End User Testing
4K Video
Even though the monitor utilises a TN panel, it doesn’t detract from the 4K viewing experience in a significant way. When watching native 4K content, the image is crisp, vibrant and a real eye-opener. Rather surprisingly, the colours don’t look washed out and any sporadic motion doesn’t impede on the monitor’s visual quality. Of course, the TN screen suffers from poor viewing angles and the colours begin to shift pretty quickly after you moving beyond the standard head-on position. Despite this, the huge resolution is enough to ensure any 4K content looks amazing.
Uncalibrated
While using the stock profile, the monitor managed to attain 97% sRGB and 75% AdobeRGB coverage. This is pretty normal for a TN panel and previously reviewed monitors have posted similar data. The panel’s tone response is good with a curve point close to Gamma 2.2 while the grey ramp ranged between 5800-6125 Kelvin. Another highlight is the monitor’s colour accuracy which remains within a commendable distance to the Delta-E, resulting in a 1.50 average. The panel’s colour uniformity across various brightness settings was impressive and each quadrant offered consistent results. The luminance uniformity wasn’t noteworthy and the difference to maximum ranged between 0%-14% at 100% brightness and 0-13% once the monitor’s brightness was set to 50%. The display’s contrast hovers between 440:1 to 480:1 which is less than I expected. Also, the brightness reached 250.1 at 100% and the White Point remained stable at 5800 when using 25-100% brightness.
Calibrated
After calibration, the colour gamut didn’t change and reported the same 97% sRGB and 75% AdobeRGB coverage. The measured tone response improved considerably and the grey ramp operated within a 5820-5940 Kelvin range. On another note, the colour accuracy’s average went from 1.50 to 1.41 thanks to the 0.36 minimum and 3.43 maximum values. The colour uniformity at 100% remains within a small distance to the Delta-E in different quadrants although some reported higher figures than the uncalibrated run. During 50% testing, the data follows a similar path. The luminance uniformity ranged between 0-12% at 100% brightness while the numbers at 50% stayed within a 0-10% window. Calibrating the monitor improved the brightness values and black data. Also, the White Point at 0% increased from 5700 to 5800.
Sound
Monitor speakers tend to dreadful and should only be considered as a last resort when a good set of headphones stops functioning. As a result, expectations are extremely low when assessing monitor speakers because they’re barely usable. However, I was pleasantly surprised with the Philips Brilliance 288P6’s audio hardware which outputs good volume levels while maintaining a balanced, enjoyable mix. In particular, the speakers emit a good mid-range and don’t sound overly flat. Of course, they’re not a patch on even a £20 set of speakers, but the audio is significantly better than many other monitors on the market.
Game Testing
Achieving a playable frame-rate while pushing so many pixels on a 4K display is tricky and requires extremely high-end graphics hardware. This is something that needs to be considered because pairing the monitor with the wrong graphics card will undoubtedly lead to a terrible experience. During a wide range of titles including Crysis 3 and The Witcher 3, the monitor fared quite well and I couldn’t detect any noticeable ghosting. Saying that, there did appear to be some input lag which could pose problems for users who play competitive games at a high standard. On a more positive note, the screen manages to flesh out background details and the foreground elements were a joy to look at.
