[will_joyce]

Hello everyone. I searched the web for monitor reviews and found this nice site. The reviews here are professional, practical and do have some more details even than those on rtings.com.
So I just bought an used but good X32FP thanks to the review here.

Before X32FP, to replace my acer Cp7271kp(actually it’s a x27 with a different look),I tried 1 oled (AW2725Q) and 5 minileds.

Cp7271kp is very bright and vibrant in HDR, but after 5 years use,there is a red tint around the edge of the screen(maybe its QD film degraded),plus its dp 1.4 can only support 98hz 10bit full RGB and it doesn’t support DSC. I’d like something new with better inputs support and keeps bright and vibrant in HDR.

Firstly, I bought an Alienware AW2725Q, it’s very good in every aspect, except for brightness.Oled is too dark to enjoy HDR contents, especially in a well lit room. I had no choice but returned it.

Then I got a Hisense 27G9K(you might know this brand for its TVs). By the way, I’m in an eastern country,(which you can easily guess out ) and here we have different brands and products line from the euro/us markets. Hisense entered monitor markets last year, 27G9K is the latest model it provides. This model uses a 27 inch customized AUO 7.6 IPS glass panel, combined with many parts that Hisense introduced from its tv supply chain: atw polarized film, dual LR coatings, glass based miniled backlight which has 2304 dimming zones and 4608 minileds for 2000nits peak brightness.
It’s very impressive in SDR, brightness gets to 700nits, with very good white uniformity, accurate sRGB/DCI P3 color space presets, and the text clarity is in top notch thanks to its glossy finish(which is very rare in monitors with minileds.)But it’s a total different story in HDR. Its local dimming is a disaster when displaying darker scenes. The backlight glooming and haloing are all around the whole screen, everything looks like in a big thick white-blue fog. While most people thought that its local dimming algorithm should be blamed but I thought something was wrong with the combination of panel and the other parts (backlight , coatings etc.), besides the local dimming algorithm. It’s ridiculous that for a 2304 zones backlight module performs like this. Anyway, it’s unusable so I returned it ASAP.

Then I bought a redmi (named as Xiaomi in overseas markets)G pro 27U. Generally,it’s a very good miniled monitor indeed. It’s using a BOE IGZO panel （ME270QUB-NF7 ）which originally has no backlight. Xiaomi customized a miniled backlight for it. Which has 1152 zones / 1152leds. The most interesting thing about this monitor is that it’s actually a TV at its core. It’s running an android, has a mtk9655BAA smart tv chip, and even has a blue tooth remote with it. Apps can be installed in TV mode, so it’s a fully functional smart TV. And many settings can be adjusted in monitor mode. There is even a memc option in monitor mode that I have never seen on any other monitor. The local dimming is superb,glooming/haloing control is great. It seems that the mtk chip is powerful enough to do better algorithm for dimming control. The peak brightness can get to 1500nits with the help of minileds. However it has a major problem with the quality control. The unit I bought has a very dark green shadow on the right upper corner, covered almost 1/4 of the screen. I can’t accept this defect and many customers found familiar color/brightness uniformity defects. My guess is that the QD film or backlight module are badly installed as the QC standard is low due to its low price(around 300euro).
PS:this model is likely to export to euro/us markets later this year.

The 3rd miniled that I tried was BenQ EX321ux, this model is also available in euro/us markets. Packed with a BOE IGZO panel(ME315QUM-NM1 ) which originally has a backlight module of 1152 zones and 4608 leds. With its initial firmware(released around April 2024), the local dimming is very disappointing. There was a HUGE backlight latency more than 1000ms. In gaming if you pan the camera from somewhere bright to somewhere dark, the backlight still keeps very bright. It can’t dim in time, so the scene looks weird for a second. Months later BenQ managed to improve the local dimming. It’s decent now but not very good. The small highlights are dark and the black point is too high,black looks gray. It’s said that the main chip(RTL 2738) is too weak to drive the backlight effectively. You can do some tuning like rising the contrast in some of the HDR modes but at the cost of losing color accuracy. Although the panel itself has over 1500nits peak brightness and outstanding wide color gamut, I don’t think the monitor made good use of these potentials. Generally speaking,It’s not good enough for a price around 1100 euro in my opinion. Additionally, by trying this BenQ, I found 32/31.5 inch is better in 4k than 27 inch for me.

