Key Specs and
Features
-
31.5" size, 16:9 aspect ratio
-
3840
x 2160 (4K) resolution
-
IPS
panel
-
Wide gamut backlight
89% Adobe RGB
-
USB
type-C docking
-
Windows Hello pop-up webcam
-
Fully adjustable stand
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This is a shorter format
review but we have included as much of our normal testing
and results as
we can. We will of course still be carrying out our normal full,
detailed reviews for the most interesting, complex and exciting new
screens, but
using this short format helps us cover a few additional models in
the meantime. An explanation of the results and figures discussed in this
short format review can be found
here.

The Philips 329P1H is a 31.5"
sized display and offers a 3840 x 2160 Ultra HD ("4K") resolution
IPS technology panel. It's marketed
as an office monitor or
home-working monitor in their P line (Professional) of displays and
has a range of features designed to enhance productivity and user
experience. This includes things like USB type-C docking and an
integrated Windows Hello compatible pop-up webcam. We will talk
about all the features a bit later on. It has a
3-side borderless design and has thin borders measuring
only 9.5mm around the sides and top (total bezel + panel border)
giving it a fairly sleek design.
One of the key features of this
screen is its high 3840 x 2160 Ultra HD ("4K") resolution. This 4K resolution is
a bit too high to use at native scaling (100%) on a screen
even of this pretty large 31.5" size, so you will probably want to use operating
system scaling to ensure fonts and text are a
sensible and readable size. 150% is probably unnecessarily large,
with 125% scaling offering a nice balance on a screen of this size.
That gives you comfortable text size which is very similar to a 27"
1440p screen, but does give you the equivalent desktop real-estate
area of a 3072 x 1728 resolution. So that's quite a nice jump up
from common 2560 x 1440 resolution screens in this approximate size
range. The extra pixel density of the 4K resolution will provide a
very sharp and clear image though for office and general uses. Just
make sure that your software and games support scaling effectively
as it can sometimes be a bit difficult to get it right.
The IPS
technology panel offers the kind of solid all-round performance
you'd expect from this panel technology with good colours, a stable image
and wide viewing angles. It also supports 10-bit colour depth if
you're specifically working with 10-bit content.
|

The 329P1H has a comprehensive
set of features to enhance your experience and increase
productivity. These include:
-
USB type-C docking station (inc RJ45
Ethernet LAN) - this Philips display features a built-in USB type-C
docking station with power delivery. With intelligent and flexible power
management, you can power charge your compatible laptop directly and connect
with a single, easy to use cable type. Its slim, reversible USB-C connector
allows for easy, one-cable docking. Simplify by connecting all your
peripherals like keyboard, mouse and even your RJ-45 Ethernet cable to the
monitor's docking station. You can watch high-resolution video and transfer
data at super-speed, while powering up and re-charging your notebook at the
same time.
-
Windows Hello compatible pop-up webcam
- Philips' innovative and secure 2.0 Megapixel Full HD webcam pops up from the top of the
screen when you need it and securely tucks back into the monitor when you
are not using it. The webcam is also equipped with advanced sensors for
Windows Hello facial recognition, which conveniently logs you into your
Windows devices in less than 2 seconds, which can be faster and certainly
more convenient than using a password. It includes a microphone as well for
simple video conferencing.
-
Eye care measures - the now common
use of a flicker free backlight is welcome as ever to avoid eye strain and
issues associated with older PWM dimming methods. There are also a range of
low blue light modes available in the OSD menu which we will look at a bit
later. The displays meet TUV Rheinland Eye Comfort standard to prevent eye
strain caused by prolonged computer use.
-
PowerSensor motion detector -
PowerSensor is a built-in 'people sensor' that transmits and receives
harmless infrared signals to determine if the user is present and then
automatically reduces monitor brightness when then user steps away from the
desk, cutting energy costs by up to 80 percent and prolonging monitor life.
This is useful if you are going to step away from your screen throughout the
day.
-
Ambient light sensor - uses a
smart sensor to adjust the picture brightness depending on the light
conditions in the room and help provide a comfortable brightness level while
reducing power consumption. Note that we disabled this feature when testing
and calibrating the screen below, but you can always turn it back on later
to control the brightness of the screen without impact other areas of the
setup.
-
OSD menu - the menu has a decent
range of options and navigation was quick via the pressable buttons on the
bottom bezel. The first four sections of the menu are for the PowerSensor,
LightSensor, LowBlue mode and input selection so you actually have to scroll
down a fair bit before you get to the picture controls and more
useful/commonly used options. Maybe these features should have been all
within a single section and further down the menu software? Navigation took
a little getting used to with the up/down buttons but was easy enough.
-
Versatile but heavy stand - the
stand provides a full range of ergonomic adjustments with tilt, height,
swivel and rotate offered. Adjustments are pretty smooth although a bit
stiff, but the screen remains stable on your desk. The stand is really
heavy, surprisingly so, with a total screen weight of 12.2Kg.
-
Integrated 2x 5W speakers -
helping to again keep things simple the screen includes some modest
integrated speakers which will be more than adequate for the odd video, mp3
or video chat. An audio out connection is included in case you'd rather
connect headphones.
-
Other connectivity - as well as
the USB type-C we've mentioned above, there is also 1x DisplayPort 1.4 and
2x HDMI 2.0 connections offered, making connecting from PC's and laptops
simple, even if you don't want to use USB type-C (or don't have it). There
are also 4x USB ports, 2 of which are located on the left hand edge of the
screen tucked around the back a bit but easy enough access (one of those
offers fast-charge capability).


