MONITORS
ISSUE392|COMPUTER SHOPPER|OCTOBER 2020 73
THEPHILIPSBRILLIANCE439P9H is an
ultrawide displaythat aims to improve
productivity by offering avast amount of
space –handy if you work with loads of
windows or with huge spreadsheets.
Design-wise,itlooks good, with asmart
minimalist stand and slim bezels. It’s robust
and versatile,too: you get 130mm of height
adjustment, tilting and swivelling movement
and 100mm VESA compatibility.The only
concern is making sure you have room forit,
as it’s agigantic 1,058mm wide.
That’s adiagonal 43in worth of screen
space,presented in a32:10 aspect ratio with
aconventional 1800R curvature.Boththis
size and the resolution of 3,840x1,200 point
to amonitor that’s intended as areplacement
fordual1080p displays.
There are more pixel-dense ultrawide
monitors, including Philips’ own Brilliance
499P9H (Shopper377), but the 439P9H is still
sharp enough forphotoand video work, and
there’s always plenty of screen real estatefor
using multiple windows or wide applications.
TWOFOR ONE
Underneath the huge size and resolution, the
439P9H uses VA technology alongside 10-bit
colour,and it has AMD FreeSync that peaks
at 100Hz. The inclusion of VA technology is
interesting: it lowers cost when compared to
IPS and lends itself to top-notch contrast, but
IPS panels tend to have better colours.
There’s also DisplayHDR 400 support,
though this is only an entry-level HDR
standard. More helpful are the side features:
the 439P9H has an integrated KVM
(keyboard, video and mouse) switch, so
you can control two PCs or laptops using a
single set of peripherals, and the Windows
Hello-compatible webcam helpfully makes it
possible to set up facial-recognition
authentication.
There’s also aslew
of ports on offer.
These include two
USB Type-C ports, both
of which candeliver
power (one 75W,the
other 15W) and one of
which can act as an
upstream port. There are
also four full-size USB 3.1
ports, one with fast
charging, as well as Gigabit Ethernet, two
DisplayPort 1.4inputs andaasole HDMI 2.0b
connection. Youalso get twwo5Wspeakers
PHILIPS Brilliance
439P9H
★★★★★
£845•From http://www.uk.insight.com
VERDICT
Greatquality,featuresandsize,butit’snot
necessarilythebiggestorthebestoption
thatprovideenoughpunchandclarityfor
casual media use and video calls.
This is an extremely well-rounded selection
of inputs, although it remains irritating that all
of this panel’s ports are on the rear and face
downwards, making them trickytoreach.
Thankfully,the standard Philips OSD is
sensibly organised and very fast, with
navigation controlled by snappybuttons
beneath the bottom bezel.
At default settings, the 439P9H delivers a
brightness level of 400cd/m^2 –dead on the
requirement forDisplayHDR 400 certification
–and ablack level of 0.18cd/m^2 .Those figures
createacontrast ratio of 2,222:1, agreat
figure that squeaks past the larger 499P9H.
That superb contrast means that the 439P9H
has huge vibrancy and punch, along with a
lack of noticeable banding and plenty of
pleasing subtlety on show.LOWPROFILES
Average delta-E is less impressive,at2.27,but
colour performance improves significantly
upon switching to sRGB mode.Delta-E drops
to amuchbetter 1.25, and 97.9% sRGB gamut
coverage will suffice forcasual editing.
Professionals might still need to look
elsewhere,however,asthe 439P9H could also
only manage 79.4%ofthe Adobe RGB gamut
and 86.9% of the DCI-P3 gamut.
The other screen modes don’t offer much,
either.The Gaming mode hinders contrast,
the Photoand Office modes don’t deliversignificant colour accuracy improvements and
the Movie mode makes everything worse
across the board.
It’s worth saying that the 400cd/m^2 is only
using the default brightness setting of 60%;
whack this up to full and the 439P9H peaks at
529cd/m^2 while maintaining contrast and
colour levels. However,while Philips has
satisfied HDR’s brightness requirements, its
black level can’t reach the depths demanded
by DisplayHDR 400. Activating HDR on this
screen will only deliver atiny improvement,
so no-one should buy this screen on the
strength of itsHDR options.
Uniformity is an issue,too.Ultrawides
often struggle with this but the 439P9H has
it particularly tough, losing up to 35% of its
backlight strength on the leftedge and up to
28% on the right edge.CATCHING BREADTH
The 439P9H has several big advantages. The
design, forstarters: this screen’s width is a
huge boon forlotsofsituations, and the
monitor has great features, from its USB and
Ethernet connectivity to its KVM switch and
pop-up webcam. It also serves up impressive
contrast and good colour in its sRGB mode.
It does have its downsides, however.
The 499P9H is bigger and sharper (thanks to
its higher resolution), and has better colour
performance.The 439P9H’s colours and
contrast are generally good, but the
uniformity issues mean that this screen won’t
always cope with
colour-sensitive tasks in
the sRGB colour space,
and it’s not able to
handle Adobe RGB or
DCI-P3 work either.
The Philips Brilliance
439P9H is good if you
need loads of
horizontal space and if
you don’t do toomuch
colour-sensitive work.
However,keep the laarger 499P9H on your
radar; it’s only alittleemore expensive despite
the bigger size andhhigher resolution.