After returning the BenQ, I bought a Philips 32M2N6800M. It’s using the same panel and the same main chip as the BenQ, but its local dimming is a bit worse. And red looks like orange in HDR on this monitor for unknown reason. While it’s acceptable because of a price of 400 euro. The shame was that my unit had several dirts in the center of the screen. And Philips had stopped supplying this model in our market months ago, the stock was very low and most of them were returned units. So I gave up on this one.

A few weeks later, Hisense released 32G9. It’s a 31.5 inch version of 27G9K which motioned above. It has 9216 minileds / 2304 zones in its backlight. I bought one for a try. Unfortunately its local dimming is worse than the 27 inch version, unusable when displaying dark scenes in HDR, plus heavy backlight flickering. Returned without any hesitation.

Having wasted a lot of time and read many reviews, I found acer X32 might suit me. Bought a used one and I have to say that it’s not perfect but decent for every aspect.

The only disappointment is the local dimming flickers heavily in many games when set to “fast”. I have to set it to low but lose some brightness on highlights especially those small ones. But in some games, the flickering is minimal even on “fast” setting. Maybe some tuning can be done to reduce the flickering on “fast” setting ?

All in all, in fact, miniled monitors haven’t improved much these years. I don’t know why the vendors gave up on the non-miniled and fewer zones solution that used on X27/PG27UQ. My friend got a Sony M9ii which is using the familiar solution, and it works well for a more balanced experience. It’s a pity that Sony didn’t make a 32 inch version with kvm function.

Sorry for my poor English and I hope you didn’t waste much time on this post.

[PCM2]

Thanks for sharing your journey here, will_joyce. That was very interesting to read, but at the same time a bit sobering.

I remember being at IFA several years back where the Acer CP7271KP was demonstrated, when mini LEDs were new to the monitor market. It stood out and I was excited to see how products like that evolved. I also attended subsequent trade shows where these models were growing in the professional space and also for higher end gaming models. When I finally got around to testing the ASUS PG32UQX, I was really stunned (almost literally) by its HDR brightness capability – I too often enjoy using HDR in a brighter room as I find it more natural and comfortable. It was a pleasure to use in such conditions, though it certainly had its flaws in scenes that demanded good intricate shade mixtures.

I had hoped that we would’ve seen such products evolve and become better in pretty much every way. At least in terms of HDR performance. Yet it seems the panel manufacturers and monitor manufacturers are “chasing the money” on OLED now. And releasing a few mini LED models here and there with some underdeveloped panels – these panels are very much an afterthought for most panel manufacturers. OLED technology I also love, but it clearly has different distinct strengths and weaknesses to mini LED. It’s always seemed like taking a fruit bowl with a nice mix of apples and bananas, removing the bananas and saying “but apples are still tasty”. They are, but they’re just not the same thing. 😉 I still have hope we’ll see evolution in both spaces and also new spaces (Micro-LED, ‘NanoLED’ / fully self-emissive QD-OLED etc.), but it’s still disappointing to see mini LED take such a back seat at the moment.

[will_joyce]

An insightful retrospect and prospect.😊👍

Considering the history, the good miniled monitors(including rog pg32uqx)
were usually made with the miniled backlight modules elaborately matched and assembled by the panel manufacturers. They often have much better quality than those that the monitor manufacturers had chosen.

