Our rather tatty and bruised box is home to a large image of the 273E3QH monitor as well as a table outlining some of the key features.
VGA, DVI and 3.5mm jack cables are all accompanied by a kettle-style power lead and installation CD.
Philips use a circular base to evenly distribute the screen's weight while maintaining an aesthetically pleasing appearance.
A simple slot-in design is used to affix the 6.5kg screen to its base. Unfortunately, this technique eradicates any tilt-adjustment possibilities.
Philips' perceptive engineers and designers have managed to create a reasonably elegant design from a large 27″ screen. It isn't the most attractive monitor on the market, but we have definitely observed far worse design attempts.
A dull ‘texture' finish to the 20mm-wide bezel certainly doesn't offer much in the way of enhancing the product's visual appearance. To reach the given price point of this monitor, Philips has to cut corners somewhere, though.
Unfortunately, making a price-reducing compromise on the bezel material – something which occupies such a large amount of the monitor – wasn't the greatest of ideas.
A 100 x 100 mm VESA mount located on the rear panel of Philips' 69mm-thick monitor makes wall-, or even multi-display stand-, mounting a possibility.
Downwards-facing inputs are partly to blame for the monitor's 69mm thickness. This orientation has the benefit of eliminating any cable-protrusion issues that arise when using a narrowly-spaced wall mount.
4 of the 5 touch buttons located on the 273E3QH's front panel double up as menu and selection controls. SmartImage Lite, input, volume and menu interfaces can be easily accessed thanks to their specifically-allocated buttons.
HDMI, DVI and VGA connections are accompanied by audio input and output jacks on the monitor's right-rear side. A kettle-style power input is located towards the left side of the monitor's rear panel.
A number of users will groan at Philips' exclusion of the increasingly-popular DisplayPort input. Personally, I feel that this is only a minor issue on a 1920 x 1080 screen.
Key features are publicized on a sticker that is housed on the screen's upper-right corner. The sticker will help store-based customers decide upon a purchase, or, if you insist, it can be used as a prop for bragging about your new monitor to friends and family.
Nice looking monitor. I need to get me a new one too