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Philips Momentum 279M1RV Review: Packed With Features and Class-Leading Performance

The Philips Momentum 279M1RV is a 27-inch 4K IPS monitor with 144 Hz, Adaptive-Sync, HDR 600, wide color gamut and Ambiglow bias lighting.

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Uncalibrated – Maximum Backlight Level

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Philips Momentum 279M1RV
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

The 279M1RV easily exceeds its 450-nit rating in SDR mode. It’s plenty bright for any potential environment, indoors or out. Black levels are just fair, but contrast cracks the 1,000:1 barrier. It’s on par with its peers.

After Calibration to 200 nits

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Philips Momentum 279M1RV
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

My calibration consisted only of reducing the brightness slider to 200 nits but that shrunk the dynamic range a bit to 820.9:1. I recommend using the SmartContrast feature for SDR, which improves the picture with a roughly 5,000:1 ratio.

ANSI contrast is almost identical at 823.8:1, which speaks to Philips’ premium components and quality control. Though it doesn’t have a lot of dynamic range natively, its performance is very consistent and reliable.

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Christian Eberle
Christian Eberle
Contributing Editor

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.

3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • gg83
    Do they make a 1440p version of this?
    Reply
  • cknobman
    "That means it won’t quite deliver the dynamic contrast of a full-array local-dimming (FALD) model, but it will render solid HDR with deep blacks and bright highlights. "

    Stopped reading right there.
    I call bs as no IPS with edge lit dimming is actually capable of delivering a real HDR experience.

    Then looked at price and laughed even harder. $750!!!
    Phillips be smokin crack, LMAO
    Reply
  • Sergei Tachenov
    cknobman said:
    "That means it won’t quite deliver the dynamic contrast of a full-array local-dimming (FALD) model, but it will render solid HDR with deep blacks and bright highlights. "

    Stopped reading right there.
    I call bs as no IPS with edge lit dimming is actually capable of delivering a real HDR experience.
    Absolutely. You need all three things to deliver any HDR experience: brightness, contrast and color gamut. And the contrast is what, 1000:1? Laughable. That's not "deep blacks." It's just a very bright SDR monitor with wide color gamut, nothing special. In fact, it's just the Philips version of the 27GP950, sharing the same panel.

    On an unrelated note, I wonder whether the KVM switch is as broken as in the 329M1RV. I'm 99% sure it is. Because they call it a KVM switch except... there is no freaking switch! There are exactly two ways to switch between the connected devices. The first, use the "auto-switch" feature: turn one PC off, the monitor will automatically switch to the other. The second, dig all the way through the OSD to find the carefully hidden switch functionality. And nope, you can't set it up to some shortcut, like moving the joystick into a certain direction.

    This is the reason why I chose the M32U over the 329M1RV. Here, the switch comes with a lot of flaws, but at least it's there, and it actually works.

    Philips has a very unique talent of making a horrible mess of UX. I had a Philips TV where plugging earphones in didn't mute the speakers. Instead, you had to mute them manually and then, to adjust the phones' volume, you had to dig through the menu to find it because the volume buttons on the remote control only controlled speakers regardless of whether earphones are connected.
    Reply