Philips has been releasing a steady stream of great-looking gaming monitors over the last few weeks, and the latest to join the roster is the Philips Evnia 32M2N8800, a 32-inch, 4K, QD-OLED panel with one of our favorite features tucked round the back. That’s right, Philips’ long-running Ambiglow tech is on hand to cast an-image matching glow behind the monitor.
We’ve been fans of Ambiglow since forever, and were stoked to see it feature in Philips‘ top-tier 49-inch QD-OLED, the Philips Evnia 49M2C8900L, but we wouldn’t necessarily have expected the feature to appear on all its new OLED displays. We’ve yet to test any of the range to see if they’re best gaming monitor contenders, but with Ambiglow on hand, and a cool, stylish design, our hopes are definitely up.
Another key advantage of this display, as compared to even Philips’ own other OLEDs, is that it packs 3,840 x 2,160 pixels into its large 32-inch frame. That makes for a pixel density of roughly 140 pixels per inch (ppi), which in turn makes for a very sharp-looking image. While we’ve generally recommended around 110ppi as the standard for easy readability on LCD panels, OLEDs tend not to be quite as smooth for text, so the higher pixel density here should help ensure a crystal clear image.
As for gaming performance, this panel will meander along at a meager…240Hz! Yup, so that’s stunningly sharp image quality – with all the contrast and vivid colors of Samsung’s QD-OLED tech – with rip-roaring fast gaming too.
Again, as an OLED panel, the response time here will be ultra-rapid, with Philips rating it at just 0.03ms gray-to-gray. The panel is also certified to hit the DisplayHDR True Black 400 HDR standard, as well as the VESA ClearMR 13000 motion blur standard, and also to deliver 99% of the DCI-P3 color space.
As for the Ambiglow implementation, this consists of 18 RGB LED zones on the back of the display, which can be set to match the on-screen image. We’ve found that this wash of color can improve immersion and slightly reduce eyestrain in our own tests.
Some monitors feature similar color-matching RGB systems, and you can buy separate kits to add this feature to your display – such as the Nanoleaf 4D. However, few of these alternative systems match the quality of Ambiglow in our experience, though we can’t say for certain how this particular version performs yet.
As well as sporting a fetching white and silver design, this display also includes a stand that can tilt -5/+20 degrees, swivel -30/+30 desgrees, and adjust height with a range of 150mm. Meanwhile, connections consist of two HDMI 2.1 and one DisplayPort 1.4 input, plus you get two 5W speakers. Notably, Philips hasn’t taken a leaf out of its monitor stablemate’s notebook and gone for a desk-space friendly stand design, as seen on the AOC C27G4ZXE – this one instead has an attractive V-shaped arrangement.
There’s no price or release date for this display as yet, but we’d expect it to sit at around the $1,000 mark, and arrive in the coming couple of months. In the meantime, you can learn more about our thoughts on 4K 32-inch OLEDs in our Gigabyte Aorus FQ32U2P preview from earlier this year.