Philips Blade 2 Full HD 24″ AMVA LED Monitor Review

1. Introduction2. Philips Blade 2 Monitor3. Menu Interface4. Testing The Screen5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

Philips is back on the track towards re-establishing itself as one of the biggest players in the monitor game. With the initial trickle now turning into a torrent of interestingly-designed products, it's the company's Blade 2 monitor which has caught our eye. Can the AMVA panel help project Philips' Blade 2 monitor to an awarding assessment?

Philips uses an AMVA, or Advanced Multi-domain Vertical Alignment, panel which the company claims is capable of “super-high static contrast ratios” which can provide “extra vivid and bright images”. Another key feature derived from the AMVA technology is the flexible viewing angles. Up to 178° of horizontal and vertical viewing flexibility is achievable, making this monitor perfect for use in a wide-variety of scenarios.

A W-LED backlight system, 20,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and 1920 x 1080 resolution, combined with many of Philips' picture-enhancement technologies, make for a mouth-watering specifications sheet.

As we all know, a high-quality panel and appetizing specs sheet don't make a monitor. Can the performance of Philips' 24″ Blade 2 back-up the company's buoyant claims?

Specifications:

• AMVA LED for wide-view super-high contrast, vivid images.
• SmartImage: Optimised user-friendly display experience.
• SmartKolor for rich vibrant images.
• SmartTxt for an optimised reading experience.
• SmartContrast 20,000,000:1 for incredible rich black details.
• HDMI-ready for Full HD entertainment.

Philips uses packaging which outlines the monitor's key features such as the LED backlight, wide viewing angle and ultra slim design. Adjacent to an eye-catching main image, the monitor's ultra slim 12.5mm thickness is highlighted.

The Blade 2 monitor's healthy bundle consists of a quick start guide, HDMI cable, 1.5m VGA cable, kettle-style power lead and the power brick. Philips uses this external power brick to make it possible for the display to reach its slender 12.5mm depth.

Philips has created an exceptionally attractive monitor in the Blade 2. Inwards-slanting bezel edges and a petite stand help reinforce the intentional compactness of this monitor's design.

An ultra-reflective glossy finish to the Blade 2's 17mm-wide bezel creates a sleek and modern appearance. Fingerprint-resistance is an excellent characteristic of the plastic material – one that you simply can't put a price on.

Multi-monitor configurations are certainly a possibility with the Blade 2 monitor, but users pondering over the idea of a 3 screen EyeFinity set-up may be displeased by the broad 17mm surrounding bezel.

Reflectiveness is also a property of the Blade 2 monitor's rear panel. Once again, thanks to the sensibly-chosen material, even the most blatant fingerprint marks are easily suppressed.

Towards the middle of the panel's rear side, around 10cm above the bottom edge, lies a sturdiness-enhancing bar. A slim, tilt-adjustable arm feeds directly into the bar which spans the entirety of Philips' monitor's back panel. This allows the screen's measly 2.33KG weight to be evenly distributed, therefore enhancing the monitor's balance and rigidity when being tilted.

5 touch buttons, 4 of which double up as both selection and menu controls, are located on the front edge of the Blade 2's mirror-like base.

Even the highly-reflective material used to create a mirror-finish gives fingerprint-concealment an admirable effort. Unfortunately, with frequent button-pressing actions, the success isn't quite as praiseworthy as that of its bezel counterpart's.

A VGA and the primary HDMI ports reside on the base's rear side along with the power input. Sadly there is no DVI port.

Positioning the main inputs in this location has the benefit of making them more easily-accessible when the monitor is in use – the screen doesn't have to be held securely when connecting or tightening a cable. A negative point comes from the fact that extra space for protruding cables is required on your desk, behind the monitor's base. This design also makes wall-mounting via the VESA system impossible.

Located on the base's right side is the secondary HDMI input as well as a 3.5mm jack variant of the HDMI audio output.

A Kensington lock connector is the sole occupier of the stand's left flank.

AMVA LED and Brilliance 249CQH logos occupy the upper- right and left edges of the screen's front bezel.

Closer inspection does, finally, uncover some fingerprint marks. The reality of this fact is that very few users will be examining the bezel from 2 inches away on a daily basis.

Users can effortlessly switch between SmartImage presets dependent upon their current usage scenario. Text, Office, Photo, Movie, Game and Economy modes can be selected, or, if preferred, you can completely disable the SmartImage mode. We will discuss the SmartImage settings in more depth later on in this review.

A specific touch button located on the monitor's control section allows you to easily select the desired input. The settings screen also provides input manipulation options.

A broad selection of picture settings can be edited to suit your own personal requirements. Wide screen and 4:3 picture formats are both supported.

The SmartResponse setting is also lucky enough to be allocated its very own touch button. Off, Fast, Faster and Fastest settings can be easily configured in the picture menu page.

Audio settings are given their own separate section on the menu interface. As the Blade 2 doesn't possess speakers, the settings will provide control to the HDMI audio output.

Settings such as the screen's colour temperature can be easily edited. Philips provides users with a large degree of flexibility, allowing them to accurately and efficiently unearth their preferred configuration.

No prizes for guessing what the language section controls.

Position, transparency and time out of the OSD, or On Screen Display, can be tailored to suit your needs.

Information about the monitor and its current input resolution is found on the ‘setup' page.

The technical testing of Philips' Blade 2 AMVA Monitor was completed by my colleague, Zardon.

