Philips 231C5 SmoothTouch 23″ IPS Monitor Review

Usage And Performance

Before I get too much into how the screen feels and looks during use, we do need to do a little bit of driver installation in order to get the touch screen element of the panel up and running. To do this Philips include a CD with the display drivers on, allowing the monitors touch screen features to be used alongside a traditional mouse and keyboard setup.

Once the drivers have been installed, getting to grips with the monitor is very simple and straight forward. For the most part the 231C5 is just like any full high-definition panel and through its 23″ 1920 x 1080 IPS panel, it is able to give a bright crisp image with deep blacks and bright whites. Do note that if pure black colour objects appear more grey than black, then you will need to check your graphics card’s colour output settings and make sure the output mode is set to YbPrCr and not RBP as commonly seen set by default.

Using the monitor for general day-to-day operations, including office type work and some recreational film watching after, the SmoothTouch panel gives a surprisingly clear and well-defined images with bright, crisp colours and deep blacks – all of which came right out whilst watching the old favourite, Toy Story 3. Office type work was also similarly impressive and even after a long period of use, I didn’t feel as though my eyes were tired so-to-speak.

Where the 213C5 really comes into its element is with the touch screen capability. In a standard Windows 8 environment with the metro interface, everything feels far more natural and fluid, much like it does on Intel’s Ultrabooks and it helps to define what makes Windows 8 what it is. Tilting the screen back to have it almost lay down on the desk changes once again the way in which one can interact with their system. On one hand it makes playing two-person games that are designed for touch screen displays much easier and on the other hand, I can see how creative users would find the angled screen more like a drawing board with a more natural working angle to use.

The built-in webcam, albeit a low resolution 1MP camera, is surprisingly good for what it is as well. The image that it gives is both clear and bright and its more than adequate for a bit of light use through the likes of Skype.