Default Setup
An important thing to consider for most users
is how a screen will perform out of the box and with some basic manual
adjustments. Since most users won't have access to hardware colorimeter tools,
it is important to understand how the screen is going to perform in terms of
colour accuracy for the average user.

Default setup of the screen is
reasonably good with a fairly accurate overall average gamma (2.19)
although this was a little low in darker tones which can lead to
overly bright blacks and loss of some shadow detail. It was also a
bit high in lighter shades leading some washing out of bright
shades. The average colour temp was close to the 6500k target with a
small 3% deviance, although the RGB balance was quite a long way off
in lighter shades. For white background content like office work the
white point colour temp was a bit too warm at 6072k (7% deviance).
This led some some inaccuracies in the greyscale with an average dE
of 2.1. We will need to correct the RGB balance, gamma and colour
temp a bit through calibration for better performance, although out
of the box it was reasonable and probably fine for most general
users and office environments. Further explanation of these results
and graphs is provided
at
the bottom of the page.
The screen was too bright out of
the box as with most screens, measured at 254 cd/m2 so
that will need adjusting from the default 70% brightness level in
the OSD menu. The total backlight adjustment range was very good
with a 372 cd/m2 maximum, and a 36 cd/m2
minimum adjustment, affording you good flexibility for darker room
conditions as well. The backlight dimming was controlled without the
need of PWM and so was flicker free as advertised. The contrast
ratio was solid for an IPS panel at 1106:1 too.

The screen has a wide
colour gamut backlight with a spec listed of 128% sRGB (relative
to CIE 1931) and 89% Adobe RGB (relative to CIE 1976). It gets a bit
confusing for consumers when difference chromaticity references are
used like this, we'd rather one standard was used for all these
manufacturer specs. Oddly there is no DCI-P3 colour space spec
provided, although that is probably the closest reference to the
gamut the screen actually produces.
We measured a good 98.9% sRGB
absolute coverage in the default mode, with an extension beyond that
to 134% relative coverage. In our results here that is using CIE
1976 by the way. So this means that the native mode offers a colour
space that extends a long way beyond the common sRGB reference. This
leads to a moderate colour accuracy relative to sRGB content, with a
dE average of 2.3. There is a maximum of 6.9 in blue shades where
the produced blue colour from the backlight is quite a long way away
from the sRGB blue primary shade. If you're viewing sRGB content on
this screen in native mode then that leads to some oversaturation of
the colours. It makes them look more vivid and colourful which many
people prefer, but may not be "accurate". Red and blue shades will
look the most different, and so if you're planning to do any design
or colour critical work with sRGB content this might cause a few
challenges unless you can profile and calibrate the screen and your
workflow.
In the lower section we also
compare the monitors colour space against the DCI-P3 colour space.
You can see that the screen offers a pretty good DCI-P3 coverage at
93.8% and the triangles match reasonably well, with the main
difference being towards blue shades. Colour accuracy for DCI-P3
content is still not great because of the warmer colour temperature
and the overly saturated blue shades. You can see here also that the
Adobe RGB colour space coverage is basically spot on their 89% spec
(88.5% measured). Further explanation of these results and graphs is
provided
at
the bottom of the page.

