Philips 243B1JH review: A multi-talented office monitor at a high price
The Philips 243B1JH is a versatile, feature-packed office monitor – but it’s expensive
Pros
- Versatile stand
- Built-in webcam
- Great connectivity
Cons
- Very expensive
- Annoying ambient light sensor
The Philips 243B1JH is designed to be the perfect office monitor. This 24in, 1080p screen packs lots of useful features into a compact, desk-friendly footprint that bears all the familiar hallmarks of a Philips product.
On paper this makes it pretty much perfect for any work scenario, be it a bustling London office or a cramped corner of your spare room. Admittedly the 243B1JH does fall a touch short in places, and it’s definitely on the pricey side, but this is still a great monitor for office use.
Philips 243B1JH review: What do you get for the money?
The Philips 243B1JH officially retails for £396. That gets you a 24in IPS panel with a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, a 75Hz refresh rate, a 4ms G2G response time and generic adaptive sync technology.
You’ve got one HDMI 1.4 port and one DP 1.4 (in) port on the rear, as well as one DP 1.4 (out) port for daisy-chaining duties. A USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 port delivers 100W of power, carries a video signal and enables use of the four-port USB-A hub and webcam. There’s also a second USB-C port for power delivery only (15W max), an RJ-45 Ethernet port and a 3.5mm headphone jack thrown in for good measure.
Straining under the weight of these features is a stand that provides all four major adjustment options. That’s 150mm of height adjustment, 90 degrees of pivot, 180 degrees of swivel and 30 degrees of tilt. Philips supplies USB-C, HDMI and DP cables in the box.
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Philips 243B1JH review: What do we like about it?
The 243B1JH delivers more useful features than you could ever possibly need, and this is by far its most appealing quality. String a single USB-C cable between this monitor and your laptop and you gain access to four USB-A ports for peripherals; up to 100W of power delivery (which makes this monitor suitable for M1 MacBooks); a built-in 2MP webcam and mic; an RJ-45 Ethernet port for hard-wiring the connection to your wireless router if your laptop lacks the means; and even the option to connect a second monitor via DisplayPort Out.
The Philips’ stand is versatile, too. The 150mm of height adjustment is ample, and I appreciate that the stand swivels left/right independently of the base, as this isn’t always the case with Philips monitors. A base that swivels with the stand can be a mild nuisance if you lack desk space.
While the 243B1JH might not win any beauty contests, the narrow profile and slim bezels are what you’d hope to see from a modern monitor. At 4.88kg it’s suitably light, too.
Front-facing buttons with clear labels make navigating the OSD as painless as possible; as I’ll explain in a moment, this is good news, since you’ll want to spend a bit of time navigating the OSD once you’ve set the 243B1JH up.
Moving onto performance, and the 243B1JH’s IPS panel makes a good showing in the main. With a peak luminance of 313cd/m², a black point of 0.24cd/m² and a resultant contrast ratio of 1,300:1 in User mode, the 243B1JH can be bright and punchy.
This same picture mode produces a perfect 6500K colour temperature and the best colour accuracy report we could find. In User mode the 243B1JH produced 99.5% of the sRGB colour gamut with an average Delta E colour variance score of 1.92. That isn’t quite professional levels of accuracy, but it’s still a good result.
Philips 243B1JH review: What could be better?
For the most part, the problems I have with the Philips 243B1JH won’t matter all that much to the average user. For example, the 243B1JH is significantly less impressive to behold out of the box, with luminance, contrast and colour accuracy all worse than in User mode. The various other SmartImage colour presets aren’t up to much, either, so I’d recommend switching to User mode immediately and staying there – if colour accuracy or high brightness is important to you, that is.
You might also notice that in its default mode, the panel’s brightness shifts around a bit in an effort to match ambient lighting conditions. In bright lighting, it’s absolutely fine, but if you’re working in dim conditions you’ll see the backlight adjusting in jarring increments, rather than a smooth transition.
I have a small quibble with the webcam, too. The mechanism is such that you have to press down hard on the webcam to hide it – hard enough that the entire panel is more likely to sink than the webcam is. As for the webcam itself, the quality isn’t great, but it should suffice for well-lit office environments.
Ultimately, however, the sole sticking point for many people (or businesses) will be the price. Philips monitors are usually on the expensive side, and I can’t say the 243B1JH doesn’t earn its price tag; I’m simply pointing out that it’s a hefty sum to pay for a 24in, 1080p monitor.
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Philips 243B1JH review: Should you buy it?
You may not need everything the Philips 243B1JH has to offer, in which case I’d urge you to shop around. You can spend almost £200 less on the BenQ GW2485TC (£200) and still get a fully adjustable stand, a USB-C port and daisy-chaining via DP. The Dell P2422HE (£260), meanwhile, offers all that plus an RJ-45 port and a four-port USB-A hub. Nabbing a cheap webcam for under £50 is quite possible, too.
If you want a neat, all-in-one solution, though, the Philips 243B1JH is a decent buy. It gets all the essentials right, and even if some of the features aren’t as refined as they could be, they’re all useful in an office scenario. If you can stomach the high price, it’s definitely worth considering.
