Gadgetory

at a mere 300 dollars the Philips 276 II is the first quantum dot display that I have yet had the pleasure of putting my grubby little hands on but does it deliver or does it disappoint let's start with the monitor itself the 276 II features only what I would consider the basic inputs VGA DVI and HDMI with no DisplayPort it resorts to an external power brick something I don't usually mind personally though I wish the cord was a little longer on this one so it reached the floor more comfortably but is considered a design compromise by many it has no creature comforts to speak of so no USB hub and it not only lacks any ergonomic adjustments other than tilt in its admittedly attractive though metal base but to add insult to injury does not feature vase amount points so other than putting a riser or some books under it on your desk nothing can be done to adjust the height the bezels are of average thickness so no complaints there but while some people may be into white monitors to go with their oh I don't know 2006 model MacBook or whatever the use of glossy plastic anywhere that we might have to look at it is a pretty sore spot for me as are the touch sensitive buttons on the bottom right for what must be the worst on-screen menu controls that I have yet encountered while it's true that they are at least labeled unlike the genius ones on a Search Predator X 34 and the contextually switching ones that force me to navigate deep within the menu just to change a bloody input on this BenQ the labels do be very little good when they are positioned in such a way that I need to lie my head down on the desk to see them PSA to monitor makers all of them not just Phillips here glossy plastic is bad tactile feedback and labels we can read on navigation buttons are good okay Linus cool story bro but the reason I'm still watching is that I want to know if quantum dot which by the way is actually as cool as it sounds and involves a sealed tube with these dots that react to blue light by shining red and green learn more here is enough to make this puppy worth any of the compromises that you might be making by buying it and for you my friend I will reveal the answer it depends on who you are and what you want to do because a quantum dot monitor much like all the buzz and marketing nonsense around LED monitors is still at its heart an LCD monitor it inherits many of the same characteristics that you would expect from any LCD in this case the unexceptional black levels of our IPS ABS panel make dark scenes look more gray than black and while casual gamers won't notice the difference it's pixel response times are nothing to write home about for competitive gamers but what you get in return is the as advertised wide color gamut support in the form of true 99% coverage of the Adobe RGB color space this in spite of the unexceptional out of the box color accuracy is a huge boon for digital imaging hobbyists and prosumers who will be super amped to have the ability to work on photographs that they've taken in Adobe RGB mode on their camera natively on their workstation to get the best possible printing results at an unheard-of price point the 270 60 even alongside a decent color image for calibration is still going to be fighting in a much lower price class than other monitors with similar color space support but that doesn't make the 270 60 a slam-dunk and I have one more major issue with it the way it's presented in the marketing materials and in the reviewers guide as more vibrant thanks to its ability to represent a wider range of colors is really irresponsible as far as I'm able to tell unless you color calibrate it and set up an ICC profile to correct this native Adobe RGB monitor to the smaller sRGB color space which is used almost exclusively on the web and the PC you're going to end up with inaccurate oversaturated colors think of it this way a program like let's say your web browser will call for 100% green assuming a fully srgb pipeline then the monitor is going to go to town delivering a 100% Adobe RGB green that the program had no idea that it could display compounding the issue is the fact that even profiling is not a perfect solution while Mac OS handles color Corrections pixel-by-pixel system-wide on Windows it's handled on an application by application basis with many common programs like games for example not being ICC aware so using this monitor you're going to end up with TV display model syndrome where your saturation is too high in a way that might make it look punchy next to a competitor on a shelf but actually displays the content in a way that the Creator did not intend most monitors literally every single one that I've ever seen with wide gamut support deal with this simply by having an sRGB mode often with a quick switch button within the on-screen display but for some reason the 276 EES doesn't work properly I got the exact same 99% Adobe RGB coverage in srgb mode and Phillips's responds telling me that the oversaturated greens were probably because I'm not used to wide gamut displays demonstrates that while at least I don't believe they are intentionally misleading customers they also don't seem to really understand the issue here which leads us finally to a couple of conclusions number one is that whether this monitor is for you or not wide gamut support is coming to the mainstream thanks to quantum dot whoo freakin hoo at this kind of pricing I'd be surprised if every LCD doesn't support it in a couple years time what a cool technological advance to tide us over while we wait for OLED to deal with its burnin and cost issues and this is conclusion number two we all need to practice new technology use responsibly it's all fine and good to be ahead of the feature curve but it's important not to lose track of the way that most people will use the product in the process I'm not saying that the 276 E is a total flop of a product but in my humble opinion it is best suited for use as a secondary display for a hobbyist or a prosumer photo editor for example where icc aware applications can be dragged over to it but other applications like games can be run on one with proper standard sRGB color space support speaking of which audible.com audible is the leading supplier of audiobooks with literally hundreds of thousands of downloadable titles across all types of literature we're talking fiction nonfiction periodicals you name it audiobooks are great to listen to when you are I don't know driving stuck in traffic if you're well okay I hate to say this because you probably shouldn't have been doing that but if you're the forklift operator at my old job say for example when you're doing chores around the house at the gym or wherever you happen to be well that's a great time to catch up on your reading and for our audience members audible is offering a free 30-day trial which includes a free title and like I said they've got everything from business tips to life tips to get away from life tips including the entire Harry Potter series by JK Rowling unabridged and narrated by Jim Dale who won two Grammy Awards for the performance by the way so check it out over at audible.com slash Linus linked in the video description below thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit the like button or even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop in Amazon instructions up there by buying a cool shirt like this one or with a monthly contribution through our community forum now that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the top right corner to check out one of our other awesome videos I'm going to leave it up to my editor to put something in there hopefully it's not one where I have like an embarrassing faux pas hairdo or anything like that