14 DAY TRIAL // Curved monitors are no longer just a weird phase through which the industry was going through, and a good example of that the technology is finding its place is within the Philips 328E9F curved display.
When the first curved monitors started to appear on the market, people were skeptical about their utility, and that wasn’t unexpected. We’ve seen curved displays in Sci-Fi movies and TV Shows for so long, that when they actually arrived, we weren’t that impressed. I’m now wondering if users will have the same reaction to foldable screens or transparent ones.
The thing is that at first glance, the curved monitor, or TV for that matter, seems pointless. It looks cool, there’s no question about it, but that’s pretty much it. It turns out that having a small curve on your display is not useless, and if the monitor is good, it does matter in the end.
As it was to be expected, once the new design started to sell, a lot of companies have tried to implement this feature, and not with the best success. That’s to be expected, especially with new technologies, but that excuse doesn’t exist anymore. Curved displays have been around for some time, and Philips is a brand with self-respect and a lot of pedigree.
We’re not now past the point where a bad curved monitor could be excused by the fact that it’s a new type of technology that still has some kinks to smooth out. Fortunately, the Philips 328E9F is an excellent piece of hardware, and it shows in every aspect.
Design
There’s little that can be said in terms of design, except that it seems to follow a current trend of minimalism. It also helps that the bezels are becoming smaller and smaller, although we haven’t quite reached the point where monitors could follow the phone display design and have an edge to edge build.
The stand itself is very basic, and it does its job adequately, although there are a few issues with it. For starters, it’s a different color than the monitor itself. Some people might like this combination of silver and black, but I find it annoying.
It’s not a big issue, but then we take a look at the back. It uses an antiquated system to connect the stand with the display. Users have to take a small plastic cover off, put in four screws, and put the cover back. I’ve seen much more massive displays that you could mount with just a click and no screws. There is no reason to use this type of connection anymore.
And to make things a little bit worse, there is zero cable management. Users are left to use a zip tie, or something similar for cable management.
Specifications and usage
First of all, the Philips 328E9F is a 32-inch or 80cm display, so it’s quite big. It has a resolution of 2560 x 1440 @ 75 Hz, which translates into an aspect ratio of 16:9. It’s VA, not IPS, but that doesn’t matter all that much in terms of clarity or performance.
But the strong suit is, of course, the curved display. It has a 1800R curvature, but unless you have prior knowledge of this number, it doesn’t really say anything. As it turns out, the humans have a curved field of view of about 1000R (we’ll explain that number immediately), so a curved monitor should actually appear crisper.
There are four common ratings right now, 1800R, 2300R, 3000R, and 4000R. The R stands for radius, and the number is in millimeters. As it happens, the radius is also helpful in determining the right distance from the monitor, which in the case of the Philips 328E9F is 1.8 meters or 1800 mm.
Furthermore, the Philips display comes with a pixel density of 93 PPI, which is pretty good. The problem with big monitors is that they might look good in games, but terrible when the users are in the operating system, for example, browsing the web or doing other office activities.
A lot DPI setting makes all the writing jagged, and if you squint close enough, you can see the pixels. But a 93 PPI setting is quite good, making the display work really well both in gaming and in a regular office setting.
And since the display also comes with AMD FreeSync, which is mostly a feature designed for gaming, we already know that Philips wanted to keep these types of users. The response time is not great and sits at just 5ms. It’s at the limit, with dedicated gaming monitors having 2 or even 1ms. At 5ms, most people should be fine, but anything more significant than that would have resulted in ghosting.
Furthermore, I have to say that the brightness, contrast, and image gradient al test really well, with a single exception. When checking out the color gradients, we could observe that it wasn’t all that uniform on the left side. It’s something that only shows us when looking for it, with a dedicated test. In most cases, it won’t affect daily usage.
Also, for some strange reason, if you look close enough, you might notice a small gap between the bezel and the display. I have no idea why that gap exists, but it’s small and only visible when the display is off, and you look closely.
Lastly, the display has a couple of useful features called Pixel Orbiting and Smart Contrast. The first one is designed to move the image by one pixel so that it prevents burn-in, acting basically like an active screensaver. The second feature technically permits for a larger range for the contrast, making the dark zones darker, but that’s not obvious in scenes where there is no clear boundary.
The Good
I’ve tried a lot of monitors over the years, and most of the big ones have the same problem; there are not usable in office settings. That’s not the case with this Philips 328E9F, and the 93PPI density is a major plus for me.
The Bad
Conclusion
Whatever small problems there are don’t justify not getting this one, especially if you consider the reasonable price and the fact that it can be used in an office or gaming with the same success.
