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

Performance

This is an SDR image, taken on my phone, and likely compressed to hell, and then displayed on another SDR display, yet I bet it still looks bloody gorgeous. The range of colours on this monitor is something to behold. The black levels are inky black and the highlights are beautifully vibrant. With 2304 individual mini LED backlights, the panel can provide bright light or darkness with surprisingly fine accuracy throughout the panel.

The panel is 4K too, so fine text and lots of image detail can be seen, and with a 27″ panel, the pixel density is so high that you can’t see pixels at all even when sitting extremely close.

The HDR is staggering if you use it right. The default HDR1400 mode seems to push more backlights per bright zone to increase the peak brightness, but this can result in some greying of the surrounding blacks. I would say it acts a little more like there are 1/4 the number of backlights that there are.

However, setting it to one of the other HDR modes gives you deeper blacks at the cost of peak brightness, limiting it to around 800-1000 nits, honestly, the HDR Premium or Warm are far superior modes in my opinion, and don’t be fooled by Basic, it’s a great mode for a perfectly dark room.

The motion handling is perfect, at least, for a 60 Hz panel, and with Adaptive Sync, 24FPS movie content was presented without ghosting or stutter too, which is always good to see, given this monitor would likely appeal to those editing videos or movies.

At 4K you can easily have multiple windows side by side, and it’s pin-sharp to read, the only limiting aspect being the 27″ panel as doing quad windows will result in some pretty cramped experiences and those wanting lots of windows would want a 32″ or above panel.

The colours, details and resolution all combine for a truly remarkable experience regardless of what you’re doing. This most certainly isn’t a gaming monitor, but if you want to play HDR games at 4K60, you won’t be disappointed by what’s on offer.