Standard Ultra HD 4K was approved 8 years ago, over the years the number of devices and content has increased significantly. And if among large TVs the 4K format has already practically supplanted Full HD and especially HD Ready, then among monitors the overwhelming number is still behind 1080p displays. But what about those looking for an all-in-one tool to work or study at home during the day and play with movies in the evening, and have 4K, HDR, a large screen and lots of ports?
Maybe they should pay attention to Momentum 326M6VJRMB from Philips, which the company is positioning as a monitor for gaming on consoles. It was he who recently came to the editorial office Gamemag.ru for the test, and today we will tell you about it.
PACKAGING, APPEARANCE AND CONNECTORS
The monitor comes in a very large cardboard box that can easily fit a couple of disassembled 27-inch models. The colorful packaging is made in aquamarine color with basic information about the model and technology. Inside you will find (in addition to a pile of foam): a display, a non-separable leg that takes up most of the box’s space, an external power supply, a network cable, an HDMI cable, a DisplayPort cable, a user manual and a warranty card.
The monitor itself looks pretty standard. The screen is dressed mainly in glossy plastic, which in the end, as practice has already shown, will be covered with fingerprints and dust. The dimensions of the working area are 698.5 mm horizontally and 393 mm vertically. The base of the leg is made of matte plastic with small glossy inserts, and the two fixed lower triangular parts, connected to the base at an angle of 45 °, are made of thick aluminum painted in dark gray. The ergonomic stand has a lift to adjust the height of the screen up to 110 mm. At the lowest height, the screen has a distance to the table surface of about 65 mm. In addition, the display can be tilted -5 ° away from you to 20 ° towards you.
The monitor has rather large frames, into which the screen is recessed by about 3-5 mm. On the sides the width of the frame is 13 mm, and on the top – 14. Bottom, as usual, is the widest part of the frame 23 mm thick, on which the company logo is located in the middle, as well as the model name in the left corner and the power LED in the right.
It is worth noting that there are gaps at the junction of the screen and the frame, which are especially visible on the bottom of the frame when you look at the screen from top to bottom. There, through the slots, it is perfectly shown how the LEDs glow. The thickness of the screen at the edges is 22 mm, which is not very much for a monitor of such a diagonal. The rear part has a protrusion in the middle for a third of the monitor area, where the connectors are located and a place for attaching a leg or an arm with VESA 100×100 if you prefer to hang screens on the wall. The leg, on the other hand, easily snaps onto the monitor screen with one movement and holds it very firmly. It is just as easy to dismantle by pressing a special button. With the stand, this model has a maximum dimensions of 728 x 604 x 206 mm and weighs 7.21 kg with the stand and 5.45 kg without it.
This monitor has a proprietary Ambiglow backlight with 10 LEDs located on the bottom edge of the screen. You can configure their work or completely disable them using the on-screen menu. By the way, the joystick is responsible for managing this section of the menu, which is not located at the bottom of the screen out of habit, but is recessed from the rear on the right side on the protruding part with connectors. To reach it, you need to get about half of the brush behind the monitor screen.
All connectors on this model are directed downward, which is very convenient if you decide to hang the screen on the wall. In addition to the connector for connecting an external power supply, you will find here: one DisplayPort version 1.4 connector for connecting a PC; three HDMI 2.0 connectors, which is enough to connect three game consoles; USB Type-B 3.0 input for connecting the built-in USB hub to a PC or consoles; four USB 3.0 Type-A outputs for connecting various peripherals, two of which are colored yellow and support fast charging; 3.5 mm audio input for connecting external speakers and 3.5 mm headphone jack.
TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND SETTINGS
This 31.5 ” (80 cm) diagonal LCD gaming monitor uses Philips 2019 10-bit MVA with 60Hz refresh rate and 4K resolution (3840 x 2160 pixels). The screen is matte and the surface is anti-reflective. In addition, the monitor supports Adaptive-Sync and FlickerFree technology to prevent screen tearing in dynamic scenes and reduce flicker accordingly. The standard brightness here is 400 cd / m2, and the peak brightness is 600 cd / m2. Thanks to this, the monitor received support for the DisplayHDR600 standard. This model supports approximately 98.61% DCI-P3, NTSC approximately 114% and approximately 135% sRGB. The static contrast ratio is 3000: 1 and the dynamic contrast is 80,000,000: 1. The viewing angles, according to the manufacturer’s data, are 178 by 178 degrees.
