Philips Brilliance BDM4065UC 40″ 4K Review

Introduction & Closer Look

Manufacturer: Philips
Model: BDM4065UC
UK Price: £610 @ Amazon UK (At time of review)
US Price: $647 @ Amazon US (At time of review)
EU Price: €684 @ Amazon DE (At time of review)

Philips are one of the oldest and most established European tech companies in the world. Founded in 1891, they started out making lamps and if you fast forward over 125 years to today, you can see how big this Netherlands based technology company has come. From radios, medical equipment and lightbulbs, Philips has an extensive product range and skill set available… but we aren’t looking at those today!

We are of course taking a look at a monitor from the Philips Brilliance range, more specifically the BDM4065UC 40” LED 4K UHD. The BDM4065UC features Philips’ own VA LED screen technology which uses an advanced vertical alignment technology: this not only improves contrast quality which allows for more vibrant, richer images, but it also improves the viewing angle, thus making it visible from wider angles. The other major selling point is the 4K UHD resolution (3840×2160); 4K is not only the must have resolution at the moment, but having a 40” screen allows for more of the pixel quality to shine through. You would notice 4K much more than you would at say a 1080p resolution on a 40” screen, so this makes the BDM4065UC desirable.

At first glance, the Philips BDM4065UC is a thing of beauty. From the long glowing 40” LED panel, all the way down to the solid metal silver stand, the BDM4065UC stands at 58.9cm tall (measured from top to bottom including the stand) and comes in at a very slim 5.1cm in depth. Without the stand, this screen weighs in at only 8.5KG (or 9.5KG with stand) and features VESA compatible mounting holes, it’s compatible with virtually any wall mount currently available through retail channels.

One of the strongest and most overwhelming things with the BDM4065UC, is the amount of connections and ports that Philips have incorporated into this 40” 4K screen. Firstly, there are the usual suspects you might find on ANY monitor. These include D-SUB, DisplayPort and HDMI which are probably considered the most used connections when connecting a PC up to a monitor. What’s so great is that Philips have included a mini DisplayPort input (no need for a £20 adapter), but a MHL HDMI port for connectivity from a tablet or smartphone has also been included. Adding MHL is a nice touch as it allows you to mirror the phones screen in real time without lag; the only downfall to this being that this screen only supports 1080 60Hz with MHL active.

There are also 2 x 3.5mm jacks present at the top of the connections; 1 for PC audio in and another for headphones.

A wide array of visual inputs isn’t the only thing that’s been included. Philips have also included a USB 3.0 hub with support for up to 4 x USB 3.0 supported devices; 1 port also has facility for fast charging for devices such as smart phones and tablets. Great for those with limited ports on their desktop PC and of course, easier to reach than the rear of your system too.

To power this particular monitor, the standard UK 3 pin “kettle” power lead is required; this does come supplied inside the box! There is also a handy switch on the right hand side of the monitor which allows for quickly switching on an off.

One disadvantage to the Philips BDM4065UC 4K monitor is due to its large size (40”), it sacrifices an adjustable stand. This means that whatever angle you require the monitor, the stand will face that way; those who want to swivel and twist will have to go for another option I’m afraid. This is of course only a disadvantage if you have super limited desk mounting space.

It should be noted that setup and installation of the stand is easy. Simply pop the monitor on the stand and screw in the mounting screws; voila, easy as pie.

Just because I could, I thought the Philips BDM4065UC 4K screen would be more suited on the wall. After all, 40” is very large for a desk and with a width of 90.4cm, it takes up nearly a metre of desk space! Not to mention that with the stand installed, it brings the total depth to 8.8cm; if desk space is important, I recommend doing the same. Due to the relatively lightweight (for a 40” screen) of the BDM4065UC, it’s perfect for mounting onto virtually any VESA standard wall mount. This time round, I opted for a swivel on an extended arm…beautiful!

Key Specifications

• 40-inch 3840 x 2160 display
• 60Hz over DisplayPort
• 60Hz over HDMI
• 8.5ms response
• 2 x HDMI 1.4
• 2 x DisplayPort 1.2a
• 2 x audio jacks
• 4 x USB 3.0

A full list of detailed specifications can be found here – http://www.philips.co.uk/c-p/BDM4065UC_00/brilliance-led-backlit-lcd-display/specifications

Performance

To test the performance and the colour accuracy of the Philips BDM4065UCmonitor, I used a device called the Spyder 4 Elite, which is essentially a tool for monitor calibration. It is very accurate and can tell you things the naked eye cannot.

To get started, after the installation and calibration (we highly recommend this with all monitors) of the Philips BDM4065UC, the results are as follows:

To sum it up in a way everyone will understand, although sRGB and AbodeRGB are both RGB, they are very different. sRGB is the most common colour space used today but AdobeRGB has a wider colour space which can mean more colours but not as accurate when looking at colours which overlap on sRGB. This is mainly used for photographers and people just using their monitors for normal tasks such as web browsing or gaming will never need to worry about this.

In terms of general performance out of the box, the BDM4065UC is actually one of the best we have seen so far at Play3r. Of course like most, the brightness is set into overdrive and had to be reduced from 100%. Once you do this, it brings the quality LED backlit panel from Philips right into play; the white point is second to none and the performance on this front probably couldn’t be any better. Anything over 1 on the white point makes it visible and anything below that, isn’t; a 0.3 is near perfect.

Once fully calibrated, the BDM4065UC not only looks much better with the brightness toned right down, but even pre calibration, the RGB primaries were near pretty good. Obviously not everyone has a calibration tool to hand, so it’s good to know that with a slight adjustment on the brightness, maybe a tweak on the contrast if you don’t like colour rich and vivid images, that you have a near perfect set up out of the box. It’s not cheap though, so it’s what you should expect and certainly unforgiveable if not achieved!

Conclusion

Without pulling any punches, the Philips 40” BDM4065UC 4K screen is a real thing of beauty and ever since it’s been mounted on my wall, it’s been the centrepiece of the room. It’s large and probably one of the largest 4k monitors available on the market; it was the only 40” 4K monitor at the time of its release.

The strongest aspect here is the solid setup at stock in comparison to most other monitors I have seen at Play3r and of course, out of all the monitors I have owned. Given the price tag, which I may add is pretty justified given the screen size, the resolution and the serious arsenal of connections available. The only gripe for me is the lack of an adjustable stand, which some may consider a deal breaker, but for me, I simply wall mounted it for maximum adjustment and of course, save myself 1 metre of desk space!

You can pick up the BDM4065UC for between £600 and 700 (depending on your currency exchange) and in my humble opinion, it’s a pretty fair price given all the features. With 2x DisplayPorts (full size and mini), 2 x HDMI ports (1 for display and the other for MHL) and of course DVI and D-sub, it offers one of the most well rounded options on the market; in fact, it offers pretty much EVERY type of connection you may need. On top of this, there is a 4 port USB 3.0 hub on the rear which makes this even more desirable.

If this was my money, I wouldn’t hesitate in buying the Philips BDM4065UC 4K screen if I was of course looking for a large 40” monitor. It is a great performer, has all the connections you would need and most important of all, the image quality is on point making this a worthy winner of our recommended award. With a future proofing 4K resolution, £600 is a drop in the ocean in comparison to the graphical power you would need to buy to run 4K at good settings, so it makes a lot of sense to get something worthy of gaming on…this is that monitor!

Huge thanks to Philips for sending the BDM4065UC for review.