sRGB Emulation Mode
and Factory Calibration

There is an sRGB emulation
mode provided as well via the 'sRGB' colour temp mode in the menu
although this has a major problem sadly. This actually carries a
factory calibration, you can see a copy of the report provided with
our sample [here].
This suggests a 2.2 gamma and 0.89 dE average, although you can see
some larger deviances in some shades on their report. We measured
the screen again in this sRGB mode, the results for
gamma/greyscale/colour temp are shown above. This shows a more
variable gamma curve with larger deviances in dark shades (average
2.05) being a bit of a problem, and resulting in some loss of shadow
detail and overly bright blacks. Colour temp and RGB balance was a
bit better than the default mode and white point was a bit closer to
the target at 6263k (4% deviance). The image looked fairly decent
and you could tell the gamut had been restricted to a smaller
standard sRGB colour space.

The colour measurements showed a
pretty good result. There was a decent emulation of the sRGB colour
space, with a small under-coverage of sRGB at 93.3% measured, but
very little extension beyond that reference space which was
pleasing. You can see the two triangles in the CIE diagram match
pretty nicely. This results in better colour accuracy when viewing
sRGB content, and we measured a 1.7 dE average too.
The problem with this sRGB
emulation mode, as with quite a few other screens, is that it is
really inflexible. You are stuck at a maximum 100% brightness level,
and cannot change that without moving out of this mode. This results
in a very high 372 cd/m2 brightness which you cannot
avoid. The only preset mode you can enable is 'Smart Uniformity'
(uniformity correction) which lowers the brightness a bit down to
around 302 cd/m2 but it's still far too bright for
comfortable use. This renders the sRGB emulation mode (and its
factory calibration) unusable really, which is a shame as these
features can be useful. You can read more about sRGB emulation, its
importance and some workarounds if you're an AMD user in our
recently updated article about colour gamut.

Calibration


Calibrated results were very good
as you would expect after profiling the screen. We made some useful
changes to the screen settings to correct the brightness level and
colour temperature, with the recommended OSD settings shown in the
table above. After profiling the gamma, greyscale and colour
accuracy were all very good.
You can use our settings
and try our calibrated ICC profile if you wish, which are available
in
our ICC profile database. Keep in mind that results will vary
from one screen to another and from one computer / graphics card to
another.

Low Blue Light Modes

We also tested the monitor colour
spectrum using the
UPRtek spectroradiometer, a high end device which captures
accurate colour data of a display. Above shows the fairly
typical spectrum in calibrated mode (at 6500k calibrated white point) with
familiar high blue light peak.

There are some
low blue light filter modes available in the OSD menu as well which
can be useful if you're working with a lot of office content, want
to reduce the blue light output at certain times of the day and
generally make the image more comfortable in these uses. We
measured the maximum blue light mode (setting 4) which made the image a
fair bit warmer at around 4537k and lowered the blue peak as you can
see from the above spectral graph.

Uniformity

There is a supposed uniformity
correction mode offered on this screen via the 'Smart Uniformity'
preset mode so we tested that as well. Above is the uniformity of
the screen without this enabled in normal conditions after
calibration. You can see that the lower areas of the screen are a
bit darker than the upper section, not to the point where it's
noticeable in day to day use but potentially an issue if you are
wanting to do any colour critical work.

We enabled the Smart Uniformity
mode from the menu which made a small impact to the brightness and
contrast ratio of the display. We had to bump the brightness setting
up by about 8 points to reach back to the same luminance as we had
before, and the contrast ratio had taken a small hit dropping down
to 921:1 but certainly nothing major. As you can see though this did
nothing to improve the overall uniformity of the screen
unfortunately and so offered no real benefit. This was the same in
the sRGB preset mode where the screen had supposedly been factory
calibrated for uniformity, so this feature didn't seem to be working
as intended sadly.

