Philips announces Android powered 4K TV

Towards the end of last year we were pretty sure that Google would be dropping the Google TV brand, after all the project hadn’t really proven to be that successful. It seems that we may have been right, as Philips has just announced a new line-up of Android powered televisions, which will be based on the same fully-fledged operating system found in our mobile devices.

Philips has announced a range of new products which will be based on the Android operating system, all of which will be arriving in the second quarter of this year. The new 8109 and 8209 series are 48 and 55 inch sets which output content in Full HD (that’s 1080p), and are said to “feature a very responsive gaming capability” and are listed as coming with a quad-core processor, which is interesting. Android will also be powering Philip’s new 55 inch 8800 series, which outputs content in Ultra HD (that’s 4K resolution or 3840 × 2160 pixels) and is powered by an unspecified hex-core processor.

The TV’s will ship with Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) and come with Chrome, Play Movies, Music, Youtube, and other media apps, pre-installed. There’s also full Google Play Store integration, meaning that you can download and steam content from other media providers, such as Netfix.

There’s only 2.7GB worth of storage space for extra apps and media content in the TV itself. Fortunately, the range of USB ports and WiFi connectivity means that you can connect an external drive somewhere else. As well as a healthy selection of interfaces and ports, the TVs can also grab content via Philip’s Remote app, Wi-Fi Miracast, and SimplyShare, which will allow for content streaming to and from mobile devices.

To take a closer look at Philip’s Android TV’s, check out the promotional video below.

GoogleTV isn’t officially dead yet, but perhaps the Android TV branding that we heard about last year will now end up being Google’s replacement, although there doesn’t appear to be any mention of Android TV with these Philips sets. These particular TVs should be heading to Europe and Russia first in Q2 2014.