Philips Momentum 3000 27″ 165Hz Monitor Review – And It Comes With a Free Tree!?

Performance

Those of you who follow what I do, you’ll know I’ve been on a bit of an arcade kick in the last few years. So while I should be looking at spreadsheets and editing images right now, I actually spun up a new Raspberry Pi image today, and this monitor was just sitting here… Would have been rude not to I guess. First impressions are awesome, as the colours are sublime and really rich, something that really stood out on the bright colour palette of Grand Theft Auto. Being Full HD, it was just plug-and-play with the Pi, which even detected and allowed for the full 165Hz refresh rate; I didn’t know the Pi could do that!

As for using it as a desktop monitor? Well, top marks right out of the box. The colours on this thing are really something, with the IPS panel looking great with zero calibration required. This is not uncommon for Philips, as they usually pre-calibrate their products and that makes it extremely consumer-friendly in my opinion.

It’s a bright sunny day today, and the anti-glare coating and 250 lumens peak brightness are still delivering a vibrant picture. Given the panel is capable of 106% NTSC, 123.9% sRGB, 90.4% Adobe RGB, it makes photo and video grading possible. Sure, there are more professional solutions on the market, but this is more than good enough for more consumers.

The colours and contrast provide great results for media consumption too. It doesn’t matter if you’re just kicking back with some YouTube, watching a movie on Netflix, or whatever, the picture quality is simply excellent.

It’s a good panel size for the resolution too, offering 92.56 Pixels Per Inch.

What really stands out, however, is the gaming performance. Thanks to its surprisingly snappy response times, low latency and blisteringly quick 165 Hz refresh rate, this is a pretty potent gaming monitor. While I may not be much of a competitive gamer myself, it’s going to provide you with a distinct advantage, especially in FPS titles.

That being said, I’m a lazy MMO gamer mostly, and running around in Elder Scrolls Online with these stunning colours, and that silky smooth refresh rate, combined with FreeSync/G-Sync, is a joy to behold. You don’t have to be an eSports wannabe to enjoy smooth gaming.

I’m a 4K60 guy normally, but while you would think dropping to Full HD would be a bad thing, the uptick in refresh rate provides a lot more visual information than you can get from simply increasing the pixel count, so the overall clarity is somewhat clearer than my 4K panel, where on-screen motion is concerned.

Overall though, it’s a lovely monitor, and being able to use it for work, gaming, and media consumption makes it a real winner for me. I normally don’t use speakers on my monitor, but these ones are surprisingly potent. With the Pi connected, I had to turn them down to 5% as they’re really freaking loud if you need them to be. Plus, being able to spin this monitor into portrait mode with one hand, well, that’s always a welcome bonus.