Philips BDM4065UC 40-inch Ultra HD Monitor Review

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.