At first glance, this screen seems like a clone of the 220CW with added integrated speakers and likewise a TN 2 ms panel.  The design is stylish and just like Samsung, Philips has chosen black glossy plastic, rounded edges and a fixed base. One small difference compared to the 220CW, in addition to DVI and VGA inputs, there is now a 1 port USB hub (a second would have been nice) as well as an HDMI.  It is therefore possible to connect a webcam, HD player or even a latest generation game console without an adaptor and use the integrated speakers.   For this reason, we hoped to have a versatile monitor for watching TV via an ADSL box, gaming with a console, and work.

Not a true 2 ms but via manual adjustment a “real” 5 ms

Our verdict? No, this probably isn’t your dream screen, or at any rate, not if you are looking for a reactive model. It’s actually what we can call a “fake 2 ms”.  We were surprised to see the overdrive function, here called SmartReponse, deactivated.  In theory, its purpose is to accelerate liquid crystals.  On OFF, unsurprisingly the reactivity of this screen is equivalent to LCD with an announced response time of 5 ms.  This is modest and what is currently the slowest.

We activated SmartReponse and then understood Philips’ choice.  Afterglow is indeed reduced, but the image is degraded due to the appearance of black ghosting, also called reverse ghosting. In this case, it’s extremely significant. As you can see on the below extract, there is a dark afterglow image behind objects in movement.  On the screen, if we observe from very close, it translates into a black and bothersome accentuation on objects.  Many users will not like this and it’s therefore preferable to reset the SmartReponse to zero.