Author: Adam Simmons

Date published: May 22nd 2018



Introduction

For an immersive ‘4K’ UHD experience and comfortable reading without scaling, there’s a lot to be said for ‘the big screen’ experience offered by 40 – 43” screens. We’ve reviewed a number of 40 – 43” Philips models, each with fairly distinct features and equally pronounced strengths and weaknesses. The Philips 436M6VBPAB of the brand’s Momentum (M-Line) range offers this big-screen experience. It couples this is numerous attractive features for both PC and console gamers, including support extended colour spaces and a comprehensive level of HDR support. AMD FreeSync also features for use on compatible AMD GPUs and games consoles that support the variable refresh rate technology. It all looks very nice on paper, but that’s only ever part of the story. We put this monitor through its paces to see whether its real-world performance lives up to the hype.





Specifications

This monitor uses a 60Hz MVA (Multi-Domain Vertical Alignment) panel, with a resolution of 3840 x 2160 (‘4K’ UHD). 10-bit colour is supported via 8-bit + 2 bit FRC dithering (1.07 billion colours) and a Quantum Dot backlight is employed. A 4ms grey to grey response time is specified, which should as usual be paid little attention to. Some of the key ‘talking points’ of the specification have been highlighted in blue below, for your reading convenience.



Screen size: 42.51 inches

Panel type: MVA (Multi-domain Vertical Alignment) LCD Panel

Native resolution: 3840 x 2160

Typical maximum brightness: 720 cd/m² (1000 cd/m² HDR)

Colour support: 1.07 billion (8-bits per subpixel plus dithering)

Response time (G2G): 4ms

Refresh rate: 60Hz (variable, with Adaptive-Sync)

Weight: 14.71kg (excluding stand)

Contrast ratio: 4,000:1 (SDR)

Viewing angle: 178º horizontal, 178º vertical

Power consumption:

62.69W typical

Backlight: Quantum Dot LED (Quantum Dots + blue LED)

Typical price as reviewed: £799





Features and aesthetics

From the front the monitor looks distinctly TV-like rather than like a conventional monitor. This is standard for screens of this size and is something shared with previous 40 – 43” Philips models we’ve tested. The stand is metal, with a bar towards the rear and two additional feet facing diagonally forward, for additional stability. The bezels are glossy black plastic with a thickness of ~17mm (0.67 inches) at the sides, ~19mm (0.75 inches) at the top and ~24mm (0.94 inches) at the bottom. The bezel covers pretty much all of the panel border (i.e. this is a ‘single stage’ design), but there will be little slivers of panel border visible. The massive screen is really going to be the main focal point. A glossy screen surface is employed with very mild anti-glare treatment (2% haze), as explored later.









Towards the right side, facing forwards, there is a rounded rectangular power LED. This glows white when the monitor is on and blinks if it enters a low power state (e.g. signal to the PC is lost). The OSD (On Screen Display) is controlled primarily by an infrared remote control, much like a TV. There is also a joystick located at the rear, at the far right of the monitor as viewed from the front. This is a bit of a stretch and we feel most users would prefer to use the remote, but it’s nice to have as a backup. The video below shows this remote and gives a run-through of the OSD itself. The monitor also has Ambiglow ambient lighting, with 10 LEDs projecting downwards onto the desk. This is explored in the video as well.









From the side the monitor is slim overall, ~25mm (0.98 inches) at thinnest point with more of a central bulk. The included TV-style stand offers tilt (-5° to 10°) as the only ergonomic flexibility. The bottom of the screen clears the desk by ~89mm (3.50 inches), with the top of the screen ~666mm (26.22 inches) above the desk surface. The total depth of the monitor including stand is ~265mm (10.43 inches), with the screen itself ~180mm (7.09 inches) forwards. As shown shortly, the monitor has VESA holes if you find the included stand too inflexible or would like the screen closer to the wall.