Nowadays, it seems that the panel manufacturers gave up on the miniled backlight modules, and focused only on panels, at least for mainstream markets.
I can recall that Asus announced an 8k professional monitor PA32KCX in April 2024. It’s more than a year since then but it hasn’t come out of factory yet. It’s rumored that this model will pack with a 8k panel with miniled backlight module produced by AUO. Perhaps AUO is not in hurry to develop this as well as the other miniled related models.☹️

So today’s fact is that the developments of miniled monitors are passed to AOC(with Philips)/ InnoCN /Xiaomi. They make many new miniled models for domestic markets, but most of them are not so good that they are discontinued shortly, never go abroad to actually see the world.😂

Still, there is some progress has been made. Like mentioned in the first post. Some models like Xiaomi G pro 27U/ AOC Agon AG275uxm2(using a innolux panel with 2304 zones / 9216 leds, released last month) are significantly improved in local dimming. Some TV makers(Hisense/TCL/Skyworth) also entered the market and introduced something new from TV supply chains.
But at the same time, they are struggling to solve all kinds of problems that come with the miniled backlight. Without panel manufacturer’s cooperation, it’s very hard to predict what level they could achieve and how much time they will spend. I wish them luck anyway.

For oleds, the LG G5 TV series look promising. Hopefully there will be something familiar but smaller in the future. However oleds are bottlenecked by the overheating and aging problems.What can be done on 55 inch could be very difficult on 32 inch. We can only hope the panel manufacturers make some breakthrough. After all, oleds have big advantages in many aspects especially view angles and brightness/color temp uniformity. And they don’t have the paradox the LCDs (hva/ips)have in contrast/response/color/view angle etc.

[will_joyce]

@PCM2

Hi, I have a question about the horizontal view angle of X32FP and PG32uqx.Which one has better horizontal view angle?
I just came across a used Pro Art PA32UCG which has the same panel as the PG32uqx, and it has HDMI 2.1 and kvm function that I need.Never know this model before. Recently, I’ve learned that minileds do have bad horizontal view angle even with something enhancements like ATW. I wonder if it is still the same case for those more expensive. The view angle of my old CP7271KP is much better than it on X32FP. And I realized it has a lot influence on experience.

Thanks a lot.

[PCM2]

Could the superior viewing angle of the CP27271KP be partly down to its smaller size? To be honest I used the monitors too long ago so I couldn’t really say which one has superior viewing angles. Based on the videos I took and what I recall from them I think the PG32UQX did have a bit of an edge. It didn’t ‘haze up’ quite as quickly as you went off-angle horizontally for some medium-dark content, but overall similar performance.

[will_joyce]

Thanks for the videos. Watched very carefully. Not much difference, It seems that the PG32UQX has a bit more brightness loss. And my X32FP is worse than the one in the video😢
It’s probably because of miniled characteristic. Read the x27 review on rtings again, non-miniled backlight got much higher score in view angle tests and especially better in terms of brightness loss.

[will_joyce]

Philips just released a 4k 32-inch miniled model 32M2N6800MD. It has 1152 local dimming zones and certified as vesa hdr 1400. It’s weird that Philips didn’t do any marketing on this, probably because of a lack of confidence.
It released a 4k 27-inch model with 2304 dimming zones several weeks ago(27M2N6801M). This one has great local dimming performance，haloing reduced and small highlights stand out @1000nits.
I’ll buy the 32-inch model and try it myself. No any information about the panel and chip in it. I’m not optimistic about it though, just curious of how it will work.

[PCM2]

I look forward to your thoughts on it. You never know, it might surprise in a positive way.

[will_joyce]

Purchased and it’s on the way, ETA 2-3 days. It’s really unusual that this model is not montioned in any blog/vlog/post/media press since it’s in stock for a week. There is even no any customer feedback on web store. Probably I’m the first one who bought this. By comparison, the new 27-inch version has lots of feedbacks/posts/reviews and advertisements.

Something is wrong about this model and I’ll find out what it is soon😅

[PCM2]

The 32M2N6800M was announced back in July 2024 in Europe, at which time they did the usual press releases. The 32M2N6800MD (refreshed version with ‘Dual Mode’ capability, hence ‘D’) hasn’t been announced yet for availability outside of Asia as far as I can see. I’m not sure why there wasn’t more coverage from Asian outlets, but in Europe I’d expect more media fanfare if or when it launches there. Hopefully it works well! 😉

[will_joyce]

Philips 32M2N6800MD first impression

Unboxed and tested.

