a TV this dim, since you're losing a lot of detail in bright areas of the image.
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Unfortunately, this model has poor, low-quality content smoothing. The 'Noise Reduction' slider has no impact on the image at all, so the TV does nothing to reduce artifacts in low-bitrate content.
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The TV has mediocre upscaling capabilities. Some details are preserved, and larger text is clear enough to read, but any finer details are hard to make out, and the image looks a bit soft and muddy.
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The TV has very good HDR native gradient handling. There's some noticeable banding in dark grays and dark greens, but all other colors have minimal banding or no banding at all.
The Philips OLED TV has low input lag when using Game Mode, resulting in a responsive gaming experience.
This model supports all common formats up to 4k @ 120Hz. It displays chroma 4:4:4 properly with the 'HDMI Mode' set to 'Standard,' which is important for clear text from a PC.
The TV supports FreeSync and HDMI Forum VRR. It's also G-SYNC compatible, ensuring a nearly tear-free gaming experience from any VRR-enabled source. It works well across the TV's entire refresh rate range and supports sources with Low-Frame-Compensation (LFC), which ensures your games remain nearly tear-free even when your frame rate drops very low.
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The TV's CAD at its maximum refresh rate of 120Hz is fantastic. Pixels transition to their target RGB level almost instantly, so fast motion is very sharp.
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The TV's CAD at 60Hz is superb, and most transitions from one RGB level to another are nearly instantaneous. However, there's some persistence blur when gaming at 60Hz, so fast motion isn't as crisp as it is at higher refresh rates.
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The Philips OLED TV is fully compatible with everything the PS5 offers, like 1440p @ 120Hz and 4k @ 120Hz, as well as HDMI Forum VRR. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to worry about switching to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag.
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The Philips OLED TV is fully compatible with everything the Xbox Series X|S offers, including 1440p @ 120Hz, 4k @ 120Hz, HDMI Forum VRR, FreeSync Premium Pro, and Dolby Vision gaming. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to worry about switching to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag.
Unfortunately, due to the nearly instantaneous pixel response time of the TV, there's stutter with low frame rate content, which is most noticeable during slow panning shots.
This TV automatically removes 24p judder from all sources, even from sources that can only send a 60Hz signal, like a cable box.
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The TV has a nearly instantaneous response time, resulting in incredibly clear motion with almost no blur behind fast-moving objects when watching content. It's a bit slower than other OLEDs with some transitions, but this isn't noticeable when watching content.
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The Philips OLED TV doesn't have a traditional backlight and doesn't use pulse-width modulation (PWM) to dim each pixel, but it's not completely flicker-free. There's a slight dip in brightness that corresponds to the TV's refresh rate. This is very different from the PWM flicker on TVs with LED backlights and occurs on every OLED we've tested. It's not noticeable, and most people won't be bothered by this, but it can still bother people who are extra sensitive to flicker.
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The TV doesn't support black frame insertion (BFI), which helps reduce persistence blur.
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The Philips OLED TV has an optional motion interpolation feature to help improve the appearance of motion, but it doesn't work well. With the feature activated, there are noticeable artifacts around characters, and the entire image looks blurry during both slow and fast camera movements.
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The TV's direct reflection handling is alright. It reduces the intensity of direct reflections a bit, but reflections from lamps or windows opposite the screen are still distracting.
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The TV has excellent total reflection handling. Its glossy screen finish significantly reduces the intensity of reflections caused by ambient lighting, and there's no light banding or other distracting artifacts.
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The Philips OLED TV has good color vibrancy in a bright room. Colors barely lose any vibrancy, and they remain well-saturated in a room with ambient lighting.
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Like all OLED TVs, this model has a very wide viewing angle. This makes it a great choice for a wide seating arrangement, as the image doesn't lose brightness and blacks remain deep when viewed at an angle. There's some color shifting and a very slight green tint at more aggressive angles, but the tint isn't as noticeable as it is on some LG OLEDs.
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This TV has very good gray uniformity overall. There's some slight discoloration across the screen, giving the TV a bit of a pink or green tint in different areas. If you look closely during scenes with near blacks (5% gray), there are some faint vertical lines on the panel, but these aren't as noticeable after the TV is broken in or when viewed from a normal viewing distance.
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The TV uses a WOLED panel with a RWBG pixel structure where all four pixels are never lit at the same time. Due to its subpixel layout, it has minor issues with displaying text on Windows since ClearType isn't well optimized to non-RGB subpixel layouts, but most users won't be bothered by this.
The white subpixel does an excellent job helping the TV display bright whites, but it dilutes the color purity of greens and reds.
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The TV supports the full 48Gbps bandwidth of HDMI 2.1 on HDMI ports 3 and 4. HDMI 1 is the eARC port, which is great if you have a soundbar and multiple modern consoles that you want to plug into the TV. However, this isn't good for those with an HDMI 2.1-capable receiver who need a full bandwidth HDMI port that is also the eARC port.
The Philips OLED TV passes through all Dolby Digital options. Although it supports DTS 5.1, it doesn't passthrough the more advanced DTS audio formats commonly used on physical media.
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The Philips OLED TV has a sleek design, with thin bezels that are barely visible when watching TV. It looks quite good for a budget OLED.
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The TV is held by two feet that support it well, and there is minimal wobble when cleaning the TV screen. The feet lift the TV about 3.27 inches above the table, so pretty much any soundbar will fit underneath without blocking the screen.
Footprint of the 65-inch stand: 40.63" x 12.76"
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The back of the TV is pretty standard for an OLED and resembles the back of the LG C5 OLED, albeit less stylish. The inputs are on the left side of the TV, which makes them easy to access if you have the TV on the stand. However, they're a bit hard to reach when the TV is wall-mounted. Unfortunately, there are no clips or grooves to help with cable management.
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The TV is built solidly, and our unit has no glaring issues with quality control. There's a bit of wobble when cleaning the screen, and some slight flexing on the back panel, but this is normal.
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The TV runs Roku TV, which is easy to use. It automatically enters 'PC Mode' when connected to a computer, which locks you out of certain settings like motion clarity, and you can't deactivate 'PC Mode' with a computer connected. This is fine for most PC gamers, but it's not ideal if you use your computer for multimedia and want access to all of its settings.
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Unfortunately, like all TVs we've tested that run the Roku OS, there are large ads on the home screen, and you can't get rid of them.
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- Remote (with 2x AAA batteries)
- User manuals
- Power cable
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The Philips OLED TV has a decent frequency response. The TV speakers don't produce much bass, but they do get quite loud. The sound profile is well-balanced enough that dialogue is clear at most volume levels. However, voices are a bit hard to hear during action scenes when you have the speakers at maximum volume.