Gaming and Response
Times

The P329P1H is not really aimed at gamers at
all, but can handle some light gaming like RTS type games without much trouble.
It's 60Hz maximum refresh rate only so lacks the high refresh rate of proper
gaming monitors that could bring about obvious improvements in motion clarity,
frame rates and overall gaming experience. It does support adaptive-sync
allowing for
variable refresh rates from compatible NVIDIA G-sync and AMD FreeSync cards
(48 - 60Hz VRR range), and helping systems cope with the varying frame rates
likely to occur when powering the screen at its native 4K resolution. The
support for 4K provides a nice sharp, crisp image with a high level of detail
and so makes it a nice option for slower paced games. The IPS panel combined
with a wide gamut backlight also helps provide a great all round image quality
so if you do want to do a bit of gaming it looks pretty good. Just don't aim to
do anything too fast paced as there are certainly better gaming-focused screens
available for that.
The screen has 4 overdrive modes and you can
tell that the 'Faster' mode provides the best visual balance. The one higher
mode ('Fastest') introduces too much overshoot with obvious pale halos so it not
usable, but 'Faster' mode definitely looks a bit sharper and clearer than the
lower modes. We measured the response times using our updated and more accurate
gamma corrected method we recently wrote a
detailed article about. This provides a more accurate reflection of the
response times relative to how you would actually see and experience colour and
brightness changes. You can see that the overall response times are not
particularly good, with a 10.0ms average G2G measured although not terrible for
a 60Hz IPS panel. Again, keep in mind this is not a gaming screen. There is at
least very little overshoot in this mode apart from a couple of transitions
where a bit of dark overshoot might appear, but this is not really visible in
practice. The screen is only 60Hz as we said, so even with this relatively slow
response time performance you get good refresh rate compliance with 93% of the
transitions within that refresh rate window. There was also no lag on this
screen with an estimated 0.1ms signal processing lag measured.

Conclusion
The 329P1H was a very versatile and well
thought out office monitor and we were impressed by its range of features and
overall performance. The inclusion of things like a USB type-C docking function,
RJ45 Ethernet connection, motion sensor, ambient light sensor and integrated
pop-up webcam were great, and set this screen apart from many mainstream
office-type screens. One of the other key features is the 4K resolution
IPS panel which provided very good all round performance, sharp and crisp images
and a large enough 31.5" screen size to make use of a bit of a bump in desktop
space if you use 125% scaling (or maybe even 100% if you're feeling brave).
Default setup was decent and there were a good range of options in the menu to
play with. The wide colour gamut and 10-bit colour depth will be useful to some
users, but we were a bit disappointed in the provided sRGB emulation mode which
was severely limited because of its inability to adjust the brightness control.
This rendered it (and the factory calibration which applied to this mode)
unusable sadly. Likewise we were a bit disappointed that the uniformity
correction mode didn't seem to work properly.
Even away from the primary target office
work the screen is aimed at, the 329P1H did pretty well for gaming too. It's
60Hz only so don't expect anything amazing but the response times were decent
enough, there was no overshoot in the optimal 'Faster' mode, VRR was supported
up to 60Hz and there was also next to no input lag. So if you do want to do a
bit of light gaming, play RTS-type games or just have a break from all your
normal work then this screen can also handle that fine.
The Philips 329P1H is available in many
regions now from
Amazon
(affiliate referral link) and if you're looking for an office or
home-working monitor with a great range of features and solid performance
then you should definitely consider the 329P1H.

Check Pricing and Buy -
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Testing and Results Explained
We will test and measure a range of aspects
of these displays. By way of a brief explanation of what some
of the results mean we thought we'd include this short guide:
Results Round-up section
-
Maximum and minimum brightness
- the full range in which the backlight can be adjusted using the
monitor's brightness control. At the upper end this can be important for
gaming from a further distance, especially in brighter rooms and the
daytime. At the lower end this can be important if you are using the
screen up close for more general office-type work, especially in darker
room conditions or at night.
-
Recommended brightness setting -
to achieve approx 120
cd/m2,
which is the recommended luminance for LCD monitors in normal lighting
conditions
-
Flicker free -
independently tested and confirmed whether the screen is flicker free or not and without
PWM at all
brightness settings
Setup and Measurements Section