I was worried about the local dimming before unboxing but the local dimming is great! The real problems will be discussed later.

First of all I managed to access the service menu for the hardware info. Main chip is MT9801VWQTDG(a powerful chip from MediaTek). Panel shows as TPM315WR1, but I don’t think it’s the panel model. TPM315WR1 should be the module(panel combined with the custom backlight). So a tearing down maybe needed for confirming the panel model. ☹️

Local dimming performance exceeds my expectation. There are 5 hdr modes: game/movie/vivid/hdr 1400/personal. hdr 1400 has the most accurate colours and the highest peak brightness which is more than enough. When local dimming is set to strong, the brightness of small highlights is better than those on 32M2N6800M/Acer X32FP, and nearly as good as the pricey BenQ EX321ux as I can remember. Black is significantly darker than those 3 models. Black crush is minor, details in the dark area are well kept.

Backlight blooming is effectively controlled. Blooming cannot be seen in a well lit room but only appears at night without lighting around. Even in that case blooming is still much less than 32M2N6800M/EX321ux/Acer X32FP

There are 4 options for local dimming: strong/medium/weak/off. strong intends to let the dark area darker at the cost of dimming some small highlights. While weak provides better brightness for small highlights but the black looks grey.

All the 4 options almost have no flickering even when some small highlights are moving fast in a dark background. It’s very impressive. As a comparison my X32FP is flickering like hell when local dimming is set to “fast”

I’ve run the DisplayHDRComplianceTests tool to see the EDID info. The monitor reported its max brightness @1770nits and min @ 0.01nits. There colour coverage of srgb is 99.5% / adobe rgb 96.2%/dci p3 97.5%/bt 2100 84.2%, not very good for an IPS panel.

The screen has a light haze AG coating. Reflection controlling is good while the clarity and sharpness of the image are well kept. So it’s far better than X32FP in this aspect. The coating of the X32FP is grainy and dirty.

The horizontal view angle is good and a bit better than X32FP，

The dual modes are usable, it takes 7-8 seconds to switch between UHD@160Hz and FHD@320hz, which is fairly good, but there are aliasing artifacts in FHD mode, usable but not good.

I haven’t tested the pixel response time carefully but I tested some fast paced FPS games like COD, and It’s not worse than X32FP at least.

The brightness and colour temp uniformity is decent when the brightness is above 400nits.

So much for the pros and it’s time for the cons.

My unit has 6 dead pixels😅. QA is terrible for a globe brand like Philips. The really critical problem is that some vertical warm coloured stripes will show when the monitor displaying light colours image at low brightness. For example, browsing the webs or using Office. It’s very disturbing and unusable to me☹️. I think there should be some manufacturing defects or worse. Probably a whole batch of products are suffered from this.

Besides, the IPS glow of this monitor is terrible, the glow is so bright when looking from any side other than the front. It has the worst IPS glow I have seen on a miniled monitor.

And the sdr contents are way too dark when the hdr is on. It’s barely usable when I set the sdr brightness to 100% in win 11. I don’t know what’s wrong here. The image is amazing and look like on a oled when it’s playing hdr videos, so the EOTF tracking should be very good.

All in all, its local dimming improvement is big compared to those old 32 inch models.(but the small highlights are still dimmer than my cp7271kp) So that the hdr contents taste a bit like they are on the oled monitor sometimes. If Philips can solve the stripe problem, I think it still has some advantages and potentials. After all, it’s only 3999 rmb(around 400 euros) in China, and the BenQ EX321ux is 8999 rmb (around 900 euros). 6800MD is even a bit better than EX321ux on hdr performance.

It seems the MT9801 chip plays a key role in this case. If good chips work with good panels, there will be more better minileds monitors.