The rear of the monitor has a central area of matte plastic with glossy black plastic above and below that. Towards the bottom right there’s a K-Slot, whilst the OSD control joystick is found at the far left central region. The centre of the screen houses 200 x 200mm VESA holes for alternative mounting (the included stand can be detached, it doesn’t just float there). The ports face downwards and include; AC power input (internal power converter), HDMI 2.0, DP 1.4, mDP 1.4, USB Type-C (data + DP video signal), 2 USB 3.0 ports (with fast charging), 3.5mm audio input and 3.5mm headphone jack. There are also 2 x 7W up-firing DTS speakers integrated into the monitor, which provide quite a decent audio experience. The sound output has plenty of volume (and good adjustability of the volume), a reasonable amount of bass and fairly crisp trebles. The sound is ‘cleaner’ than most integrated speakers provide. They won’t win over audiophiles and don’t produce the punchiest or richest sound you’ll hear, but they should be adequate for many users to use instead of standalone speakers.









Adaptive-Sync (and hence AMD FreeSync) is supported for compatible GPUs and systems via DP 1.4 (includes USB-C DP operating mode) and HDMI 2.0 on this monitor. This means compatible games consoles such as the Xbox One X can make use of the technology as well as PC users. HDR is supported via all display connections, on compatible GPUs and systems. A USB-A to USB-C cable, USB-C cable, DP cable and power cable is included in the box.





Calibration

Subpixel layout and screen surface

The image below is a macro photograph taken on Notepad with ClearType disabled. The letters ‘PCM’ are typed out to help highlight any potential text rendering issues related to unusual subpixel structure, whilst the white space more clearly shows the actual subpixel layout alongside a rough indication of screen surface. A glossy screen surface is employed with an extremely mild (2% haze) anti-glare treatment. This cuts down on reflection somewhat compared to an untreated glossy surface, with reflections on the screen surface being of a softer and darker nature than they otherwise would be (refer to the image earlier in the review). It also prevents the loss of clarity and vibrancy that the use of a higher haze value (‘significantly more matte’) screen surface would provide. You need to be careful with your room lighting to minimise unwanted reflections, but with this appropriately controlled the rather direct emission of light and the perceived clarity and vibrancy benefits associated with that can be enjoyed. There is a very mild misty graininess due to the anti-glare treatment, but nothing obtrusive. Ambient light striking the screen surface gives the image a sort of ‘wet look’ with the image appearing very close to the outer layers of the screen surface.







As shown above, the monitor uses a BGR (Blue, Green and Red) stripe subpixel layout. This is usual for 40”+ monitors it seems, but much less common overall than the standard RGB (Red, Green and Blue) layout expected by modern operating systems. Microsoft Windows users should run through the ClearType wizard to help reduce text fringing issues, whilst unfortunately Apple MacOS users are unable to compensate for this and have no similar utility available to them in the OS. Depending on viewing distance and individual sensitivity, this may not be a ‘deal breaker’. Whilst ClearType can help reduce text fringing, it doesn’t eliminate it on this monitor. The illumination behaviour of the subpixels is rather interesting, introducing some issues that can be noticed if you sit reasonably close to the screen but become less noticeable or invisible as viewing distance is increased. The image below shows a macro of an ‘X’ (close window) symbol. The subpixels directly bordering the ‘unlit’ (black) subpixels appear more saturated than the others.



Cross showing subpixels This essentially gives a slight red (to the left) and blue (to the right) fringe, which is present on text as well as symbols such as this. In practice the subpixels of this monitor are very small and the fringe in this example is only one subpixel thick – so it isn’t something everyone will notice and is quite subtle really. If text or the background is not a combination of pure black and white, the fringe can be multiple subpixels thick and involve various shades. You can see this in the example below, which is the ‘Monitor Reviews’ text from the header of our website.







Another issue that is important to highlight is the rather peculiar subpixel illumination arrangement when the monitor is displaying certain shades. The subpixels are split into two sections each, a top and a bottom segment. These two segments aren’t always anywhere close to the same luminance. Similarly, the monitor will often illuminate only alternate subpixels. This is essentially a form of static dithering. It gives many shades a dithered magazine print appearance, with a checkerboard pattern rather than a solid shade visible. It’s not uncommon for large VA panels, especially those intended to be viewed from a distance (TVs and this sort of monitor), to have this sort of illumination pattern. You can see this in the images below. The first second image shows a zoomed in crop of the first image, focusing on a section that shows this variable subpixel illumination. For reference, it’s the chameleon wallpaper that we use in some of our review photography and videos.







