Philips BDM4037UW 40in 4K Curved Monitor Review

1. Introduction2. Philips BDM4037U3. On Screen Display Menu System4. Philips BDM4037U Analysis5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

Pulling the joystick on the back downwards lets you choose which audio source to use – either one of the digital video inputs, or the analog audio minijack.

Pushing the joystick upwards calls up the Multi View options, where you can have multiple inputs onscreen at once. With a screen this huge and with 4K at your disposal, you could conceivably have four Full HD inputs onscreen at once and still be able to see what’s going on with all of them quite clearly. Potentially useful, if not every day.

The range of SmartImage presets available is broad, and varied in focus. We did most of our testing in Off mode, but you also get options for Office, Photo, Movie, and Game activities. There’s an Economy mode to save on power, and SmartUniformity to smooth out the brightness across the panel.

Pressing the joystick right calls up the main menu, with the first option being input selection.

Next down in the main menu can be found the Picture settings. You can change whether the picture is shown pixel-for-pixel or stretched to fit, as well as adjust the brightness, contrast and sharpness. SmartResponse is an overdrive system that reduces blur, with off, fast, faster, and fastest settings. SmartContrast is a dynamic contrast system that allows Philips to claim its rather ridiculous 20,000,000:1 ratio, as this also varies brightness to boost contrast.

The Gamma options range from 1.8 to 2.6 in 0.2 increments, and pixel orbiting is a technology for reducing the effects of image burn in. Over Scan is only relevant with a VGA input that has junk around the edges you want to remove.

The PIP/PBP section essentially expands on the options available from the quick joystick menu.

The Audio section provides a volume control, mute button, and a further method for choosing which input is the audio source.

The Color section lets you choose a colour temperature in K, sRGB, or a user-defined setting via RGB sliders.

You can switch the monitor to Greek with the Language section, if you want to play a joke on a friend, or confuse yourself.

The OSD settings let you adjust the location and appearance of the main menu, but not the quick menus that appear for other functions.

The Setup section gives you sundry configuration options, such as which DisplayPort standard to use and the ability to reset everything to default.
Overall, the range of options is good for a general-purpose monitor, but there won’t be enough here for ardent gamers (if the refresh and pixel response didn’t already scare them off). The menu is a little unwieldy using the joystick, and it would have been good to have things like brightness and contrast more readily accessible, but there’s enough here to set things up as desired, outside of hardcore gaming.

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