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If HDR brightness is important to you, a Mini LED screen is the better choice. Some of them can exceed 1,400 nits. But dynamic range is the most important thing to me and anyone else seeking maximum image depth. That’s where OLED is unchallenged.
HDR Brightness and Contrast
The 34M2C8600 meets its DisplayHDR 400 certification when measuring a 25% window pattern. Philips specs it at 1,000 nits with a 3% window, but I could not verify this with my equipment. I have no complaints whatsoever. And like any OLED, black levels can’t be measured so the contrast is infinite. I observed the same behavior from the Mini LED 34M2C7600.
Grayscale, EOTF and Color
I measured the 34M2C8600’s four HDR modes and settled on True Black as the best. The default setting, HDR Game, is just OK. It rises out of black too quickly, where True Black sticks closer to the reference. This provides a much more dramatic effect. HDR looks amazing here with flawless grayscale and near-perfect luminance tracking. It doesn’t get better than this.
HDR color is over-saturated in the red and green primaries, but the other colors follow their targets closely. The 34M2C8600 tracks better than many of the HDR monitors I’ve tested. This translates to sharp detail, natural hues and content that just looks right. Similar behavior can be seen in the Rec.2020 test, where the red primary almost hits 100%. There is a ton of color here and it shows in everything, games, video, still photos, even the Windows desktop.
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