As mentioned above, to control the settings of this model, you need to use a special joystick on the rear panel, which deflects in four directions and is pressed in the middle. To turn the monitor on and off, press or hold down the middle of the joystick. If you move the joystick up, a quick menu will open for switching between monitor video inputs. By tilting the joystick down, you can adjust the audio volume level. Turning the joystick to the left will open the quick menu of game modes. The main settings menu will appear on the screen if you move the joystick to the right.
Opening the main monitor settings menu, you will immediately be taken to the Ambiglow backlight options page, where you can adjust the backlight brightness level, automatically switch colors that will change each other in a circle, or select a specific shade of LEDs. In the second tab, enable LowBlue mode to reduce the level of blue light of the display. The third shows the switching of the input video signal. The next tab is responsible for adjusting the image, where you will find options for adjusting contrast, gamma, brightness, HDR, and more. Then yours are waiting for the PIP (picture in picture) and PBP (picture next to picture) functions, which will allow you to display on the screen an image from two input signals simultaneously. The fifth section is responsible for adjusting the aspect ratio and image size.
Next comes the sound settings menu, where you can not only adjust the volume level, but also adjust the sound source (relevant for PIP and PBP modes) and turn on DTS. The next section is responsible for color settings, including sRGB mode or manual RGB settings. Also in the main menu, you will find interface language settings, that is, settings for the menu itself and additional functions that did not fall into other categories, such as Adaptive-Sync and low input lag.
TESTS AND GAMES
As we said above, the peak brightness of this display is 600 cd / m2, and the static contrast is 3000: 1. In the DisplayHDR Test program, we were able to see the maximum effective value at 715 (615.833801 nits), and the minimum at 53 (0.065416 nits). According to the manufacturer, this display supports the DisplayHDR 600 standard and in the settings of the display itself you will find the HDR parameter. It is worth noting that DisplayHDR 600 is only applicable to 10-bit matrices with 600 nits brightness and local backlighting. HDR was tested not only on PC, but also on PS4 Pro. An increase in image brightness and detail was noticed everywhere, especially in dark scenes. As for performance, the monitor is capable of delivering the maximum declared refresh rate of 60 Hz, both via DisplayPort and HDMI. Response time is not the strong point of VA matrices, and the same applies to the MVA variety.
The minimum response time for this matrix, when it switches the brightness to gray from the minimum to the maximum value, is about 4 ms. The average response time is about 9-10 ms from black to white and back.
This display was tested on PC and PS4 Pro in projects such as Forza Horizon 4 (PC), Gears 5 (PC), Ghost of Tsushima (PS4), The Last of Us Part II (PS4) and Horizon Zero Dawn (PS4) … PS4 Pro automatically detected 4K resolution without any problems and offered to adjust HDR when first launching a supported game. Although this monitor is positioned as a screen for consoles, it also felt good on a PC and it was quite comfortable to play racing and shooters on it. But the viewing angles of this model are not all good.
When viewed from different angles, the panel begins to give off a pink tint on white and light gray shades. We tried different display settings, but we still couldn’t get rid of this ailment. Somewhere it manifested itself more, somewhere less. Glare is also noticeable. This screen has flashes in exactly all 4 corners, which resemble spotlights directed to the center of the screen. Everything would be fine, but they are visible not only in dark scenes, but also in bright scenes, sometimes they can be seen.
Also worth mentioning are the PIP (picture in picture) and PBP (picture next to picture) functions. In PIP mode, you can display a small window, the size of which can be adjusted, and output the signal from any other connected video input. This is quite a useful feature if, for example, you are waiting in the lobby for the start of the game, while watching a YouTube video on your PC in the small screen.
In PBP mode, the two video signals halve the space, but without changing the aspect ratio. Unfortunately, PBP does not allow you to display more than two video signals at the same time, which means there are large black bars at the top and bottom, and half of the screen space is simply not used.
The priority of audio output in these modes can be adjusted manually in the advisory menu. The sound in the built-in speakers is loud enough – as a temporary solution, they are quite enough until you connect normal speakers to your set-top boxes or PC.
RESULTS
Philips Momentum 326M6VJRMB is an ambiguous model. Here you have the coveted 4K gaming with near-full HDR and trendy neon bottom illumination, as well as useful features and a bunch of ports. On the other side of the scale, you will find minor defects and a screen with slight color distortion at different angles and highlights. Is it worth its 45 thousand rubles or it is better to buy a 4K TV for this money, it’s up to you.
Author: Sergey Dyakonenko (Madnfs)
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