Physical Design

While the screen quality is very similar to the other 4K monitors that have made their way to our offices recently, the exterior quality of the Philips 288P6LJEB is top notch. It stands out as looking more "professional" but still maintains crucial features like VESA mount capability and stand rotation.

The bottom bezel on the 288P6LJEB is larger than the sides and top, which is just fine for a single display configuration but would create larger than desired gaps if you were attempting to using multiple portrait monitors side by side. The bezel is matte finished though, as is the screen, so glare is greatly reduced.

The rear of the panel isn't anything sexy to look at like the ASUS PG278Q ROG Swift, but it gets the job done. Rather than giving you a power cable and external brick, the Philips 288P6LJEB embeds the power supply inside the housing, making it larger but simplifying the cable clutter. One caveat: with only a 6-foot cable included in the box, you might be looking for an extension if your power connections are any distance from your desktop.

The base is sturdy and we didn't have issues with the wobble seen on other low cost, 28-in panels.

The OSD controls are capacitive and there are no hidden buttons on the bottom or back – you just touch the icons on the bezel to interact with them. It works surprisingly well! The OSD is fast and button response was actually better than many physical button implementations we have seen on monitors recently.

As far as the stand itself goes, the Philips 288P6LJEB ships with a good one, capable of tilt, rotation and angle adjustment.

Portrait mode is an option though keep in mind you will be fighting with viewing angles quite a bit more in this setup.

Philips has included a pair of speakers rated at 3 watts and while they are very clearly monitor speaker quality, they are better than I expected. They should suffice for listening to a YouTube video or podcast but I wouldn't want to go extended periods on them or devote my music consumption time to them.

Unfortunately, Philips went with the C6 style power connector (cloverleaf, Mickey Mouse) which means finding a replacement cable might be harder to find than normal.

Display input connections include a dual-link DVI, MHL-capable HDMI, DisplayPort and VGA. This is the area where Philips has provided more functionality than any other 4K panel on the market, allowing legacy connection types to run at non-native resolutions. There is also a stereo headphone input and headphone connection jack for audio pass through.

The Philips monitor also includes a USB hub on the right hand side that sports two USB 3.0 ports (one of which providing power for charging phones and tablets while off) and two USB 2.0 ports. The power switch for the 288P6LJEB is also located here.

I came away from the Philips 288P6LJEB impressed with the build quality and design work including the bezel, buttons, stand and screen. (The matte finish featured in the photo above helps there as well.) The technology support for 4K / 60 Hz as well as legacy connections is fantastic but there is one important lingering issue for this monitor.

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