1440p 240Hz QD-OLED – Philips EVNIA 27M2N6501L Review

This is the Philips 27M2N6501L – ever the catchy naming schemes there Philips – a 27 inch 1440p 240Hz QD-OLED, that retails for just £399. Amazing, right? Well there are some things you’ll need to know before buying one, so strap in and let’s take a look at this budget QD-OLED!

First, a tour. This is part of Philips’ EVNIA range, which gives it a unique and to me anyway a rather nice style. From the back you get a squared-patterned rounded backing, with the silver of the panel’s metal backer only peeking out at the top. You do get the pretty unique Philips Ambiglow built in, with a handful of RGB LEDs projecting either rainbows, or perhaps more importantly screen-following light outwards around your monitor. In the right circumstances – namely only using this monitor, up against a white wall with nothing else around it – this can look really good. Personally I’m yet to find a use case for it on my own EVNIA display, but I know a lot of people like it. The stand is pretty typical for an EVNIA display, with two wide prongs for a foot, and of course a fully adjustable stand. That’s height, tilt, swivel, and even rotation into portrait mode – in both directions! I don’t know why you’d want to use this in portrait mode, let alone on the stock stand, but you’ve got the option if you are that way inclined. IO is the standard two HDMI 2.1 ports, on DisplayPort, and a two port USB 3 hub with the yellow port for charging devices. 

As for the on screen menu, that is controlled by a nice joystick style switch on the back, and the menu is a nice enough one following Philips’ usual styling. It has all the options you’d expect, including the suite of OLED care settings. My personal preference for these are pixel orbiting on slow, screen saver on fast, thermal protection on, and everything else off. I’ve been using my EVNIA 8600 for over two years now and I still don’t have any burn in. I use it at 60 percent brightness, and have windows turn the display off after five minutes of inactivity. That’s it. Oh, and dark mode everything – although that one is more a personal preference as I dark mode everything anyway. 

As for the panel itself, on the face of it, it’s beautiful. It’s sharp, nicely vibrant, and so rich. To say that this is a great viewing experience would be an understatement – this is simply amazing. There is a slight drawback though, namely the brightness. OLEDs often punch well above their weight in the brightness department, offering a visual experience that looks much brighter than an LCD at the same brightness level, although this one doesn’t quite hit the mark. This being a more budget panel, it offers just 200 nits in SDR, or 400 nits peak in HDR. That’s 50 nits in SDR, and 600 nits in HDR less than typical QD-OLED panels, and my SpyderX2 confirms the limited brightness to just shy of 200 nits in SDR. Happily the colours are spot on, covering 99 percent of the DCI P3 spectrum and 83 percent of Rec2020. Accuracy is also incredible, at just 0.68 DeltaE on average. That’s confirmed by the factory calibration report included in the box, something that only AOC and Philips seem to offer, but to me adds a tremendous amount of value. 

As for response times, those are still instant, and happily unlike W-OLED panels, there isn’t an adaptive brightness limiter which cuts the brightness off if something on screen is too bright. Latency is spot on too at half the refresh rate, so as you might expect from a 1440p 240Hz panel with instant response times and low latency, it’s a phenomenal gaming experience. It’s sharp, vibrant, rich, and buttery smooth. Motion is sharp, and that makes playing any game better. It provides a competitive advantage for games that warrant it, and gives a more crisp visual experience for more cinematic titles. This is genuinely one of the best gaming experiences you can have, at least on a 16:9 display anyway. 

And, like, all of this can be yours for just £400? What’s the catch? Well, first I should make it clear that this is basically just a Q27G4ZDR in EVNIA clothing. That would be AOC’s version of the £400 budget QD-OLED, although of the two I think I prefer this one. The styling is fresher, and the ambiglow is a nice addition, and if they are the same price, this feels like a better overall experience to me. With that said, my point from the Q27G4ZDR review still stands, as AOC’s own AG276QZD2 is a nicer panel, and can regularly be found around the £400 mark – it was £380 for Black Friday, for example – and with that much nicer panel available, why would you buy either this or the Q27? If this was £350 – which I expect you’ll find this on sale in the new year for that sort of figure – this might make a little more sense, but with options like that, or Philips’ own 27M2N8500 (a 360 hz 1440p 27 inch QD-OLED) that is currently just £30 more than this one, it makes it awfully hard to recommend an otherwise phenomenal deal. Ironically, Philips (and by extension AOC) have somewhat cannibalised their own product by offering better options for, in some cases, less money. Of course, for us consumers, that isn’t a bad thing – in fact it’s great! It just means that until the prices change, I can’t actually recommend you buy this thing – buy the 8500 instead. Once there is enough of a price difference, ideally by this thing coming down in price mind you, then this might be a good choice. This is a great monitor, and if you end up with one you’re gonna have a great time. Good job Philips.