PHILIPS Evnia 27M2C5501 180Hz QHD FreeSync Gaming Monitor Review

Performance

At 27″ this monitor is a good size for daily use and gaming. While I tend to use 34″ 21:9 ultrawide or 32″ 16:9 monitors, I still feel surprisingly comfortable using this 27″ panel, but I do tend to just have it a tiny bit closer to me while gaming. The overall pixel density offered from a 2560×1440 panel at 27″ is excellent though, the image is crisp and detailed, but if they do a 32″ version, I would likely want to step up to 4K to keep the image looking this sharp.

The colours look great at first glance, of course, I’ll stick the calibration tool on there shortly, but I suspect it’ll hold up very well. There’s documentation included that says it was pre-calibrated at the factory with an average Delta-E of less than 2, so hopefully, that holds true.

Philips says that it can deliver 124% of sRGB, and 93% of DCI-P3 which is very competitive and just using the general Windows 11 for YouTube and stuff here, it looks very nice indeed.

For gaming, the colour really pops, and while I get spoilt with OLED, IPS, MiniLED and other fancy flagship tech here, it’s good to see that VA technology still holds its own; especially so given it’s much cheaper than the newer technologies.

Brightness is really decent, with the claimed spec saying 300 cd/m² which is above the more common 250 cd/m² we see on standard LCD panels, so it just has a bit more punch to shine in a brightly lit room if you need it to.

The W-LED backlight is standard edge-lit tech, so yeah, you get a bit of greying to the black levels, which will be more noticeable in a dark room, with a dark image on the screen, and the backlight turned up, but to my eyes, it fares a lot better than most monitors using the same technology. However, this has been a well-known characteristic of these panels for many years, it’s just inherent with the technology, so hardly a deal breaker.

For gaming, the monitor is pretty fantastic, as the colours and brightness really make it a pleasant monitor to enjoy your media on. However, it’s also helped even more by the 180Hz refresh rate, and 1ms input latency. You can get that down to 0.5 using MPRT too, if you don’t mind sacrificing some peak brightness.

The Fast VA panel has HDR support too, which surprisingly does result in some really great colours, using the extended colour palette of DCI-P3, but obviously, due to the lack of proper backlight control, it doesn’t have the contrast of true HDR, so will fall flat in dark scenes, but for brighter content, it looks decent.

With 180Hz, FreeSync, fast response time, vibrant colours, and everything else, it delivers an excellent gaming experience. I really can’t fault it short of simply saying ‘X monitor is better’ or ‘Y panel technology is superior’ but that’s not really going to take away from this being one of the best Fast VA gaming monitors I’ve used, it’s very good indeed.