T3 Awards 2019: the finest TV you can buy for under £1000 is Philips 7334

published 5 June 2019

Looking for the best new TV under £1,000? This one is so new that it's not quite out yet. The 4K HDR Philips 7334 LED television (or 55PUS7334/12 to give it its full title) was set for release by now but has been delayed just a smidge. We liked it so much that we are still crowning it Best TV under £1,000 in the 2019 T3 Awards.

Best TV not under £1,000

While there are a lot of fantastic TVs around the £1000 mark, some cut corners in one or two areas in order to force the price down. The Philips' 7334, by contrast (and it has excellent contrast), really is the complete package.

The styling is contemporary and chic, and looks and feels premium. Image quality is excellent, with picture modes to suit all tastes, from ultra vivid (perhaps a bit excessively so, if anything) to tastefully cinematic. Motion is well handled and there's support for HDR including Dolby Vision. Native 4K and upscaled HD looks excellent, but it really flies with Dolby Vision fodder from Amazon Prime or Netflix. The built-in speakers are surprisingly good, and the 7334 thunderously outputs Dolby Atmos to compatible speakers and soundbars.

Completing the package, there's Philips' unique Ambilight. This picks on-screen colours and repeats them using LED lights arrayed along the top and sides of the TV. This bathes the wall behind the 7334 with coloured light in ways that can be subtle and soothing, or energising. It's almost entirely unnecessary, but it does add a certain something to the experience. If you have colour Philips Hue bulbs, you can even extend this complimentary colour effect to those, as well.

All the key catch-up and streaming apps can be accessed via the Android TV OS and there's inputs for both aerial and satellite. Google Assistant and voice control of the TV is built in, and Alexa can be used via your Amazon Echo device. It's a lot of TV for your money.

Duncan is the former lifestyle editor of T3 and has been writing about tech for almost 15 years. He has covered everything from smartphones to headphones, TV to AC and air fryers to the movies of James Bond and obscure anime. His current brief is everything to do with the home and kitchen, which is good because he is an excellent cook, if he says so himself. He also covers cycling and ebikes – like over-using italics, this is another passion of his. In his long and varied lifestyle-tech career he is one of the few people to have been a fitness editor despite being unfit and a cars editor for not one but two websites, despite being unable to drive. He also has about 400 vacuum cleaners, and is possibly the UK's leading expert on cordless vacuum cleaners, despite being decidedly messy. A cricket fan for over 30 years, he also recently become T3's cricket editor, writing about how to stream obscure T20 tournaments, and turning out some typically no-nonsense opinions on the world's top teams and players.

Before T3, Duncan was a music and film reviewer, worked for a magazine about gambling that employed a surprisingly large number of convicted criminals, and then a magazine called Bizarre that was essentially like a cross between Reddit and DeviantArt, before the invention of the internet. There was also a lengthy period where he essentially wrote all of T3 magazine every month for about 3 years.

A broadcaster, raconteur and public speaker, Duncan used to be on telly loads, but an unfortunate incident put a stop to that, so he now largely contents himself with telling people, "I used to be on the TV, you know."

Sign up to the T3 newsletter for smarter living straight to your inbox