at a mere $300 the Philips 276e is the
first quantum dot display that I have
yet had the pleasure of putting my grubby little hands on but does it
deliver or does it
disappoint let's start with the monitor itself the 276e features only what I
would consider to be basic inputs VGA DVI and HDMI with no DisplayPort it
resorts to an external power brick something I don't usually mind
personally though I wish the cord was a little longer on this one so it reached
the floor more comfortably but is considered a design compromise by many
it has no Creature Comforts to speak of so no USB hob and it not only lacks any
ergonomic adjustments other than tilt in its admittedly attractive though metal
base but to add insult to injury does not feature vase amount points so other
than putting a riser or some books under it on your desk nothing can be done to
adjust the height the bezels are of average thickness so no complaints there
but while some people may be into white monitors to go with their oh I don't
know 2006 model MacBook or whatever the
use of glossy plastic anywhere that we might have to look at it is a pretty
sore spot for me as are the touch sensitive buttons on the bottom right
right for what must be the worst onscreen menu controls that I have yet
encountered while it's true that they are at least labeled unlike the genius
ones on Acer's predator x34 and the contextually switching ones that force
me to navigate deep within the menu just to change a bloody input on this Ben Q
the labels do me very little good when they are positioned in such a way that I
need to lie my head down on the desk to see them PSA to monitor makers all of
them not just Phillips here glossy plastic is bad tactile feedback and
labels we can read on navigation buttons are
good okay lonus cool story bro but the
reason I'm still watching is that I want to know if quantum dot which by the way
is actually as cool as it sounds and involves a sealed tube with these dots
that react to Blue Light by shining red and green learn more here is enough to
make this puppy worth any of the compromises that you might be making by
buying it and for you my friend I will reveal the
answer it depends on who you are and
what you want to do because a quantum
dot monitor much like all the buzz and
marketing nonsense around LED monitors
is still at its heart an LCD monitor it
inherits many of the same characteristics that you would expect
from any LCD in this case the
unexceptional black levels of our IPS ads panel make dark scenes look more
gray than black and while casual gamers won't notice the difference its pixel
response times are nothing to write home about for competitive Gamers but what
you get in return is the as advertised
wide color gamut support in the form of true 99% coverage of the Adobe RGB color
space this in spite of the unexceptional
outof thee boox color accuracy is a huge
Boon for digital imaging hobbyists and prosumers who will be super amped to
have the ability to work on photographs that they've taken in Adobe RGB mode on
their camera natively on their workstation to get the best possible
printing results at an unheard of price point the
276e even alongside a decent Colorimeter
for calibration is still going to be fighting in a much lower price class
than other monitors with similar color space support but that doesn't make the
276e a slam dunk and I have one more
major issue with it the way it's presented in the marketing materials and
in the reviewers guide as more vibrant
thanks to its ability to represent a wider range of colors is really
irresponsible as far as I'm able to tell unless you color calibrate it and set up
an ICC profile to correct this native
Adobe RGB monitor to the smaller srgb
color space which is used almost exclusively on the web and the PC you're
going to end up with inaccurate oversaturated colors think of it this
way a program like uh let's say your web browser will call for 100% green
assuming a fully srgb pipeline then the
monitor is going to go to town delivering a 100% Adobe RGB green that
the program had no idea that it could display compounding the issue is the
fact that even profiling is not a perfect solution while macOS handles
color Corrections pixel by pixel
systemwide on Windows it's handled on an
application by application basis with many common programs like games for
example not being ICC aware so using
this monitor you're going to end up with TV display model syndrome where your
saturation is too high in a way that might make it look Punchy next to a
competitor on a shelf but actually displays the content in a way that the
Creator did not intend most monitors
literally every single one that I've ever seen with wide gamut support deal
with this simply by having an srgb mode often with a quick switch button within
the onscreen display but for some reason
the 276 e doesn't work properly I got
the exact same 9 9% Adobe RGB coverage
in srgb mode and Phillips's response
telling me that the oversaturated greens were probably because I'm not used to
wide gamut displays demonstrates that while at least I don't believe they are
intentionally misleading customers they also don't seem to really understand the
issue here which leads us finally to a couple of conclusions number one is that
whether this monitor is for you or not wide gamut support is coming to the
mainstream thanks to quantum dot woo freaking who at this kind of pricing I'd
be surprised if every LCD doesn't support it in a couple years time what a
cool technological advance to tide us over while we wait for OLED to deal with
its Burnin and cost issues and this is
conclusion number two we all need to practice new technology use responsibly
it's all fine and good to be ahead of the feature curve but it's important not
to lose track of the way that most people will use the product in the
process I'm not saying that the 276 is a
total flub of a product but in my humble opinion it is best suited for use as a
secondary display for a hobbyist or a
prosumer photo editor for example where ICC aware applications can be dragged
over to it but other applications like games can be runon one with proper
standard srgb color space support speaking of which
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