Philips 27B1U7903 4K Thunderbolt 4 Mini-LED Monitor Review

A Closer Look

One thing that REALLY surprised me about this monitor is the weight. It’s a 27″ monitor, but honestly, it’s one of the heaviest monitors I’ve ever had. It weighs more than my 46″ TV, it’s more than doubt that of my 34″ ultrawide… it’s HEAVY.

It’s not like it’s just the box either, there’s mostly air in here.

The stand is pretty robust too, with a durable fixed base, and a quick-release mounting system.

There’s a nice textured back plate too, and the base is designed to stay still while the column rotates, so it doesn’t scuff up your desk.

The monitor mount just clips into the back of the panel, but there are VESA mounts if you’re using your own mount too.

As I said though, this monitor is heavy, so be sure you get a durable wall mount or stand that’s capable of holding at least 10-15KG, but I’d suggest higher if possible to ensure stability.

The 27″ panel is stunning, with a really good quality matte finish diffusion filter that’s dealing with the extremely bright sun and spotlights I have turned on right now. There’s barely any glare on the screen at all.

The panel is quite thick though, as the extremely advanced backlighting tech will need significant heatsinks to keep it cool. I did hear a little fan whiz when I plugged it in, it seems to hit 100% then idle on power on, but otherwise I didn’t actually hear it again throughout my testing, so that’s nice.

The back plate of the monitor to the front panel comes in at 70mm though, so as I said, that heat sink in there must be significant, and is likely what gives the monitor its hefty weight, despite it only being 27″ in size.

The stand is lovely though, is looks small, but it’s well weighted and spaced, so the monitor feels very stable. It can be adjusted very low and raises up by 130mm.

It has an impressive 90-degree of left and right pivot, yet I know I’m only doing 45-degrees here, but anymore and it hits my own monitor behind it!

I love how this bit turns too, it’s a little higher up the stand, and will generally be hidden behind the panel, so the stand always looks straight to the user.

The mount also allows for a -5/+15 degree of tilt.

It also has a full portrait mode and the bearing is so silky smooth, I can spin the monitor through the full 90-degree turn with one hand!

On the back, you’ll find a pair of HDMI ports, as well as a Display Port. There are also two type-C, the first is Thunderbolt 4 upstream with data, video and PD 90W, while the other is Thunderbolt 4 downstream for data and PD15W. Then you have Ethernet 1Gbps LAN with Wake on LAN, and a USGB hub that also supports fast charge.

On the right side and back of the monitor, you have the UI buttons, which are comically labelled, despite the fact… and I’m switching to all caps for this, THAT YOU CAN’T BLOODY SEEM THEM WHEN SITTING IN FRONT OF THE MONITOR. Honestly, I can already tell this is going to be a bad input system, having power and OK next to each other sounds like a comedy waiting to happen.

One thing I do like though is that there’s both a master power switch and an integrated PSU, so you just plug a kettle lead right into the display, top marks for that!