Philips 45B1U6900C 32:9 SuperWide Curved Business Monitor Review

How Much Does it Cost?

The Philips 45B1U6900C 32:9 SuperWide Curved Business Monitor is available now, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find stock at any of our preferred retailers. However, a quick Google will find you one in stock for around £950 to £1050 at a range of smaller retailers, but none that I’m personally familiar with, as they mostly seem to be B2B or office suppliers, rather than your larger consumer-facing stores where you find gaming monitors and the like.

Overview

This monitor doesn’t have a lot to offer to the gaming community, as I said, the panel is limited to a 75Hz refresh rate, and its response time is a bit sluggish for FPS gaming too. However, if you play a lot of single-player games, running around in Skyrim, Horizon, or just playing some RTS games can really make the most of that truly massive panel and it is very immersive to play on.

However, when it comes to office work, boy is this thing a lot of fun. Well, about as fun as you can make stock tickers, spreadsheets, and the thrills of being able to read four webpages at once. Which admittedly, isn’t very exciting. However, if I was in the office, and my boss gave me a 45″ SuperWide monitor, I think the width of my smile would match the 32:9 aspect ratio pretty quickly. It just makes things easier to do, you scroll less, you zoom less, and you can simply get a lot of information on the screen, which helps with productivity.

In terms of the panel, it’s decent enough, and the 5120 x 1440 resolution means you’re getting a pretty hefty amount of pixels. Actually, having a modestly powerful system is recommended as that really is a lot of screen for your GPU to fill if you do game on it. Or two systems, if that’s your thing, as you can split the screen in two and actually use it to display two systems side by side.

Of course, with the built-in KVM switch, you can hook up your LAN and your peripherals to the monitor, meaning you can share those inputs between multiple systems as you change the display source. The ability to get a 100W charging over the same Type-C is great too, as many modern laptops can literally charge using the same cable that’s delivering the KVM features and display outputs, resulting in barely any cable clutter.

Should I Buy One

This monitor is big, so be sure to measure your desktop space, as its width certainly isn’t going to fit all spaces. If you’re a gamer, it’s lacking in some modern gaming luxuries, but for productivity in the office, the response times, colour accuracy, and 75Hz refresh rate are very comfortable to live with. The only downside is the price, you’re paying a bit of a premium for effectively having two displays in one. You can get two monitors for less money, but well, having no bezel in the middle of your view is pretty damn sweet.