Big and beautiful: A quick Phillips BDM3270QP review

My screen finally arrived and I’ve spent a couple of days playing with it. It is the screen I wanted, and I tried to search about it quite a lot, but the English content about it is quite limited, so I decide to write one here, in case you’re looking for some reviews before buying it.

Why BDM3270QP?

In the specs, this screen is completely a steal. 32 inches, QHD (2560×1440) resolution, AMVA native 10-bit panel (without RFC, so 1.07 billion of true colors), stand which supports titling, pivoting etc,… And it’s only 4390 SEK here (equivalent to 534 USD, but hey, I am in Sweden, where everything is crazily expensive, remember?), which is even cheaper than many other 27″ QHD screens. I have a habit (not sure good or bad) of checking everything before buying, and this is the list I come up with:

Plus:

+ Big size. 32″ 2560×1440 is just right, considering the distance between my eyes and the screen. 27″ QHD is a bit small, while 32″ 4k is a bit too much pixels (which makes thing smaller than I’d like). And 4k non-TN panel screens are much more expensive currently.
+ AMVA. It’s not TN! It might not be as good as IPS in term of color reproduction and viewing angles, but it’s 10 bit panel (of course that requires extra parts like the connection, the machine to make it works) so it should be comparable on some level. And VA, in general, is better than IPS in terms of contrast (black level) and not-glowing.
+ Rich in port and connection. I have anything I’d like to and more: DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI, USB (2×3.0 and 2×2.0).

Minus:

– A bit too big for my workspace. But I’ll manage.
– Is not as popular as its sister – Acer BL3200PT – which is supposedly to use the same panel, so the information about the screen is scare. But hey, that’s the reason of this post, right?

I’ll use it mainly for browsing the internet, writing code, writing book (Did you know I am the author of Pro Episerver Commerce?) and of course, writing this blog as well. I will watch Youtube occasionally when I’m too lazy to watch it on my 55″ 4k TV, but that’s it.

A quick review

Packaging:

The box is simply big. I had a hard time carry it from the bus station to my apartment, not because it was heavy, but because it’s hard to carry with just two hands.

Then come the cables. There were more cables than I’d need. I count a power cable, a HDMI, a DisplayPort, two USB ones. My laptop has one mini-DisplayPort, so I ended up use my own cable.

My screens at work, another Phillips screen – 272B4Q, use external power supply, which requires extra space on my small table. Luckily BDM3270QP does not have that – the big size might allow them to integrate the power supply into the back of the screen, meaning it will take less space on the table.

The set up is a breeze, and that’s compliment. Despite its big size, I can put it on my table in just two minutes or so, no hassle at all – however a screwdriver is required. It was easier than my old screen – Dell U2412HM. Plug the cables, and turn it on. Oh yeah!

The screen is big (Of course!), a bit bigger than I thought it is. And considered its size, it looks really thin and the bezels looks small too. However, I’ll not always look at its thickness or the bezels, it’s the screen which I’ll be looking at.

Sharpness.

Nothing special about  sharpness – I set the screen to native resolution and with the distance of 60 – 70 cm, I have no problem with aliasing whatsoever.

Color test

This is a shot to compare between the screen (10 bit AMVA panel) with my X230 screen (6 bit IPS panel). Both are in “almost default” settings.

Gradient and uniformity test:

This is my best effort from my NX500 camera – I’m still an amateur in capturing photos, but I think it shows many thing from gradient and uniformity:

Connections:

Viewing angle test

Of course as an AMVA screen, this can not be good as IPS in terms of viewing angles. You will start seeing color shift for angle more than 30* from direct viewing, and from 45* it’s quite clear.

Direct viewing, of course it looks pretty good

Ergonomic

The ergonomic of this screen is good – nothing to complain about. It’s easy to adjust the height, title or pivot it, in spite of its big size.

Calibration:
Every screen needs to be calibrated to show its true potential. The good thing is BDM3270QP is told to be factory-calibrated. The bad thing is that I have no calibration tool at my disposal. So I tried the ICC color settings here:

http://img1.focus-numerique.com/focus/profils-LCD/bdm3270qp.zip

Mind you, it’s not a good idea to reuse the profile from other screens, they might be different (at least that’s what we are told). But I am not using the screen in any professional applications, so I only need something that fits my eyes. Then it’s good enough.

Speakers:
BDM3270QP comes with 2 speakers, 2x3W by default, and they, surprisingly, work. I connect the screen from my laptop via DisplayPort, and I can select the screen’s monitors as one of the playback devices. No installation or driver needed. But mind you, the speakers are mediocre at best. The sound is completely lack-lusting of bass and depth, which is understandable. What is worse is that they are placed in the behind of the screen, not front-facing, so to my ears, it’s even worse. Thanks but I’ll continue to use my not-even-good laptop speakers instead.

Conclusions:

+++ Very affordable big screen with really good picture quality. Might not be the top of the line, but more than enough for daily uses.
++ Good color and black.
++ Good ergonomic. It’s easy to adjust the screen.
++ Viewing angles are good enough.

– The buttons and menus are not very pleasant to work with. The touch buttons are too sensitive and there is no feedback.
– The speakers are a minus. I’m happy if they did not include the speakers and reduced the price (a bit) instead.

? The warning of burn-in every time the screen is turned on is just ridiculous. Come on, it’s not 2008 and not Plasma.
? YouTube videos look bad on 2560×1440. It’s mainly because of the scaling, and YouTube is a bit aggressive in encoding their videos (to save their bandwidth and storage)

In the end, I found BDM3270QP to be a pretty good choice for work/entertainment monitor – it will not be your best gaming screen, however. After more than 1 month with it, I can say I’m happy with my big boy.

Here’s my setup: