The Philips Momentum 279M1RV is a welcome upgrade to an already great monitor
- Manufacturer: Philips
- Model: Momentum 279M1RV
- Display Type: 27” Nano-IPS Gaming Monitor
- Resolution: 2160p (4k/UHD)
- Refresh rate: 144Hz (120Hz on supported consoles)
- Price when reviewed: £719.99 MSRP
- Supplied by: Philips
Philips Momentum 279M1RV – Overview
The Momentum 279M1RV joins the 559M1RYV and 329M1RV as part of Philips’ Designed for Xbox range of monitors.
The basic design hasn’t changed much since the 278M1R, but the bezels have been shrunk down and the display has had a massive upgrade. It’s still a 27” 4k monitor, but the refresh rate has been increased to 144Hz, three HDMI 2.1 ports have been added enabling must-have features like VRR and automatic low latency, and the screen itself has been replaced with a simply stunning Nano-IPS panel with epic gamut coverage.
It’s a top-notch monitor in many regards; responsiveness and motion handling is excellent, the range of connectivity options is outstanding, and HDR performance on the Xbox is surprisingly good, however, I did have issues with HDR on PC, which we’ll go into in more detail later on.
Unlike the other Momentum Designed for Xbox monitors I tested, which took some fiddling with the settings to extract the best from them, the 279M1RV looks incredible straight out of the box. It’s rare to find a monitor that doesn’t look any different from stock when it’s calibrated and adjusted, but the 279M1RV showed almost no difference, which is a testament to the quality of the factory calibration.
For content creators, the monitor responds well to calibration and can be brought to very high levels of accuracy suitable for colour critical work, and the AdobeRGB and DCI-P3 coverage is such that this would double well as a monitor for both gaming and light design work.
Design and build
The Momentum 279M1RV has subtle styling, and except for Ambiglow, it’s much more business-like than your typical gaming monitor. From the front, there are no branding or manufacturer logos at all. Super-slim bezels surround the top, left and right sides with a marginally bigger lower bezel – it’s pretty damn close to just being all screen, which is a major plus point.
The majority of the back is plain matte-black textured plastic surrounded by the Ambilight LEDs, with a glossy triangular section breaking up the top of the panel. It’s not as eccentric as many over-styled gaming monitors, but that suits my tastes just fine, as I rarely have my displays positioned where I get to see the back anyway.
The all-metal stand is very sturdy, and with its angular design and metallic gunmetal grey finish, it looks more like a TV stand than a typical gaming monitor. From front to back, the stand is around 25cm. I found the similarly styled but much bigger stand on the 329M1RV extended out too far for a standard-sized desk, but on the 279M1RV it’s just about right, leaving ample room for your keyboard and mouse. The Momentum 279M1RV is also VESA mount compatible, should you wish to wall mount it or use a monitor arm or different stand.
There is a full range of ergonomic adjustments: Height can be adjusted by 130mm, tilted by -5°/+20°, and swivelled +/-35°, although the display cannot be pivoted and used in portrait alignment. Rather than using a cutout in the stand for cable management, there is a sturdy and well-positioned clip at the rear of the stand for hiding cables away, which is sizeable enough to hold several display cables as well as those for any peripherals you may have plugged into the integrated USB Hub.
The joystick that controls the various functions and menus is tucked at the back on the right side of the monitor. It is very quiet in use but makes an audible clunk when you click it in. Flicking through the UI is rapid and intuitive. Although the design is a little basic, everything is clearly laid out and easy to find, and navigating the menus with the joystick is smooth and responsive.
The 279M1RV has Philips’ awesome Ambiglow technology, which I absolutely love. I always set it to ‘follow video’, where it matches the colours around the screen and projects them to the wall behind your display. It makes such a big difference to immersion in games and movies, as well as making it easier on your eyes when gaming at night. In addition to following the action on the display, the Ambiglow can also pulse along with your music, be set to a static colour of your choosing to provide bias lighting, or it can display a few other colour shift effects, too.
Connectivity and Supported Resolutions
The Momentum 279M1RV has an outstanding suite of connectivity options: 3x HDMI 2.1, USB-C and DisplayPort 1.4 are available for connecting your displays, with a USB-B upstream port to connect the USB 3.2 hub to your PC, 4x USB-A ports (including two fast charge B.C 1.2), and a 3.5mm audio out.
