Philips is teaming up with Roku for a new line of integrated HDTVs. Streaming box company Roku has been under a ton of pressure lately as competition heats from every angle. Google, Amazon and Apple, among others, all have competing boxes on the market, and it looks like Roku is continuing to build its service directly into lower priced televisions in order to remain in the game. Following in line with other integrated sets from Hitachi and TCL, Philips is now building Roku OS into its latest line of HD displays.
The new 4000-series Philips Roku TVs aren’t trying to win the spec war here, that’s for sure. These are modest displays with a modest price. There will be three models available starting at $349 for the 40-inch and ranging up to $429 for the 50-inch option.
Details are certainly hard to come by in Philips’ general press release for the new displays, but do know these are “Full HD” resolution TVs with a “120 Perfect Motion Rate” and 16 watts of power. You can also expect built-in Wi-Fi with 802.11ac MIMO. Philips is also pointing out the built-in surround sound, but you’re likely going to want some kind of sound bar here unless this is just for a guest room or something of that nature.
The built-in Roku OS 8 is essentially the home screen for the TV offering up your usual set of content resources from Netflix to OTA channels and everything in between. You’ll also have access to Roku’s TV Everywhere single sign-on feature “which eliminates the need to log into TVE channels multiple times. The Roku mobile app enables Private Listening for streaming entertainment and free local broadcast TV via an HDTV antenna, and Voice Search.”
The new TVs feature Roku OS 8, which includes a Smart Guide that shows over-the-air (OTA) broadcast TV and streaming options to help consumers search for, find and discover entertainment. The guide provides program information for local antenna broadcast TV channels from seven days in the past and up to 14 days in the future. Smart Guide also integrates the More Ways to Watch feature so users can see additional streaming options, such as whether a movie or show is also available to watch on-demand from popular streaming services, or if more episodes of a show are available to stream.
Philips says the smallest 40-inch model (40PFL4662/F7) is available today at Sam’s Club brick and mortar locations and will up very “soon” on the Sam’s Club site. The $379 43-inch (43PFL4662/F7) model is yet to get an official release date, and the 50-inch option (50PFL4662/F7) will go on sale in January 2018.
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