[PCM2]

Thanks for sharing some detailed impressions on the Philips 32M2N6800MD. It’s great that they’ve tuned the local dimming algorithm so well and it is indeed promising for further models based around that MediaTek chip. It would’ve been nice if they’d adopted a “low glow” panel of some description of course. Oh and if the monitor wasn’t shipped out with so many dead pixels! 🙁 Assuming people win the QC lottery, it sounds like it has good potential for the price as you say.

The TPM315WR1 could be a TPV module based on an LG Display LM315WR1 Dual Mode panel. Not sure of the exact panel, but it would be in that series. 🙂

[will_joyce]

Did you mean it’s possible a LG nano ips panel ? But the LG panels are usually expensive. The only monitor model made of nano ips panel + miniled backlight that I knew was LG 27GR95UM. It’s expensive while its local dimming was very disappointing. I searched over the internet, a well known Chinese blogger wrote a review on Philips 328E1CA, back in the 2019. The blogger said that its panel was TPV-TPM315WR1-FP01.S. It’s a va panel from Samsung. It seems that TPV itself is not serious about naming the parts. 😅

[PCM2]

I think that Chinese blogger might’ve just copied what I found in my own review of the Philips 328E1CA? When I reviewed it a Samsung VA panel was used, but it was an early pre-release sample and I think the factory menu just had that model code as a placeholder. This was all a little bit before Samsung Display stopped producing LCD panels of any sort.

Because the panel used in the 32M2N6800MD would actually be a CELL (with custom non-LG backlight) and “Nano IPS” would refer specifically to models with a backlight that is KSF phosphor with excellent DCI-P3 coverage, I’m not sure it would be marketed as “Nano IPS” specifically. It appears that most “Dual Mode” models currently available are based on LG Display IPS panels or CELLs. The Gigabyte M27UP I just looked at has a “TPM270WQ1-DCAD78.N” which I strongly suspect is based on an LG Display Dual Mode panel, despite the very aggressive pricing. The name is one thing, but there are a few other clues. The very light matte anti-glare screen surface was a typical LG affair and handily rules out an alternative from BOE, for example. This is further reinforced by the chevron RGB subpixel structure, which is more typical of (though not exclusive to) LG Display IPS technology as well.

[will_joyce]

Thanks for the professional analyses , they are valuable for an amateur user like me.

I searched for the panel info in Chinese, since I thought that TPV does their manufacture mostly in China. So I missed your review on Philips 328E1CA. And yep I think that blogger copied your conclusions although he did a very simple testing. That guy was nobody 6 years ago.

About the dual mode panels, I think the situation is a bit different here from Europe. The following is what I’ve seen here and just sharing this for your information. The most popular dual mode panel from last year is the AUO M270QAN07.6 CELL and its variations. It supports UHD@160Hz and FHD@320Hz. It’s based on AUO 7.0 so adopted some advantages of the 7.0 but relatively cheaper(80 euros). Dozens of monitors use this panel, with KSF/Miniled backlight, though most of them are not available for Europe. Among them, ASUS ROG XG27UCG/ MSI MPG 274U E16M should/will be available for Europe. And it’s interesting that in some posts in community, the posters speculated that Gigabyte M27UP is using this AUO 7.6 panel. According to multiple tests, the DCI P3 coverage of this monitor is no more than 90%(CIE1976), which is very close to the results of AUO 7.6 panel. However maybe it’s using different panel in other markets. Btw M27UP is available from June and the price is around 150 euros. As a 4K dual mode monitor with type-c port, it has really good value for money. In contrast to it, many monitors appear too expensive.

About the LG Nano title, I can recall that originally it was some coating material used in the KSF backlights that were exclusively made by LG. But LG still called its 27GR95UM as a Nano ips monitor. I’m not sure if it was using the same material as in the KSF backlights, since this model used a miniled backlight.