The Momentum 279M1RV supports the following optimal resolutions:
HDMI 2.1: 3840*2160 @ 144Hz
DisplayPort: 3840*2160 @ 144Hz
USB-C: 3840*2160 @ 120Hz
Once again, Philips has made sure that every one of the three HDMI ports supports HDMI 2.1 – If you need to connect multiple consoles, PCs, laptops and set-top boxes, there are enough ports to suit the most demanding of users. I connected my Series X and S, as well as my gaming laptop via USB-C, my desktop PC and my work laptop.
Freesync Premium is available if you play on a console or have an AMD GPU in your PC/laptop, and it supports adaptive sync in combination with high refresh rate 4k gaming and HDR.
I’m very pleased that G-Sync is also supported, although it only works via DisplayPort and the activation window sits between 60-144Hz. That’s not a problem in itself, but if you’re playing at 4k you’ll need a beast of a GPU to comfortably sit above 60Hz on some games. Regardless, it’s a welcome addition.
The USB-C port supports KVM and provides up to 65W power delivery. Although 65W Isn’t enough to keep a gaming laptop juiced up, it is sufficient to maintain battery levels whilst carrying out productivity work. It’s a great alternative to needing to keep a USB hub floating around the desk.
The integrated KVM switch worked flawlessly, automatically switching from my desktop via USB-B to my USB-C connected laptop. If you are using your two KVM devices in PBP mode, it prioritises the primary input or you can manually switch between USB-up and USB-C.
A DisplayPort, high-speed HDMI and USB-C cable are included, but there isn’t a USB-B upstream cable in the box. As the KVM features work very well, I’d recommend picking one up and taking advantage of the integrated USB hub.
There’s an unusually long delay when switching input sources, ranging from four up to a glacial ten seconds. This is a lot slower than average but in practical use, it’s a very minor inconvenience. Auto input-switching works well, though, and if you connect multiple devices a quick flick upwards on the joystick brings up the input selector shortcut.
Display Quality
The Momentum 279M1RV is designed for high-end console gaming, and specifically, it’s part of Philips’ Designed for Xbox range. It has an excellent Nano-IPS panel, with a maximum refresh rate of 144Hz when connected via DisplayPort or HDMI 2.1. You also get Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support, Auto Low Latency, and fantastic wide-gamut colour.
This monitor is primarily targeted toward console gamers, but as console users can’t calibrate their displays, having a good out-of-the-box calibration is essential. Unlike many monitors I’ve tested recently, including the Momentum 329M1RV, you barely need to make any adjustments to get the best out of the 279M1RV.
After going through all of the various settings and presets, the only thing I changed was to set the SmartResponse (overdrive) to Fast and created a User Defined colour temperature, reducing the green to 98/100. That’s literally it. There are of course lots of other settings and enhancements you can turn on, but for me, the default picture settings are almost perfect – calibrating the display made almost no difference compared to the default display profile, which is very impressive.
Optimal settings (all other settings default):
Picture > | SmartImage > | Off |
Brightness > | Personal Preference | |
Gamma > | 2.2 | |
Game Setting > | SmartResponse > | 60Hz: Fast / 120+Hz: Faster |
Colour > | User Define > | Red 100 |
Green 98 | ||
Blue 100 |
As with the 329M1RV and most gaming monitors, there are several additional scenario presets (low blue light, movie watching, some gaming presets and an sRGB mode) which could be useful for some users, but I prefer a similar image profile for all usage. As is common, the various gaming modes adjust the brightness, colour temperature and/or black level to suit various game types. They do make a notable difference to the image, but for my preference, the change in colour temperature and washed-out blacks isn’t worth whatever minor advantage you may gain.
sRGB mode is disappointing, as it only works at 100% brightness (changing the brightness in sRGB mode changes it to 6500K). In this mode the colours are slightly inaccurate – the colour temperature measures 6900K, with a distinct overemphasis of blue tones making the image appear too cool compared to when I calibrated the monitor.
Response
Viewing the UFO ghost test at 120Hz, even with overdrive (labelled SmartResponse) turned off, there is almost no perceivable motion blur visible. Switching SmartResponse to Faster further reduced the already minor trailing edge blur to the point that I couldn’t see anything other than a pin-sharp image.
At 60Hz, there’s a very minor amount of overshoot when using the Faster setting, so for many console games, you are best off sticking with Fast. Once again, when using Fast mode at 60Hz, blur is only perceivable if you go out of your way to study the image.