To test today, we are using a LaCie calibration gun along with specific software to accurately measure the readings. We measured the Gamut out of the box and the Philips Blade 2 Full HD 24″ returned a reading of 2.13 which is a fairly strong default setting. When manually tweaking to 1.8, the panel returned a 1.83 result, which is reasonably good.

Colour response is excellent, measuring only a minor blue cast across the image area. This can be almost removed with some tweaking. Panel linearity is relatively strong although not perfect at the edges.

Colour accuracy is decent and off axis performance is quite strong, measuring around 176 degrees.

Black Definition is above average. We recorded a deviance around 10 percent in the center of the panel and this rose to around 17 percent at the edges. This is significantly better than the Philips 248X3LFH LightFrame which we reviewed in late May this year. It certainly isn't class leading, but in the sub £200 market this is a good result.

We watched the bluray copy of science fiction film SunShine and the minor shift at the edges was only slightly noticeable. The center of the screen is very consistent and delivers good results when watching movies with a lot of dark imagery.

In real world terms, we don't have a problem with consistency of this panel and viewed several movies with SmartContrast enabled and disabled. We actually prefer it enabled on this panel, rather than disabled.

White purity is actually very good, measuring between 4 percent and 8 percent across the central area of the panel. Our equipment recorded several small patches just offset in from the left and right of the screen in a central position. This is not noticeable to the naked eye, even when viewing bright, outdoor scenes. ‘Pooling' was also kept to a minimum although it was more noticeable in the bottom corners, more so than the top corners.

Panel uniformity rates as good although we noticed a little distortion closer to the sides, which is a common failing at this price point. Colour fluctuation is held well across the length of the panel and it one of the Blade 2's strongest facets.

SmartKolor (no, we haven't made a spelling mistake) was a useful setting which helped to improve the vibrancy and brightness of images displayed on the screen. We didn't observe any negative points that would cause a need for concern; SmartKolor is a very convenient and well-designed feature.

SmartTxt picture setting provided disappointing results. It did little more than deepen the black colouring of words. This didn't improve the clarity or readability of large bodies of text; instead it caused a more pixelated and letter-blending appearance which became increasingly irritating to view. Disabling the SmartTxt setting made text easier to read; it also had the benefit of not affecting the surrounding graphics in programs such as MS Word.

SmartContrast dynamically adjusts the Blade 2's contrast ratio dependent upon the source image. A split-second is required for the monitor to process an image, but the results are well-worth the wait; an increased vibrancy, crispness and clarity is produced. Whites appeared to become more vivid and in-your-face – an effect which isn't easy to create, but has an overwhelming outcome.

SmartImage is a handy feature which loads pre-defined picture configurations related to specific usage scenarios. It eliminates the adjustment process that is required to enjoy a specific task at the fullest image quality.

Text, Office, Photo, Movie, Game and Economy form the six SmartImage modes.

I found the Text mode irritating to use when reading large bodies of text. It had a very similar effect to the SmartTxt feature where the letters seemed to be compressed closely together and became more pixelated. Economy mode wasn't impressive either; it decreased the brightness, making the image far duller than I would have liked.

For general reading of web pages or picture-containing documents, the Office mode would be my suggested SmartImage choice. Contrast was maintained at an appropriate level, and pixelation didn't become an issue.

The picture setting tweaks that are employed when selecting the Movie mode were instantly clear. Contrast and brightness levels were sharply increased, resulting in a more vivid image. Motion-blur was eliminated by the preset engaging SmartResponse to its ‘fastest' setting. Game mode was equally as impressive with only a subtle decrease in contrast levels and the omission of SmartTxt separating the two.

Photo was little more than an OK mode. Philips chose to disable the SmartContrast feature with this preset which was a mistake, in my opinion. A lacklustre image is created due to the absence of dynamic contrast manipulation provided by the aforementioned feature.

Power consumption is excellent, and above average for the class. When calibrated it consumes between 25 watts and 30 watts at the socket.

Philips has created a sleek and elegant monitor in the Blade 2, but this beauty also packs an impressive punch.

A healthy bundle coupled with an effective quantity of video inputs is certain to satisfy a large proportion of potential customers. The lack of DVI port may irritate a few people, but DVI to HDMI cables or adapters are cheap and readily-available.

An elegant and attractive design is where Philips really goes to town on the Blade 2 monitor. At just 12.5mm thick (or should that be thin?), the LED Blade 2 makes those old ‘cumbersome' CCFL backlit monitors look like they were built during the stone age.

Corners haven't been cut on the materials either; the 17mm-wide bezel's glossy finish dissolves even the most overt of fingerprint strokes, instantaneously.

Some of Philips' ‘Smart' features incorporated on the Blade 2 monitor were advantageous to image quality, although others weren't so ‘Smart'. With the exception of the Movie and Game modes which were thoroughly impressive, there is little point in using any of the pre-defined SmartImage selections if you are even moderately happy with the monitor's existing settings. They simply aren't all that great.

SmartContrast, on the other hand, was an inspiring feature which is highly commendable.

You can buy the Philips Blade 2 from Lambdatek for £199.30 inc vat. At this price we can certainly overlook some of the minor technical issues mentioned earlier in the review.

Pros:

• Great colour reproduction.
• White purity is excellent at this price.
• excellent for High Definition movies.
• low power consumption.
• attractive design.

Cons:

• Some minor backlighting inconsistencies.
• tough competition at this price point.
• No DVI port.

Kitguru says: Well worth a look, especially if you yearn for a stylish, well-designed monitor at a reasonably competitive price point.

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