Philips Brilliance BDM3490UC Ultra-wide 21:9 Curved Display Review

1. Introduction2. Philips Brilliance BDM3490UC3. On Screen Display Menu System4. Philips Brilliance BDM3490UC Analysis5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

Feeling strong? You’ll need to be to move the Philips BDM3490UC around, as it’s a massive screen, with a very large box. That said, it’s not particularly heavy given the size, weighing 7.8kg.

The packaging shows the main product features: the ultra-wide angel and 34-inch width. It also calls the display beautiful, a term we wouldn’t often apply to PC displays, but as we’ll show, the Philips Brilliance BDM3490UC is a gorgeous looking monitor.

A range of accessories is included, all in white, which compliments the rear design of the chassis. You get white DisplayPort and HDMI cables, a software CD, instruction manual and colour chart.

It uses an external power brick with a cloverleaf power lead, both of which are also white.

From the front the appearance is all black, with the bezels at the sides and top measuring no more than a few millimetres.

The rear of the display has a glossy white plastic covering, with a lovely smooth texture and real premium feel to it. It’s quite reflective, but strong and well built. A step above the efforts of other display manufacturers.

The stand is connected to the display out of the box, and cannot be easily removed. There is no support for VESA mounting. The black base of the stand has an interesting crescent moon shape.

The connector is made of solid metal, which compliments the glossy white plastic on the rear chassis.

Note that the stand does not allow the display to be raised or lowered, or rotated 90 degrees in pivot mode (with such a wide display, that would look quite odd). It does allow for tilting forwards and backwards though, between -5 and 20 degrees.

There are three HDMI inputs, one with MHL support, one HDMI 1.4 and one HDMI 2.0. There’s also a solitary DisplayPort 1.2 input.

There are a pair of 3.5mm jacks for audio input and output.

There are Philips logos in the corner, at the rear and on the lower section of the bezel at the front. They all look rather good, and give the appearance of a TV more than a traditional monitor.

On the left side of the display are four USB 3 ports, one of which supports fast charging.

Perhaps the best aspect of the design is the use of a small 4-way joystick to control the OSD, tucked underneath the display. Hooray for no fiddly touch-sensitive controls or array of buttons to press. This is made of plastic but has been given the same appearance of polished metal as on the stand connector.

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