Philips Brilliance 272P review

The Philips Brilliance 272P features a WQHD pixel-resolution of 2560 x 1440, which packs 75% more pixels than your conventional 1080p monitor. It's is aimed at professionals who need ample space for editing multimedia files, working on CAM/CAM designs or undertaking other tasks that require plenty of screen real-estate.

At £429 it's not the most expensive or cheapest 27-inch 1440p monitor out there, and it's being caught up quickly by an increasing number of affordable 4K monitors sporting dizzyingly high pixel densities and super sharp images, which is worth bearing in mind if you're looking to make the leap from a smaller monitor now or in the near future.

Design

While aesthetics are purely subjective, the Brilliance 272P comes across as a bit bland - from the overly matte black panel to its angular, two-tone tand. It's a design choice that runs through Philip's monitor range, and it doesn't particularly scream "professional" or "entertainment", instead lying somewhere between the two.

The stand is adjustable and can tilt forwards and backwards to a generous amount. It can also tilt 90 degrees, allowing you to view it in portrait mode in addition to the usual landscape orientation. The screen wobbles a fair amount on the stand if you alter its position, but it's sturdy once in place.

At 27 inches, though not quite able to match the crystal clear clarity of 4K, The 272P's 1440p resolution makes screen contents look sharp, with a pixel-per-inch of 109. It's a PLS panel, and as such uses a form of in-plane switching (IPS) technology that gives it superb 178-degree viewing angles.

Performance and connectivity

Unfortunately, the 27P's colours looked a little skewed out of the box, giving off an overly warm appearance. Our colour calibration tool discovered that it only managed to cover 88% of the sRGB colour space, which rose to a much better 98% post-calibration.

After tweaking the settings slightly to increase the brightness, we found that picture quality had drastically improved. This took slightly longer than preferred thanks to its fiddly touch-sensitive controls that are located on the bottom-right hand corner of the bezel.

Connectivity is good, with a healthy number of ports on the monitor, including two HDMI inputs, dual-link DVI and a three-port USB 3.0 hub, meaning you can plug your devices and have them charge up while you're using it. There's no VGA port, but there is DisplayPort, which allows you to daisy chain several monitors and use them in tandem.

Additionally, a webcam and microphone and embedded in the top part of the bezel allowing for video chats with colleagues and friends, and a MultiView function lets you hook up other devices to its various inputs to share and interact with their screen contents simultaneously. The monitor also features a sensor located at the bottom of the front bezel that dims the display when you're not stood in front of it, which is something of a neat, environmentally-friendly addition.

Final verdict

The Philips Brilliance 272P is a monitor that produces sharp images that suffers from slightly off-balance colour out of the box, though this was easily solved with a colour calibration tool. If you don't own one, you may find yourself hunting around in its settings to make the necessary tweaks - a task made more irritating than it should be thanks to unresponsive touch controls.

While you'll love or hate its design, it features a generous amount of tilt, height adjustment and rotation, and its USB 3.0 ports, which are mounted in easily accessible areas, making it a more practical offering than some competing models. Though a touch more expensive, the spot-on colour accuracy of Viewsonic's VP2772 make it a more solid offering if you're not keen on the idea of delving into settings to tweak your way to desired results.