As with the text fringing, it becomes less obvious as viewing distance increases. Philips did market this as a ‘console gaming monitor’ and it’s clearly a large screen, so naturally it isn’t designed to be viewed too close. Individual sensitivity and eyesight varies so there are no hard and fast rules about how far away you’d have to sit for the effect to disappear. It also depends on the brightness you’re using and your ambient brightness (we found the effect most obvious at very low brightness levels, generally). We typically sat anywhere between about 60 – 80cm from the screen, depending on how relaxed our posture was. In an ideal world we’d say that the mid to upper end of that is really the minimum distance you should consider for a screen of this size. The issue was far more obvious to us at ~60cm compared to ~80cm, although we found as we used the monitor more and more, the effect become far less noticeable to us. We would be happy with a slightly greater viewing distance, where things blend together and the effect becomes invisible. But the included stand didn’t allow us to place the screen close enough to the wall for that to be practical. If we had to live with the monitor and use it daily rather than just review it, that’s where those 200 x 200mm VESA holes might come in handy. Or perhaps a deeper desk (say 90cm+).



Testing the presets The Philips 436M6VBPAB includes various ‘SmartImageGame’ presets; ‘FPS’, ‘Racing’, ‘RTS’, ‘Gamer 1’, ‘Gamer 2’, ‘LowBlue Mode’, ‘Smart Uniformity’ and ‘Off’. As usual, we don’t really find most presets add anything positive to the experience. We will therefore be focusing on only some of these, but also a range of other settings that can be customised in the OSD. The table below includes general observations alongside key readings (white point and gamma) taken using a Datacolor Spyder5ELITE colorimeter. The monitor was left in its ‘Plug and Play’ state without additional drivers or ICC profiles specifically loaded, connected to a Windows 10 PC with an Nvidia GTX 1070. Additional testing (FreeSync) was performed using a Club3D Radeon R9 290 royalAce FreeSync-compatible GPU. The screen was left running for over 2 hours before readings were taken or observations made. Unless stated otherwise, assume default settings were used, including for ‘Contrast’. We made similar observations using our AMD GPU and also using HDMI 2.0 on our Nvidia GPU. When connecting our Nvidia GPU via HDMI, though, we had to correct the colour signal as the system defaulted to using a ‘Limited Range’ RGB signal. Furthermore, the HDR pipeline was restricted to 8-bits and the whole technology just didn’t seem to work as well via HDMI on our Nvidia GPU. Whether this is a bandwidth or other technological limitation, we’re not sure. Either way, our advice to Nvidia GPU users would simply be to use DP where possible to avoid having to play around with different driver settings and to ensure full HDR capability. When viewing the figures in this table, note that for most PC users ‘6500K’ for white point and ‘2.2’ for gamma are good targets to aim for. Monitor Settings Gamma (central average) White point (kelvins) Notes Gamma = 1.8 1.6 6585K Very bright with some eye-catchingly vivid shades, thanks to the generous colour gamut and glossy screen surface. But a significant lack of depth overall, due to low overall gamma. Gamma = 2.0 1.8 6585K As above but with a slight bit of extra depth, still significant weakness in that respect. Gamma = 2.2 (Factory Default) 2.0 6593K As above, with a touch of extra depth but still in need of a bit more. As typical for a VA panel, perceived gamma also changes depending on which part of the screen you’re looking at. A fair degree of saturation is lost lower down the screen and towards the flanks. And towards the extreme side and bottom edge things appear somewhat dimmer. These saturation changes and the dimming is more pronounced the closer you sit to the screen (our observations are generally from ~80cm). Gamma = 2.4 2.2 6585K More depth with gamma now averaging the ‘2.2’ target centrally. The image appears vibrant with some eye-catching shades. Good balance to image with pleasing ‘out of the box’ white point and good balance to the green channel as well. Gamma = 2.6 2.3 6587K As above with a touch more depth. Low Blue Mode = 1 1.8 6330K A weak Low Blue Light (LBL) setting, making the image appear somewhat warmer and decreasing blue light output. Low Blue Mode = 2 1.9 6103K As above, slightly warmer and a greater reduction in blue light output. Low Blue Mode = 3 1.8 6101K As above but dimmer by default (brightness can be manually adjusted in all ‘Low Blue Mode’ settings). Low Blue Mode = 4 1.8 5737K The strongest LBL setting on the monitor. Although the colour temperature isn’t as low as you sometimes see with LBL settings (including the ‘5000K’ setting explored below), the blue channel is significantly weakened and blue light output greatly diminished. The red channel is also weakened somewhat, hence the colour temperature not being as low as you might expect. This is suitable for relaxing evening viewing, particularly with reduced brightness. Color Temperature = 5000K 1.9 5237K An alternative LBL setting. The red colour channel is strong with the blue channel weakened significantly. Almost paradoxically, ‘Low Blue Mode = 4’ is a bit more effective at cutting blue light (and weakening the blue channel) even though ‘Color Temperature = 5000K’ appears warmer to the eye. Color = sRGB 1.8 6707K This is an sRGB emulation mode. The colour gamut is restricted massively, as explored later. Things look bleached and severely lacking in depth and saturation. The combination of greatly restricted colour gamut and locked and low average gamma does not give a pleasing image. Color = User Define 1.8 7304K As factory defaults but poorer balance to image, with a very high colour temperature and an obvious cool look to the image. The point in this setting, though, is to allow users to manually adjust the colour channels if required. SmartImage = SmartUniformity 1.9 6607K This setting appears largely similar to the factory defaults, but is significantly brighter by default. It is designed to even out luminance across the screen, as a digital Uniformity Compensation (UC) mode. Test Settings (see below) 2.2 6546K Brightness is reduced to more comfortable levels and the optimal gamma setting is used for our unit. Image is vibrant and varied.