Performance is measured and evaluated with a
high degree of accuracy using a range of testing devices and software. The
results are carefully selected to provide the most useful and relevant
information that can help evaluate the display while filtering out the wide
range of information and figures that will be unnecessary. For measurement we
use a
UPRtek MK550T spectroradiometer which is particularly good for colour gamut
and spectrum measurements. We also use an X-rite i1 Pro 2 Spectrophotometer and
a
X-rite i1 Display Pro
Plus for measurements in various ways. Various software packages are
incorporated including
Portrait Displays Calman Ultimate package. We measure the screen at default
settings (with all ICC profiles deactivated and factory settings used), and any
other modes that are of interest such as sRGB emulation presets. We then
calibrate and profile the screen.
The results presented can be interpreted as
follows:
-
Greyscale dE -
this graph tracks the accuracy of each greyscale shade measured from 0
(black) to 100 (white). The accuracy of each grey shade will be impacted by
the colour temperature and gamma of the display. The lower the dE the better
with differences of <1 being imperceptible (marked by the green line on the
graph), and differences between 1 and 3 being small (below the yellow line).
Anything over dE 3 needs correcting and causes more obvious differences in
appearance relative to what should be shown. In the table beneath the graph
we provide the average dE across all grey shades, as well as the white point
dE (important when considering using the screen for lots of white background
and office content), and the max greyscale dE as well.
-
RGB Balance and
colour temperature - the RGB balance graph shows the relative balance
between red, green and blue primaries at each grey shade, from 0 (black) to
100 (white). Ideally all 3 lines should be flat at the 100% level which
would represent a balanced 6500k average colour temperature. This is the
target colour temperature for desktop monitors and the temperature of
daylight. Where the lines deviate from this 100% flat level the image may
become too warm or cool. Beneath this RGB balance graph we provide the
average correlated colour temperature for all grey shades measured, along
with its deviance from the 6500k target. We also provide the white point
colour temperature and its deviance from 6500k, as this is particularly
important when viewing lots of white background and office content.
-
Gamma
-
we aim for 2.2 gamma which is the default for
computer monitors. A graph is provided tracking the 2.2 gamma across
different grey shades and ideally the grey line representing the monitor
measurements should be horizontal and flat at the 2.2 level. Depending on
where the gamma is too low or too high, it can have an impact on the image
in certain ways. You can see our
gamma explanation graph to help understand that more. Beneath the gamma
graph we include the average overall gamma achieved along with the average
for dark shades (0 - 50) and for lighter shades (50 - 100).
-
Luminance, black depth and
Contrast ratio - measuring the
brightness, black depth and resulting contrast ratio of the mode being
tested, whether that is at default settings or later after calibration and
profiling.
-
Gamut coverage - we provide
measurements of the screens
colour gamut relative to various reference spaces including sRGB, DCI-P3,
Adobe RGB and Rec.2020. Coverage is shown in absolute numbers as well as
relative, which helps identify where the coverage extends beyond a given
reference space. A CIE-1976 chromaticity diagram (which provides improved
accuracy compared with older CIE-1931 methods) is included which provides a
visual representation of the monitors colour gamut as compared with sRGB, and if
appropriate also relative to a wide gamut reference space such as DCI-P3.
-
dE colour accuracy - a wide range of
colours are tested and the colour accuracy dE measured. We compare these
produced colours to the sRGB reference space, and if applicable when measuring a
wide gamut screen we also provide the accuracy relative to a specific wide gamut
reference such as DCI-P3. An average dE and maximum dE is provided along with an
overall screen rating.
The lower the dE the better with
differences of <1 being imperceptible (marked by the green area on the graph),
and differences between 1 and 3 being small (yellow areas). Anything over dE 3
needs correcting and causes more obvious differences in appearance relative to
what should be shown
Gaming Performance Section
We first of all
test the screen visually in each of its available overdrive modes and at
a range of refresh rates from 60Hz, all the way up to the maximum
supported. This allows us to identify what appears to be optimal setting
for each refresh rate and we can then measure the response times across
a range of grey to grey (G2G) transitions using our oscilloscope setup,
including correcting for gamma to improve accuracy as we described in
our
detailed article. This helps provide measurements for response times
and overshoot that are even more representative of what you see in
realuse. In the summary section the
small table included shows the average G2G response time measured at
several
refresh rates (where supported), along with the optimal overdrive setting we found. The
overshoot level is then also rated in the table at each refresh rate. We
will explain in the commentary if there are any considerations when
using variable refresh rates (VRR) as well as talking about the overall
performance our findings during all these tests.
At the maximum
refresh rate of the screen we will also include our familiar more
detailed response time measurements, which includes a wider range of
transition measurements as well as some analysis of things like the
refresh rate compliance. This identifies how many of the measured pixel
transitions were fast enough to keep up with the frame rate of the
screen. Ideally you'd want pixel response times to be consistently and
reliably shorter than this refresh rate cycle, otherwise if they are
slower it can lead to additional smearing and blurring on moving
content.
In this section
we will also include the measured input lag and look at any blur
reduction backlight feature if it's available. The commentary in each
section will provide more information if a blur reduction mode is
available and how it operates.