Philips Evnia 25M2N3200W Gaming Monitor Review

How Much Does it Cost?

The Philips Evnia 25M2N3200W Gaming Monitor has a lot going for it, obviously, but one of the most interesting aspects has to be the price. At just £197.89 it’s certainly within the reach of a lot of consumers, but keep in mind that getting the best out of this monitor may not be a cheap experience. You can run a lot of games at 240FPS/Hz these days, especially less graphically demanding eSports titles, which is where you’re going to get the most benefit in competitive games. However, graphically demanding games will need some serious GPU and CPU horsepower to get to such a high refresh rate, as Full HD at 240Hz is broadly similar to hitting 4K60 in terms of GPU loads, but usually with the higher CPU demands often making it more equivalent to 4K120. For high-end PC gamers, it’s a seriously good monitor, but you can still plug in your PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X and use it in a 120Hz mode too, and still enjoy the low input latency it offers.

Overview

This is a fantastic gaming monitor if a little laser-focused on gaming and less so on overall productivity. For my daily work, I require a higher resolution panel, at least 2560×1440 or even better, 3840×2160 (4K), and a larger panel for my editing work and media consumption, 27″ at a minimum, but ideally 32″ or larger. The downside is that these aspects will put the price up quite significantly, especially if you want to maintain that blisteringly fast 240Hz refresh rate for gaming.

The trade-off here is that Philips kept this monitor a bit smaller at 24.5″ and while that does sound “small” it’s easily countered by simply sitting a little bit closer to the panel. Full HD doesn’t have quite as crisp an image as a 1440p panel might, and that is evident in still images or slower paced games when you’re just standing around looking at the game world.

However, when it comes to monitor, fast-moving action, and most importantly the precision of your aim while running around, the overall clarity that 240Hz provides is a force to be reckoned with. If you’re playing something fast like Apex Legends or using high DPI aiming in CS:Go, you’re going to be able to see the action clearly and accurately while moving on this monitor in a way that you simply wouldn’t get gaming at 4K60, despite the 4K monitor having more pixels and a natively more detailed image.

Colours are vibrant and accurate enough to be pleasing to the eye, and while the default settings are a little on the cool-looking side, that’s not uncommon for PC monitors and VA panels, and the OSD allows you to dial in your preferences. Largely though, just setting the colour temperature to Warm is the only setting I felt the need to adjust to get the best out of this panel. Despite being an edge lit panel, the brightness and contrast are excellent, even when you use high brightness settings, it retains deep blacks and clear highlights.

Should I Buy One?

Philips has created a monitor built for one task, getting amazing gaming performance for under £200, and they’ve succeeded perfectly. This is a premium looking monitor, it’s build quality is truly excellent, and the performance of the panel is hard to beat. If you did want a slightly more premium experience, they also make an IPS version that can hit 280Hz, but honestly, the VA panel holds up so well, it’s hard to justify the extra £40 for the upgrade, and from 240Hz to 280Hz, you’ll be hard pushed to even notice the difference in speed!