Philips Brilliance 288P6LJEB/00 4K monitor review

UItra HD (4K) screens have continued to drop in price as 28in 3,840×2,160 TN panels become cheaper to produce. We’ve reviewed several of these cut-price screens over the last few months and while each has presented excellent value, but we’ve yet to see one that we think is better than a high-quality 2,560×1,440 resolution screen.

The Philips Brilliance 288P seems to use a very similar TN panel to similarly priced Ultra HD monitors, displaying near-identical characteristics to its rivals. At default settings, our calibrator reported sRGB gamut coverage of 92.9 per cent. Most colours were relatively well served, with bright greens and yellows looking rich. Deeper reds, blues and purples lost some of their vibrancy, with the panel short changing them by a shade or two. sRGB coverage rose to 95.2 per cent after calibration.

The 288P’s contrast levels of 890:1 are acceptable and in line with all other budget Ultra HD panels, but don’t expect astoundingly lush images. Subtle shading in darker portions of an image are nowhere to be found, and this isn’t helped by fairly bright black backlight levels of 0.33cd/m2.

Of course, the main attraction of an Ultra HD screen is the sheer amount of onscreen space available. Indeed, 3,840×2,160 pixels on a 28in screen gives you a huge desktop area to work with, and you don’t have to zoom in particularly far on high-resolution images in order to see the finest details.

While the 288P’s on-paper response time is 5ms, we found, as with similar screens, that there’s a very slight input lag when using a mouse. This means the 288P screen won’t be suitable for twitchy gamers, although it’ll probably be fine for more casual players. Philips claims its SmartResponse technology can tune the monitor for gaming, creating 1ms response times. In reality, all this option does is create a harsh and unpleasant image and does nothing to fix the slight input lag.

The 288P’s stand is fully height adjustable, and it also has a built-in turntable for swivelling. There are DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort and VGA connectors, 3.5mm in and outputs and a four-port USB hub including two USB3 ports. You’ll only be able to get Ultra HD resolution from the DisplayPort connector and DVI port.

There are basic image quality adjustments for various situations including games and movies, but we found these weren’t any better than the standard mode. There’s also picture-in-picture modes, although this only lets you view two sources at once. What’s more, the picture-by-picture function on our test unit didn’t work at all: the monitor appeared to crash whenever we selected the option. The Iiyama ProLite B2888UHSU is able to display up to four external sources at once, and has more inputs. While the Philips Brilliance 288P is a good Ultra HD screen, we’d rather buy the Iiyama ProLite B2888UHSU.