Out of the box the 436M6VBPAB produced a bright image that appeared vibrant in some ways, but lacking depth overall. This was easily correctable by adjusting the ‘Gamma’ setting – the factory defaults provided an average of ‘2.0’ despite the mode being called ‘2.2’. Unless the gamma is tightly calibrated, which it clearly isn’t in this case, it would be better to give these modes arbitrary numbers instead of misleading values. The ‘out of the box’ white point was more pleasing, as was the overall colour balance (including the green channel). Following a little tweaking, including using the ‘2.4’ gamma setting, gamma also matched our targets more closely as shown below.



Gamma 'Test Settings' The monitor also included a range of Low Blue Light (LBL) settings. There were 4 different ‘Low Blue Mode’ settings of varying effectiveness and an alternative ‘Color Temperature = 5000K’ setting. Especially when combined with reduced brightness, setting ‘Low Blue Mode’ to ‘4’ was the most effective. Although the ‘5000K’ setting was a decent alternative as well. We made use of ‘Low Blue Mode = 4’ for our own viewing comfort in the evenings, but not when we were actively testing anything on the monitor. It is important to reduce blue light exposure in the hours leading up to sleep, as it affects sleep hormones and keeps your body alert when it should be winding down. We mention this because we care about your well-being and it’s nice that Philips includes some easily accessible and effective LBL settings on this model. Note that the sharpness may increase from the default of ‘50’ to ‘70’ using some of these settings – so return this to ‘50’ if you prefer a more neutral sharpness.



Test Settings Our ‘Test Settings’ involved a significant reduction in brightness and switching the ‘Gamma’ setting to ‘2.4’. There was no need to manually adjust colour channels on our unit. Anything not mentioned here was left at default in the OSD, including ‘Contrast’. We’ve also included the ‘SmartResponse’ setting used, just for reference, even though this was left at default. Note that these settings only apply to SDR testing, which is the bulk of our review. HDR has separate settings associated with it – we explore HDR separately in the designated section.





SmartImageGame = Off SmartImageGame = Off Brightness= 16 (according to preferences and lighting) Gamma= 2.4 SmartResponse= Off

