Philips 498P9 Brilliance review: Two high-performance QHD displays in one SuperWide 32:9 monitor Review
The Philips 498P9 Brilliance is a SuperWide curved Liquid crystal display with a 49-inch (124cm) diagonal and 32:nine part ratio that can switch a twin display screen set-up. It provides the equal of two 27-inch QHD (two,560 x 1,440) shows aspect by aspect. You can display screen the video clip from two PCs and flip a solitary keyboard and mouse back again and forth between the PCs using the constructed-in KVM change.
Concluded in a textured black, the styling of the 498P9 is unobtrusively small and the only noticeable branding is a small PHILIPS emblem in the the centre of the bottom edge and ‘Brilliance 489P’ on the lessen remaining corner.
Extensive-screen see: the 49-inch Philips 498P9 Brilliance, which has a native resolution of five,a hundred and twenty by 1,440 pixels, expenditures £749.
Illustrations or photos: Philips
Consumer controls
Consumer management is through the typical row of buttons, hidden under the edge of the enclosure in close proximity to the bottom proper corner. The fifth button, very last on the proper, is the electricity ON/OFF button. With the display screen turned off from this button the 498P9 is continue to consuming roughly .3 Watts. There is a genuine electricity ON/OFF rocker change found subsequent to the IEC electricity socket. When on and in ordinary operation the 498P9 typically consumes seventy seven.2W and has a ‘B’ vitality ranking. Our measurements clearly show .3W and 63W for the assessment sample. Two usual 27-inch QHD shows with an ‘A’ vitality ranking may possibly take in 50W to 55W mixed.
The other 4 buttons are context related, twin-purpose buttons. The first is the SmartImage incredibly hot crucial: recurring presses cycle by the eight SmartImage alternatives, with a ninth option to flip SmartImage off. With the OSD (on-screen display screen) menu chosen this gets to be a return-to-earlier-menu-amount button. The next button selects for signal enter and the third is a customisable person purpose button. With the OSD shown, these two buttons are up/down menu navigation buttons. The fourth button possibly opens the OSD or, with the menu open, confirms a collection.
The person manual mentions a handheld remote, but this is only readily available in China.
Audio
A constructed-in 5W stereo electricity amplifier drives two inside loudspeakers with downward experiencing grilles found together the bottom of the display screen enclosure. Audio enter is through the HDMI or DisplayPort connections.
Automated graphic optimisation
Like quite a few Philips display screen items in the very last couple several years, the electronics driving the display screen on the 498P9 consists of the automated graphic optimisation capabilities SmartImage and SmartContrast. For both of those of these capabilities, the incoming video clip signal is analysed and dynamic changes are manufactured to the display screen parameters. Both can be turned off, if essential, through the OSD.
SmartImage dynamically adjusts contrast, colour saturation and sharpness according to a selected articles variety. It gives a decision of Film, Sport, Economic system, LowBlue method and SmartUniformity.
SmartContrast dynamically adjusts the brightness of the backlight to give optimum graphic contrast. It can also assistance to cut down electricity intake.
Screen technologies
The 498P9 has a forty eight.8-inch diagonal (124cm) Vertical Alignment Liquid crystal display panel with a 1800R curvature (a 1.8-metre radius). The native resolution is five,a hundred and twenty by 1,440 pixels with a pixel pitch of .233 by .233mm.
Color gamut is specified as 121% of sRGB, 103% of NTSC and ninety one% of Adobe RGB. Which is great for a W-LED backlit VA Liquid crystal display. Displays with quantum dot backlights can do much better, nevertheless: a person of the couple Philips displays to employ a quantum dot backlight, the 436M6, gives a gamut of a hundred forty five% of Adobe RGB.
The colour gamut for this display screen is significantly much better than would generally be envisioned for a standard VA-Liquid crystal display panel. Fairly than use a quantum dot backlight to prolong colour gamut, Philips has employed a technologies it calls Ultra Extensive-Colour. This achieves an improvement in gamut by tweaking the chemistry of the backlight LEDs and the transmission qualities of the colour filters in the Liquid crystal display panel for a much better reaction match.
Spectrogram of the usual backlight W-LED demonstrating that, even though the blue spike from the LED is a great match for the blue Liquid crystal display filter transmission curve, the relaxation of the output is not as great a match for the green or pink filters. Common filter responses are revealed as dotted strains.
Terry Relph-Knight / ZDNet
W-LEDs typically employed in display screen backlights are noticeable blue LEDs with a yellow phosphor, and even though their gentle seems ‘white’ to the human visual method, it is not a especially pure ‘white’. This is generally not a great match to the reaction of the R,G and B colour filters in an Liquid crystal display panel, which restrictions gamut.
Each and every 498P9 is equipped from the manufacturing facility with a calibration chart. Brightness and colour uniformity are measured at twenty five details throughout the display screen. Relative to the centre level, measurements need to be between 97% and 102% for brightness uniformity and a lot less than two for normal Delta E.
Connections
This diagram of the 489P9 I/O connections is from the person manual.
Image: Philips
All connections to the Philips 498P9 are downward experiencing together the best of a recess that operates together the back again of the display screen, earlier mentioned the lessen edge. Viewed from the back again, the 3 pin IEC socket for the electricity lead is located at the remaining end of the recess, together with a mechanical electricity on/off rocker change. The I/O connections are grouped at the proper end. The video clip connections consist of two HDMI connections 1 and two which are HDMI two. compliant and a person DisplayPort link which is DP1.4.
A constructed-in USB 3.two hub is incorporated which has two upstream connections and 4 downstream. A person of the downstream connections supports BC 1.two fast cost. A 3.5mm jack socket caters for headphone link.
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The USB hub supports Keyboard Movie & Mouse (KVM) switching for use when the display screen is related to two PCs (truly it truly is keyboard and mouse switching). Switching is attained possibly by the OSD menu, or the Consumer Operate button — the third of the five person controls — can be assigned as a KVM toggle. Though Philips suggests in the literature for the 498P9 “A hassle-free button permits you to quickly change between sources,” there is no trace of a devoted KVM button on our assessment observe.
Integrated add-ons
Integrated with the 498P9 are an IEC mains cable, a DisplayPort cable, an HDMI cable, a Rapid Start out leaflet, the calibration sheet and a person manual on CD.
Conclusions
Image: Philips
The 498P9 is a neat all-in-a person alternative for customers who would in any other case need to use two huge Quad High definition shows. The use of a SuperWide panel ensures graphic uniformity and colour equilibrium, which is generally far more tough to achieve with two separate displays.
In use, while it can be operated as a full-width five,a hundred and twenty-by-1,440 display screen, it can make tiny sense to do so for normal computing tasks. At full width, even though management menus stay together the edges of the display screen, pop-up management panels, world wide web web pages, or text documents the natural way appear in a slim strip a person quarter of the screen width, down the centre of the display screen. Environment document zoom to web site width utilises the overall width of the display screen, but vertically only shows a strip of probably ten sentences. Complete-screen YouTube video clip occupies the centre 50 % of the display screen.
The Ultra Extensive-Colour gamut-boosting technologies, together with Philips clever graphic processing, does regulate to extract quite great graphic top quality from the VA Liquid crystal display panel in the 498P9.
The constructed in audio lacks bass but is in any other case of realistic top quality and is surely hassle-free, even though the constructed-in KVM is crippled by the lack of the promised ‘convenient button’. Ideally this would be an external button on a flying cable that could be located in close proximity to a keyboard and mouse.
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