SDR Operation, Response Time, Input Lag

As we're looking at a VA panel here, I wasn't expecting fantastic response times. Philips claims a 4ms gray-to-grey transition, which is well below what we typically see from VA panels in exercise, so my immediate thought was they're probably fudging that number. Yet, this detail 43-inch VA console is actually one of the best VAs for response times; I recorded an average gray-to-gray response of 6.53ms with relatively consistent operation for rises and falls. This is well below the xvi.7ms refresh window of the 60 Hz panel, and no single transition comes even close to exceeding it. We're not quite in the ballpark of a good TN but this is definitely a very good result for VA.

With this sort of performance, the Momentum 43 would be well suited to running at 120 Hz, only unfortunately we're capped to just threescore Hz.

Input lag isn't as fantastic with the Momentum 43. Using our standard test conditions, which includes the display in a calibrated state running over DisplayPort at a native resolution with the depression input lag manner enabled, I measured lag of approximately 34 ms, and y'all tin add on another x-15ms when switching the low input lag mode off. This is a very poor input lag result, making this monitor one of the slowest we've tested.

I did meet some other reviews claiming input lag that'due south much better than this, however I couldn't replicate those results from whatever configuration of settings I tried, then not sure why that's the case.

In terms of SDR brightness and dissimilarity, the brandish tops out around 560 nits, and delivers a native dissimilarity ratio of around 4500:1, although you can utilise the dynamic backlight in the SDR mode to increment that dissimilarity ratio further.

SDR color operation out of the box is disappointing for a number of reasons. In its default state, the display delivers an uncalibrated color gamut, so standard sRGB imagery is stretched out to a wider gamut (approximately DCI-P3), which leads to oversaturation. When looking at our saturation and ColorChecker charts, this is quite evident and is the cause of the high average deltaEs.

Default white rest is also a footling off, the screen appears to have a slight blood-red tint when viewing whites, and while the average deltaE is reasonable, there's a few issues with the CCT and gamma curves.

Philips does include an sRGB manner, and this tightens upwards the gamut to sRGB which solves the saturation effect. However the consequence with the sRGB style is information technology doesn't allow you to modify the brightness level, so if you lot want near accurate colors, you're stuck with a very high 417 nits of brightness. This is quite frankly a ridiculous brake that makes the sRGB style completely useless. If y'all could change the brightness, it would be a bang-up option for those that desire near accurateness without a full calibration, merely locking the effulgence slider is just a dumb oversight or choice on the part of Philips.

If you want to get accurate colour performance out of the Momentum 43, you take no option merely to perform a total scale every bit at that place'due south no other setting in the OSD that allows you to restrict the brandish to sRGB for SDR usage. The proficient news is the panel is highly calibrateable and every aspect of its performance can exist corrected to an elite standard without sacrificing brightness or contrast ratio, though as you need a software profile to practise so, not every app volition pay attention to these corrections.

The final surface area of functioning I wanted to explore is uniformity, and it's perhaps the area I was most disappointed in. My Philips Momentum 43 is not particularly uniform and information technology'south visible immediately when viewing any solid colors. There's an obvious night shadow around the edges of the monitor, which basically causes a vignette effect. This is really disappointing for a loftier-stop brandish of this size; you're getting entry-level uniformity hither and this is something you can't correct.