Setting SmartResponse to Fastest creates significant inverse ghosting, along with colour distortion at the leading edge, meaning this setting isn’t usable at any frame rate.
Brightness, contrast and colour
The Philips Momentum 279M1RV has a decent peak brightness of 447.5 cd/m², which makes the monitor easy to see in a brightly lit room. At full brightness, this raises the black level to 0.44 cd/m² which is slightly above average for monitors of this brightness. The contrast ratio of 1020:1 is average for an IPS display. With the brightness at 25% (184.1 cd/m²) the black level is reduced to 0.21, which is suitable for viewing in dark rooms and reduces the grey tinge that backlight bleed can cause in dark scenes, though the contrast is slightly lower at 900:1.
I tested the 279M1RV with the various colour temperature presets, and found the 6500K colour temperature setting most closely matched the ideal 6500K white point (6700K). Brightness, contrast and black levels remained fairly constant across all of the presets, with the temperature not being too far from what is specified. I’d recommend 6500K as the best choice for most users – on the panel I received, using the User Defined preset I only needed to lower the green to 98 to give the display an accurately balanced colour profile. As always, as long as you aren’t editing images or video, you’re best off experimenting and choosing a setting that looks best to you.
The average DeltaE of 0.78 should be fine for the majority of users and is well below the perceptible limit of deviation. The display gamma was very accurate, measuring 2.2 and followed the gamma curve exceptionally well.
Gamut coverage
Colour saturation and coverage is very good. The 279M1RV only has average levels of contrast, but the excellent gamut coverage makes this a beautiful display for gaming and media consumption, without any distracting oversaturation of colour that can make movies and games look almost cartoony in appearance.
The panel in the Philips Momentum 279M1RV is 10bit (8bit+FRC), with wide colour gamut support*. The sRGB coverage is excellent, measuring in with 99.6% coverage and 143.2% volume. AdobeRGB has 87.6% coverage with a volume of 98.7%, and DCI-P3 has 98.3% coverage with a volume of 101.5%
*Coverage is how much of the gamut is covered, whilst volume includes extension beyond that of the defined gamut.
HDR Performance
The Momentum 279M1RV has much better HDR performance than you normally get on gaming monitors. It works very well on the Xbox Series X, where you can calibrate the HDR image, but there are issues when using it on a PC.
On console, the multi-zone local dimming helps boost contrast when there are large swathes of dark and light on the screen, and it does a decent job of creating bright highlights when needed – brightness peaks at over 600 cd/m² for brief bursts of light. Thanks to the high DCI-P3 coverage colours look rich and inviting, and I really enjoyed the HDR implementation here. It lacks the nuance of a full-array or OLED panel, but it’s still a welcome inclusion that can make movies and games look great.
When connected to your console, there are a number of HDR presets available, as well as a custom setting: HDR Game, HDR Movie, HDR Photo, DisplayHDR 600, Personal, and Off.
DisplayHDR 600 has the most neutral colour palette and is best suited for those who don’t like deeply saturated images, but it looks darker than it should. I tried adjusting the Xbox HDR calibration but I couldn’t get the default brightness as high as it needed to be. This is most apparent during brightly sunlit outdoor scenes, where instead of being bright and vibrant the image looks dull and cloudy.
The other modes all bump up the peak brightness and colour saturation, with the Movie mode offering a decent balance for watching media, but it has too much emphasis on reds, which messes up skin tones and looks garish. The Xbox preset, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the best overall HDR mode for both playing Xbox games and watching movies. Colour saturation is perhaps a touch too high for visual purists, but I love that “larger than life” vibe. It’s the Xbox mode that gives the biggest dynamic range, too, allowing dark scenes to retain detail and subtle shifts in tone, whilst also letting bright scenes carry a distinct punchy glare when required.
It’s a different story on PC, however, as I found in most cases the overall image is just too dark. As far as I could tell, the monitor was in HDR mode, as all of the picture adjustments you get in SDR mode were greyed out, but I didn’t get the on-screen HDR mode notification, and the HDR modes available for Xbox weren’t accessible.
I tried watching Stranger Things on Netflix, which has a lot of dark scenes, and a lot of the time it was so dark that you could barely make out what was on the screen. It’s better on games with HDR display brightness settings that let you crank up the brightness, but if you’re playing something without adjustments you run into the same darkness problems as you do with Netflix.
