Forget Sony, Samsung, and LG – this rival OLED has all the ingredients to be the best TV of 2026

It’s early days for 2026 TVs, with some brands (Sony, for one) yet to reveal their full ranges – but I’ve already spotted a front-runner for TV of the year, and it’s probably not the model you’re expecting.

The model I’m talking about is the Philips OLED951.

In picture terms, this is Philips’ flagship TV for 2026, and while many brands seem to be taking a fairly evolutionary approach to their OLEDs this year, Philips is really pushing the boat out.

On paper, it ticks almost every box: picture performance, gaming features, spectacular flourishes and future-proofing.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that the on-paper promise will translate to real-world perfection, and we’ll have to conduct a full review before we can deliver our verdict on that.

But, having now briefly seen it in action, I think there’s a good chance the OLED951 can really deliver.

Here, then, are seven reasons I think this Philips flagship OLED could end up being the TV of 2026.

It’s an OLED

An obvious one this, but the Philips OLED951 is… well… an OLED.

That’s a good thing in my book. The RGB Mini LED invasion is upon us, and there are some very good RGB Mini LEDs already out and on the way (including one from Philips), but I’m yet to see any evidence that the technology’s various strengths are a match for the pixel-level contrast control of OLED.

Perfect black pixels next to bright white or coloured ones make for unbeatable contrast, which has benefits right across the picture, particularly in terms of solidity and perceived three-dimensionality.

An OLED-beating RGB Mini LED TV might one day materialise – I’m open to that – but I predict that in 2026, at least, the best TV will be an OLED.

Brighter than the LG G6

We’ve written plenty of times about how brightness is a long way from the most important thing for a TV to deliver.

Still, lots of brightness headroom can be useful for a TV to deliver the goods in a brightly lit room. It also adds a degree of future-proofing, just in case Hollywood suddenly starts mastering lots of movies to 4000 nits (something I see very little evidence of, for what it’s worth).

Brightness isn’t going to be an issue for the OLED951, though, because Philips claims it can hit a peak brightness figure of 4500 nits, and a full-screen brightness of 400 nits.

Those are improvements over last year’s already very bright OLED950 of 800 and 50 nits, respectively.

Those figures, if achieved, will also make the OLED951 a good deal brighter than the LG G6, which shares a ‘Meta 4.0’ Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel with it – something that Philips says is down to its unique picture engine.

But will those figures be achieved? Having seen the OLED951 running against the OLED950 (see the photo above), it certainly looks like it. The OLED951 looked so much brighter that the figures given actually seem conservative.

And this isn’t just brightness for the sake of brightness, either, because, as we’ve seen in our own testing, when increased brightness is combined with OLED’s perfect black and pixel-level light control, the result is even greater contrast, which, as mentioned above, tends to make images look more solid and three-dimensional.

That was certainly the case in the side-by-side demo – the OLED951 really popped.

Four HDMI 2.1 sockets and custom settings for every game

Finally, Philips’ flagship OLEDs (and most of its other models, in fact) will have four HDMI 2.1 sockets.

These will all be able to accept gaming signals of up to 4K/165Hz, complete with VRR and HDR, including in the Dolby Vision format.

Sure, LG and Samsung have been offering OLEDs with four HDMI 2.1 sockets for years, but when combined with everything else the OLED951 offers (more of which I’ll get to), that still makes it a tantalising proposition for gamers.

Another feature that will appeal to gamers like me is the ability to customise settings for individual titles.

These settings can be designed to improve the picture (extra brightness and vibrancy for Rocket League, perhaps, and a darker, broodier presentation for Alan Wake II), give you an advantage over online rivals (through an onscreen crosshair or enhanced shadow detail, for instance), or deliver geeky gaming info such as the current frame rate.

If you’re a gaming picture quality obsessive, that’s very neat.

Ambilight and AmbiScape

Look, I know it’s not to everyone’s taste, and I certainly don’t think it makes sense for all content, but Ambilight – which extends the onscreen action onto the wall around the TV in the form of coloured light – remains a spectacular feature.

And now your room lights can be synchronised with what you’re watching more easily, too. This isn’t an entirely new feature, but previously, you needed Hue bulbs.

Now, thanks to the new AmbiScape feature, lights that conform to the Matter standard will be supported – and there are loads of those. That will make it far more affordable and flexible to get your lounge lights in on the Ambilight action.

Again, this won’t be an upgrade for all content, but play the aforementioned Rocket League, and it’s impossible not to get an extra thrill when a goal creates a flash of brilliant colour right across your room. It works brilliantly for colourful animated movies, too, such as the Spider-Verse series.

Dolby Vision 2

Will Dolby Vision 2 be a big deal in 2026? There’s a strong possibility it won’t be, as we’ve still had no news on actual content in the format.

It is coming at some point, though, and our first looks at it in action have been very impressive, so if you’re buying a TV this year, it’s well worth considering going for a model that supports the format.

That makes Philips’ new OLED951, OLED911 and OLED811 particularly appealing, because they will be the first OLED TVs to support Dolby Vision 2. In fact, they will also support the even more advanced Dolby Vision 2 Max, which adds, among other things, the very interesting Authentic Motion feature.

The Dolby Vision 2 and 2 Max support will be added via a post-launch software update (October is the current ETA), but don’t go thinking that 2026 OLEDs from other brands will follow suit: Dolby Vision 2 also needs to be baked into the hardware, and based on what we’ve been told so far, this hasn’t been done in the case of, for example, LG’s new models.

Excellent anti-reflection tech

Fighting reflections is a key theme in current TV development.

It’s probably fair to say that Samsung is best at it: its top OLEDs suppress reflections incredibly effectively.

But it does this by using a matte panel, and that tends to make blacks look quite grey in a well-lit room.

The new Meta 4.0 OLED panel from LG Display, though, suppresses more reflections than the previous version while still retaining the glossy finish that allows it to produce almost perfect blacks, even in strong ambient light.

According to official figures, the reflectance has been reduced from 0.6 per cent to 0.3 per cent. That doesn’t sound like a huge change, but in reality, it makes a clear difference.

We first saw this new anti-reflection tech in the G6, which massively impressed us with its combination of reflection suppression and deep blacks, and it looked equally excellent in the demo of the OLED951 against last year’s OLED950.

This is one of those things that really comes down to taste, with some people being perfectly happy with the matte look of the Samsung models. I personally prefer the glossy look, though, and the new panel in the LG G6 and Philips OLED951 strikes the best balance of anti-reflectivity and black performance that I’ve so far seen.

Dual Engine picture processing

Those already in the know about Philips’ 2026 TV lineup might be wondering why I’m getting all excited about the OLED951 rather than the OLED911.

After all, everything I’ve written so far also applies to the OLED911, and the OLED911 also has a Bowers & Wilkins sound system that, if form is to be believed, will make it one of, if not the, best-sounding TV in its class.

The reason is that the OLED951 has the Dual Engine version of Philips’ new 10th Gen P5 AI processor, whereas the OLED911 has the single-chip version. This unlocks some extra picture processing features that should further improve certain things, such as bright details and banding suppression.

The difference perhaps won’t be huge – we’ll need to fully test both models to find out – but as someone who subscribes to the ‘all TVs should be partnered with a dedicated sound system’ philosophy, I’ll always choose the potential for better picture quality over a better sound system.

You may feel differently, of course, and that’s fine. If that’s the case, I strongly recommend you read Lewis Empson’s Philips OLED911 hands-on.

That also looks like an excellent TV – but on paper (and from what I’ve seen of it so far), the OLED951 is the one that ticks every box for me.

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