[PCM2]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing that! Outside of Asia (and this includes reviewers, unless they do teardowns) are always quite disconnected from the panel and manufacturing scene. Many of the great insights I’ve had over the years have come from Asian users and sources, so I appreciate these details. 🙂

150 Euro equivalent seems insane! It will be about double that when it reaches Europe no doubt, but in terms of relative value that’s still exceptional. I could certainly be wrong about the LG Display panel on the M27UP I tested. “TPM270WQ1-DCAD78.N” could point to the M270QAN07.6, TPV seems to be extremely cryptic with how they’ve coded things there and it has thrown me off a bit. AUO is another manufacturer commonly using that ‘very light’ matte screen surface and for that matter the chevron subpixel shape. My unit struggled to get 90% DCI-P3 even – only if I’m being generous and depending on software and standard used to test. And I also observed mild image retention when testing Test UFO, especially at lower refresh rates. This is something I’ve observed over the years on AUO panels, specifically, and don’t usually observe on LG panels. Not sure exactly why, just an interesting observation.

[will_joyce]

I asked for a replacement of my 6800MD. Unfortunately, the second one is even worse than the first one☹️. 10+ bright pixels in black background, though they mostly can’t be seen when the local dimming is on. And heavy stains/shadows in the centre of the screen when it’s displaying something in light colour at lower brightness. Probably the panel AND the manufacturing defects.

Philips still doesn’t do any marketing or advertising for this model at all. Having noticed that there are also 32M2N7800MD/7700MD/6700MD certificates besides 6800MD as family models on VESA website, maybe the manufacturer will discontinue this model months later and focus on other models. What a pity, it’s really good especially in terms of local dimming for a 32 inch model. Probably the best of its kind for now.

BTW, Gigabytes MO27Q28G is in stock here and it’s around 260 euros. It’s using a 4th gen LG woled panel. It can get 1350nits at 1% window, 600nits at10% window and 400nits at 25% window. The results are worse than the LG 27GX700A which is using the same panel(1550nits at 1%, 830nits at 10%, 420nits at 25%. It’s only in 2k QHD. And it’s rumoured that there won’t be any new 4K 32 inch woled panel next year☹️. I don’t know if it is true.

[will_joyce]

Updates on Philips 32M2N6800MD. I bought the 3rd and 4th units in the past weeks. The 3rd unit suffered from the same QC problems as the previous ones, vertical stained/shadows all over the screen.They are some kind of “MURA” I think. The uniformity of the 4th unit is much better than the others, although it’s just okay and not great. It’s weird that this one has the smallest SN number that indicates it’s probably produced much earlier than other 3 units. A Philips support guy told me that the panels of this model are from InnoLux which are newly developed.
The coating of the screen is interesting when look closely. It’s a film that has very fine grains, much finer than I usually seen on matte screens. I can see the grains form some kind of pattern when magnified.The monitor has the best clarity I’ve ever seen on a matte screen, (maybe) thanks to this film. I decided to keep this unit for I’m really tired of buying-replacing-returning because of the QC issues. All in all it’s a great FALD model for its great local dimming and excellent clarity, even better than the old famous 32 inch flagships,but much much cheaper.
BTW, AOC just announced a new miniled monitor AG327UXM a few days ago. It has almost the SAME specifications as the Philips 6800MD except for a better backlight module which has 2304 dimming zones.AOC pushed a lot of reports on medias and SNS, so it might be an important model for the vendor. But I don’t think 2304 zones will make much difference, I’ll stay with my Philips for a while. I hope that these new minled models go around the world soon, and provide more options at least for those who don’t like oled.

[PCM2]

Thanks for sharing your update. It’s a shame QC was a miss, but at least you’re able to enjoy its overall image characteristics. I hope the AG327UXM sees a wide (and well-priced release), too. It’s nice having some good Mini LED options in a space so dominated by OLED.

[will_joyce]

Thanks chief. It seems old models like cp7271kp could do some tone mapping to stretch the contrast and enhance the color of every frame thanks to the G-sync hardware(maybe).That produces vibrant and bright images but the monitor can’t follow the eotf accurately at the same time(I guess). On the other hand, recently new monitors intend to follow the eotf correctly, so the images look plain sometimes. It’s very subjective to tell which way is better. Since the old models eventually faded away, maybe I should get used to the new ones.

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