Just to be sure this wasn’t a Windows or system problem, I played the same games and videos on a separate HDR display, and the HDR worked perfectly with the exact same setup, so this is specific to the 279M1RV. As such, HDR is good if you’re playing on an Xbox, but it’s bordering on unusable on PC.
HDR Image comparisons
In these images, you can see how dark the DisplayHDR preset looks. HDR Xbox and SDR are closer in quality, but what appears as excessive bloom in the HDR Xbox photo looks much more balanced in real life, and is a result of the capturing method used.
Image(s) credit: Netflix – Our Planet
DisplayHDR 600
Xbox HDR Preset
SDR
If you want to experience even better HDR on your console and have the space, I’d recommend checking out the 55” Philips Momentum 559M1RYV.
Viewing angles and uniformity
As you’d expect from an IPS display, viewing angles are excellent. Colour saturation, contrast and clarity are maintained at extremely wide angles. Brightness uniformity and contrast are also fairly consistent across the whole display; Contrast deviation is slightly higher across the top of the display, but if I hadn’t physically measured it I wouldn’t have noticed. Brightness deviation is equally good – there’s a maximum deviation of 13.03 cd/m² (3.81%) in the top left, but you’d need a keen eye to spot this.
IPS glow is very slight, but the above-average black level of 0.44 cd/m² at max brightness creates a slight grey tinge to dark colours and blacks. It is only noticeable in very dark or mostly black scenes, though, and didn’t negatively affect my enjoyment of this superb display. Lowering the brightness for nighttime viewing reduces the black level considerably, too, so this is a great monitor for nighttime viewing or gaming, especially as colour vibrancy is retained at lower brightness.
Overall, the Philips Momentum 279M1RV has a stunning display, producing rich and natural colours without any glaring oversaturation. The contrast levels are average, but the luscious colour more than makes up for it. I’m most impressed with how good this monitor looks with its out of the box picture settings, though. If you’re a console gamer and want great picture quality with no fuss, you can’t go wrong.
Sound quality
The sound quality is passable, at best. Unfortunately, with panels getting thinner and thinner, there’s less room to fit decent speakers in. Peak volume is loud, but there’s very little in the way of low end, and at higher volumes, it sounds tinny and overly sharp. The minimum volume could be lower, as well – at 1/100, it was still louder than I typically have my speakers for nighttime listening.
The 2x 5W speakers are rear-firing and exit from the air vents towards the top, which can make the audio sound a little detached. They also seem to be quite close together, so the sound separation isn’t great and they lack spaciousness.
If you have no alternative the speakers are usable, and as much as I hate this caveat, they are ok for a typical gaming monitor, but I’d highly recommend some decent bookshelf speakers like the AudioEngine AE2+ or a quality headset.
Pricing and availability
The 279M1RV has only just been released for UK retailers, and I couldn’t find one in stock just yet, but they are coming. The 279M1RV has an MSRP of £719.99, which is not exactly cheap, but it’s very reasonable for the quality and comparable with other 4k144Hz panels of this size.
If you are deliberating between the 279M1RV and the 329M1RV, the Nano-IPS panel here is, in my opinion, better than the 32” IPS display on the Momentum 329M1RV. There’s not a lot in it, to be fair – on the 279M1RV the colour and the factory settings are much better, whereas the 329M1RV goes brighter and is bigger, but the black levels are weaker. Either way, both are great monitors worthy of your hard-earned cash.
Summary
The Philips Momentum 279M1RV is our new recommendation for the best 27” 4k monitor for console gamers (replacing the 278M1R, coincidentally enough – well done Philips!) It is ideal for the Xbox Series consoles (and PS5), as well as high-end PC gaming thanks to the inclusion of both Adaptive-Sync and Nvidia G-Sync.
There’s very little not to like about the 279M1RV – you’ll love the extensive connectivity options and KVM capabilities, it has fantastic colour, good brightness levels, and its responsiveness is outstanding, making it perfect for gaming. Factor in the excellent factory calibration and almost perfect default settings and this is one of my favourite monitors to date.
It’s not perfect, though. The contrast is only average, black levels could be slightly better and the speakers are meh. Apart from that, you won’t find a much better 27” HDMI 2.1 4k monitor than this for your swanky new console.