Contrast and brightness Contrast ratios We used a BasICColor SQUID 3 (X-Rite i1Display Pro) to measure white and black luminance levels, from which static contrast ratios could be calculated. The table below shows this data with a range of settings used, including those covered in the calibration section and a few extras. Assume any setting not mentioned was left at default, except for the changes already mentioned in the calibration section. Black highlights indicate the highest white luminance, lowest black luminance and maximum contrast ratio recorded. Blue highlights show the results with HDR active and also under our ‘Test Settings’. Monitor Settings White luminance (cd/m²) Black luminance (cd/m²) Contrast ratio (x:1) 100% brightness 690 0.17 4059 80% brightness 574 0.14 4100 60% brightness (Factory Defaults) 454 0.11 4127 40% brightness 336 0.08 4200 20% brightness 216 0.05 4320 0% brightness 93 0.02 4650 HDR 'Normal'* 533 0.03 17767 HDR 'VESA HDR 1000'* 1126 0.15 7507 HDR 'UHDA'* 1065 0.15 7100 Gamma = 1.8 454 0.11 4127 Gamma = 2.0 454 0.11 4127 Gamma = 2.4 454 0.11 4127 Gamma = 2.6 454 0.11 4127 Low Blue Mode = 1 734 0.16 4588 Low Blue Mode = 2 763 0.16 4769 Low Blue Mode = 3 574 0.12 4783 Low Blue Mode = 4 569 0.12 4742 Color Temperature = 5000K 404 0.11 3673 Color = sRGB 460 0.11 4182 Color = User Define 521 0.11 4736 Color = User Define (100% brightness) 784 0.16 4900 SmartImageGame = SmartUniformity 683 0.16 4266 Test Settings 166 0.04 4150

*HDR measurements were made using this YouTube HDR brightness test video, running full screen at ‘2160p 4K HDR’ on Google Chrome. The maximum reading from the smallest patch size (measurement area) that comfortably covered the entire sensor area and colorimeter housing was used for the white luminance measurement, which was ‘4% of all pixels’ in this case. The black luminance was taken at the same point of the video with the colorimeter offset to the side of the white test patch, equidistant between the test patch and edge of the monitor bezel.

The average contrast ratio with only brightness adjusted was 4243:1, which is strong. This provided quite an inky look to text and deep shades, with perceived contrast further enhanced by the glossy screen surface. With the colour channels all at their neutral position of ‘100’, using ‘Color Temperature = User Define’, we recorded a peak static contrast of 4900:1. Under our ‘Test Settings’ contrast remained strong at 4150:1. Interestingly, the ‘Low Blue Mode’ settings provided contrast that slightly exceeded the factory default levels and came quite close to the peak recorded (generally around 4600 – 4800:1). The highest white luminance recorded with the monitor displaying SDR content was an impressively bright 784 cd/m², whilst the minimum was a fairly (but not very) dim 93 cd/m². This gave a luminance adjustment range of 691 cd/m², which is exceptional – although some sensitive users might like to have a lower luminance than 93 cd/m² without having to sacrifice contrast. The monitor also has a ‘SmartContrast’ Dynamic Contrast setting, which allows the backlight brightness to adjust (as a single unit) according to the levels of light and dark on the screen. Even when predominantly dark content was displayed, the brightness was obnoxiously high – we never find Dynamic Contrast settings particularly attractive, but this one certainly isn’t.

Things get more interesting when the monitor is running in HDR. The backlight of the monitor is split into 32 independently controllable dimming zones when HDR content is being displayed. There are three different modes for HDR on this monitor; ‘Normal’, ‘VESA HDR 1000’ and ‘UHDA’. The second and third mode gave a fair boost in contrast, to 7507:1 and 7100:1, respectively. This was primarily due to the brightness being boosted to an impressive 1126 cd/m² (‘VESA HDR 1000’) or 1065 cd/m² (‘UHDA’). The black point was less impressive at 0.15 cd/m² – that’s similar to when the monitor runs at >80% brightness under SDR. The white square is so bright that it creates a significant halo of brightness around it, flooding some of the surrounding darkness. Even though the black point reading was taken around 18 – 19cm (7 – 8 inches) from the closest edge of the white square, the glow from the white square penetrated through in that region. Although not documented in the table, a similar thing happened with the smallest test patch size (‘1% of all pixels’). The ‘Normal’ HDR setting was more impressive in many respects. The brightness was more constrained but still very bright at 533 cd/m². This created a much more limited halo effect which didn’t affect the black point reading anywhere near as much, something that was also clear to the eye. We measured a much more pleasing black point of 0.03 cd/m² (similar to the monitor running SDR at ~10% brightness), yielding an impressive contrast ratio of 17767:1.





PWM (Pulse Width Modulation)

The 436M6VBPAB does not use PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) to regulate backlight brightness at any level and instead uses DC (Direct Current). The monitor is therefore considered ‘flicker-free’, which will come as welcome news to those sensitive to flickering or worried about side-effects from PWM usage.





Luminance uniformity