Philips BDM4065UC 40-inch Ultra HD Monitor Review
Why would you put the Philips BDM4065UC on your desk? Because it's 40 inches with Ultra HD resolution and a 5000:1 contrast ratio. Today we check it out in our lab.
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Color Gamut And Performance
For details on our color gamut testing and volume calculations, please click here.
Now we can show you why the BDM4065UC needs selectable color gamuts. The Color Temperature mode gamut has significant over-saturation in blue and magenta. And the red primary is under-saturated. Hue errors are not too bad and will be fixed with grayscale calibration. But the saturation issues are visible in test patterns. While blue luminance has been lowered to compensate, the Delta E values are still over three.
Switching to sRGB renders an excellent gamut result with flat luminance at all saturation levels. The overall error here is only 2.56dE but that comes at the expense of a very blue grayscale. Ultimately we chose to accept the over-saturated gamut in favor of a correct D65 white point.
Here’s how things look after calibration. The white point is now where it should be and there are no hue errors in the secondary colors. But the saturation problems remain in blue, magenta and red. Ultimately we like the way the monitor looks and its extra contrast helps make up for the color problems. But if Philips offered a separate color gamut selector, this result could be much better.
Now we return to the comparison group.
Despite the look of the gamut charts, the BDM4065UC ranks in the middle of the pack. It’s thanks to some careful engineering on Philips’ part. By lowering the luminance of the over-saturated blue primary, the overall errors are reduced. We don’t recommend this monitor for color-critical work but it will serve extremely well as a gaming and general-use display.
Gamut Volume: Adobe RGB 1998 And sRGB
The position of the measured blue primary coupled with an under-saturated red one means gamut volume falls a little short of 100-percent sRGB. Photographers may want to look elsewhere for a jumbo screen but the rest of us will enjoy the BDM’s high contrast and sharp picture.
Current page: Color Gamut And Performance
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Christian Eberle is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He's a veteran reviewer of A/V equipment, specializing in monitors. Christian began his obsession with tech when he built his first PC in 1991, a 286 running DOS 3.0 at a blazing 12MHz. In 2006, he undertook training from the Imaging Science Foundation in video calibration and testing and thus started a passion for precise imaging that persists to this day. He is also a professional musician with a degree from the New England Conservatory as a classical bassoonist which he used to good effect as a performer with the West Point Army Band from 1987 to 2013. He enjoys watching movies and listening to high-end audio in his custom-built home theater and can be seen riding trails near his home on a race-ready ICE VTX recumbent trike. Christian enjoys the endless summer in Florida where he lives with his wife and Chihuahua and plays with orchestras around the state.
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Oleander Bought one back in january. Best decision ever!Reply
A lot of bad stuff were said about it in forums (for all the wrong reasons) so it's nice to see that for what I use it (non first-person gaming and all-round) this review vindicates it.
Only remaining issue is the flicker of the backlight if brightness is not at 100%, but since the brightness is so low, it's not a problem to me. -
cats_Paw For professional use, absolutely.Reply
For gaming, probably not (Black levels are amazing for LED panel, and also contrast is amazing, but color delta and input lag... no way).
Plasmas are still king for gaming in my books, too abd they are almost all gone by now. -
Maryland_USA A completely unique product? I don't think so. Several other 40-inch monitors are available that will drive a VA panel at 3840x2160@60Hz through both DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0. They're sold by AMH, Crossover, Iiyama, MIcroboard, and Seiki. Step up to 43 inches, and you must add Wasabi Mango. All but the Seiki and Iiyama cost less than the Philips.Reply -
Larry Litmanen I currently game on a 32 inch TV, honestly you can not go back to a monitor with a better resolution that is 24 or 27 inches. Once you go big it is just amazing.Reply
It's not just the width, you also need that vertical screen real estate.
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hotdogee "Nearly every LCD panel on the planet is made by either Samsung, LG or AU Optronics. A few are also made by Innolux (formerly Chi Mei). But the Philips BDM4065UC is made by TP Vision, which is the actual owner of the Philips brand."Reply
The panel is made by Innolux for TP Vision. -
Eggz Great to see this. Is tom's planning on reviewing the new LG 4K OLED displays? They would seem to score very well in just about every category that matters for professional use. I'd love to see it, and the reviewers would also probably enjoy playing with one. Consider it, please.Reply -
Xorak I used a 32" 1080p TV for a long time, so I completely get the appeal of a big screen with great contrast and vibrant color, even if it's not the fastest or most accurate. Now I'm used to my MG279Q and would not go back to a fixed refresh screen. I hoped that 4096x2160 would start catching on too, but it looks like it won't. In the next 2 years a single GPU should be able to make use of a true 4k panel with variable refresh up to 75 or 90hz and it would be a thing of beauty at 30+ inches.Reply -
enewmen Can someone explain why not to use Ultra HD LEDs TV for computer work? (another dumb post) For small font text (using 1080p TVs) , the TVs did'n't look as sharp as PC monitors. But I don't see that as a problem for 2160p TVs. Yes, the TV must have HDMI 2.0 and the graphics card must also support that. But is that the only reason? Anyway, the Philips looks like an UHD TV made for PC work at a price similar to TVs.Reply
I also personally don't like Display Port cables because only the BEST cables won't give problems with recovering from sleep mode. Gave up on Display Port and currently using DVI Dual Link at 1440p. -
mavikt Great to see this. Is tom's planning on reviewing the new LG 4K OLED displays? They would seem to score very well in just about every category that matters for professional use. I'd love to see it, and the reviewers would also probably enjoy playing with one. Consider it, please.
I too would like to see a proper technical review of said (TV) tech.
In a home theater magazine I subscribe to they said that the latency was around 50ms (55EG960V), didn't say how it was measured though. Otherwise they said it was The Perfect TV.
So it remains to be seen if LCD will "remain the dominant tech for the foreseeable future"