Oh, hello! Sorry, didn’t see you there over this absolutely astounding and very awesome gaming monitor. I’ve been literally sitting here for hours, just admiring this thing. And yes I will say it’s the first OLED monitor I’ve personally used on my gaming rig rather than seeing them in shops or on a convention floor. But I must say I am pretty shocked at how good this monitor is. Well, I best get back to some ga…oh, you wanted me to talk more about it? As in a review? Oh fine, I’ll do it.
So, the Philips Evnia 34M2C8600, or Evnia from now on for short is a 34-inch, ultrawide gaming monitor that sports a mindblowing OLED panel that’s capable of producing some wonderfully vivid colours compared to the typical IPS or VA panels you find now. OLED of course is becoming a bit more commonplace in the gaming world, but of course you’ve got to be well aware of screenburn after prolonged use. The ultrawide comes from its extended 21:9 aspect ratio and it’s also got an 1800R curve which helps with your immersion and peripheral vision. The screen is capable of a 3,440 x 1440 resolution and has a max refresh rate of 175Hz if you’re using the DisplayPort. Over HDMI you’re looking at 100Hz maximum, which is decent too for you console gamers out there. You’ve also got USB Type C, two HDMI ports actually, a headphone input and a USB hub and a kettle plug for power.
It’s got some really nice small bezels around the outside which are in fact a light grey colour, almost white. If you’ve got a white-themed PC setup then this monitor would fit in quite nicely. It’s got some minimal branding on the bottom bezel which looks nice and smart and around back it does also feature what Philips is calling Ambiglow, which is a set of LED lights that react to what’s happening on screen. They run all around the edges and are really super effective in increasing that immersion into the game you’re playing, and it actually looks really good. Plus a bonus is if you’re sitting in a darkened room, it helps a lot with eye strain, especially for someone like me who only has eyesight issues, hence you know, the glasses and all that.
One thing I will say though is that the Evnia ultrawide is large and it is heavy. It’s got a chunky back to it which is more or less in line with other ultrawide panels though it does have a nice square almost tiled pattern across the rear. It’s heavy too though the provided stand is more than capable of holding it nice and steady, and it can also be mounted to a wall bracket too and the plate comes provided in the box. It’s got some tilt and some swivel but no rotation, though I don’t think anyone would use this monitor vertically anyway. so no loss there.
Now, let’s talk proper testing because I must say uncalibrated and fresh out the box, playing some Hellblade 2 was absolutely breathtaking, especially when I started looking at detail in the rocks and beaches in a bit more detail. Colour here absolutely shone through and I was taken aback, well, compared to playing it on my 16:9 MSI monitors here, that A) not only realising now just how good ultrawide gaming is, but B) experiencing ultrawide gaming on a mid-range monitor like I have in the past, and then experiencing ultrawide gaming on an OLED panel like this is a crazy contrast. Even playing some Overwatch 2, which okay isn’t as photorealistic as Hellblade 2, was still super sharp and contrasty and really popped. Oh, and looked smooth too thanks to the Freesync Premium and 175Hz refresh rate. Playing some Destiny 2 and all the colours and also even darker areas that that game offers was really nice. Electricity and fire and all the colourful spells going off around you was a sight to see, and having that backlight react to what’s going on, on screen, was easily one of the best things I’ve seen in a monitor for a while. I’m going to have to invest in those RGB strips now for my setup here! Thanks, Philips!
Okay sorry, got distracted. Running my Datacolor Spyder Elite, I found that the monitor was able to hit 100% sRGB, although surprisingly, and I’m not sure if it’s me here, but I only got a score of 75% AdobeRGB 78% P3 and 70% NTSC colour gamuts which for an OLED panel I thought was pretty low. What wasn’t expected though was the killer contrast ratio the monitor was able to produce. At 100% brightness, the monitor hit 246.4 nits of peak brightness and a contrast ratio of 16,430:1 which is really nice, although Philips did claim 1,000,000:1 here, but you’re never EVER going to be seeing that. Why in this day and age companies are still claiming high contrasts like that I don’t know.
Colour accuracy came in with an average Delta E of 0.80 while its max Delta-E was 4.09 thanks to those teal-like colours as you can see on the chart here, and a minimum at 0.21. This was really evident in the teal colours bringing down the overall score, but again, colour accuracy is super stellar here. Same with the colour uniformity., at 100% brightness, the middle left quadrant let it down a bit, and when I say a bit, I mean tiny amounts. It’s really good here, and I will say at around 67% brightness,. colour uniformity was great across the board. Same with the luminance uniformity. 10 out of 10 here for that. Scores are all below if you wanted to take a look.
But really, forget all about that science stuff because in reality, this monitor is AMAZING and has such an amazing picture, and the lighting effects are wicked and it’s all just WOW. It really is. But… And unfortunately, this is a but… it comes with a price. And quite a hefty price if you ask me, and although yes it has come down somewhat from when it was first released, it’s still pretty spenny. I’ve found it online for under £900, but not by much. Which when you compare it to my two MSI 1440p monitors costing less than that, yes I get why people haven’t really adopted ultrawide properly yet. But, to be honest, you should. Splash the cash and get it on your desk. You won’t regret it. And your families will probably never see you again because you’ll be too engrossed in this picture. Amazing. Smashed it right out of the park Philips.
