Conclusion
The Philips BDM4065UC is a big, bold and brash screen. A true beast of a monitor that took a bit of getting used to, but that provided a pleasing experience once this ‘adjustment’ process was complete. Its large size is complimented by a 3840 x 2160 (‘4K’ UHD) resolution, which provided a massive amount of screen real-estate. Unlike smaller sized UHD screens you didn’t get quite the same level of intricate detail on games, but you do still get a pleasing level of detail in-line with 27” 2560 x 1440 (WQHD) models. Most users won’t have to worry about scaling, either, due to the less insane pixel density offered here. We found the large screen size provided a very immersive experience when gaming or watching films and really enjoyed having such a huge amount of useful space on the desktop – without feeling the urge to apply any sort of scaling.
The image was also quite ‘loud’. The glossy VA panel delivered a very nice ‘clean’ (non-grainy) image with excellent vibrant ‘pop’ in places and good inky-looking dark colours. There were some really impressive vivid shades, particularly where bright shades were cast upon a darker background. Dark scenes had excellent atmosphere, too, without any disruptive glow or pale-looking dark colours. As is usual for this panel type there were some issues with the gamma behaviour. From a normal viewing position there was a degree of ‘black crush’, which drowned out some of the minor details; closely matching dark shades are displayed quite indistinctly. There was also a moderate saturation loss for many shades towards the side edges and bottom of the screen which contrasted with the consistent richness you could expect from an IPS-type panel. In spite of these issues, we felt the monitor provided a rich and engaging visual experience overall with good atmosphere and a good vivid quality to many shades.
Responsiveness is often a major drawback of Vertical Alignment panels and monitors which use them, but in this case things were largely impressive. There were some niggles here and there, including some slow transitions between white some dark shades and white as well as some inversion and PWM artifacts. But overall the monitor provided snappy pixel transitions that provided pleasing responsiveness within the confines of its 60Hz refresh rate. In fact when gaming, for the most part, it was very ‘un-VA-like’ in how it handled a very broad range of transitions. You didn’t have to contend with smeary trails nor overshoot and could just focus on enjoying the gameplay instead. The input lag of the screen was moderate but for many perfectly acceptable. Like many things with this monitor it’s not something that most users will find problematic. We would wager that the positive aspects of this screen are far more likely to outweigh the negatives for most users. The bottom line; you get a lot of monitor for your money.