Philips EVNIA 32M2N8900P Review – 4th Gen QD-OLED Gaming Monitor (4K 240Hz)

This is the first time I’ve had a fourth generation QD-OLED panel in, and it’s pretty big news! This is the Philips EVNIA 8900P, specifically the 32M2N8900P – not to be confused with the non-P version I reviewed a couple months ago which is a third gen panel – and this offers more brightness, less purple reflections, and even more colour and clarity. If you liked the last one, you’re going to love this one even more. Let’s take a closer look at it so you can see exactly why, what’s new, and decide for yourself if this is for you.

First let’s take a look at the thing. From the outside it’s pretty similar to the older 8900, from the beautiful white styling, metal stand, recycled plastic feet and Ambiglow on the back. The Ambiglow is now apparently “AI-enhanced” (god I hate AI being stuffed into everything) and does look pretty nice especially in a dark room. The stand itself is plenty adjustable with height, tilt and swivel adjustment available, although there isn’t rotation for portrait mode. There is a VESA mount in the box though if you’re insane enough to want your 4K 240Hz monitor in portrait mode. IO is now two HDMI 2.1 ports, one DisplayPort 2.1 port, and two USB C ports, plus a two port USB 3 hub with a yellow port for charging your devices. The on screen menu is controlled from a joystick style switch, and the menu is the standard EVNIA affair, including all the OLED care settings you’d expect, including “Unibright” and Thermal Protection. My preference for these is screen saver on fast, pixel orbiting on slow, UniBright on, and Thermal Protection on. 

Now let’s get to the good part, the panel. This is damn nice. It’s even more vibrant than before, and that’s saying something. The added brightness is slight, but it’s better. The magic of the fourth generation of panels is an improved EL (electroluminescent layer) that improves efficiency by up to 30 percent, meaning 30 percent more brightness for no extra power or heat generation. That’s pretty amazing! This EVNIA in particular also boasts a graphene cooling layer, so burn in should be even less of a problem than it already isn’t. I’ve been using a third gen QD-OLED panel for over two years now and still don’t have any lasting burn in. To have that be even better? That’s a killer deal. To put some numbers to those words, this is hitting 297 nits of peak brightness in SDR (up from around 239 on previous models) and an infinite contrast ratio as expected – there’s actually a little less reflected light too which helps even more. Colour volume is a touch lower than the previous version in my testing at 98% DCI P3 and 80% Rec2020, and the accuracy is a little off too – still great with an average DeltaE of 1.64, but a couple of results were above two. I’d put that down to this being a pretty early unit – Philips always factory calibrates their production units before leaving the factory so I suspect your unit will be even better than mine. All of that means that the viewing experience is fantastic. As I said before, it’s rich, vibrant, plenty bright even in a bright room, and is excellent for both watching and gaming.

As you might expect on the response times front it is functionally instant. Green across the board. The latency is also spot on at around half the refresh rate, so as you might expect when you pair vibrant colours with instant response times and low latency, the gaming experience is top notch. This offers unparalleled smoothness, responsiveness, and clarity – 4K at 32 inches is incredibly sharp and crisp – and makes any genre of game you want to play an excellent experience. For FPS games it’s a great shout, that instant response time and low latency makes it phenomenal, and personally the 32 inch size makes it impressively immersive too. Not quite as good as an ultrawide, but still. Equally any other genre is a great fit, with the balance of vibrance, sharpness and responsiveness making for a near perfect gaming monitor. 

The price tag is the only hang-up here, which is £830 at MSRP, £70 or so more than the original MSRP of the non-P variant, and around £300 more than the current price (while stocks last anyway). This is absolutely an upgrade, bringing OLED’s closer to LCD’s in both brightness and lifespan, but it might feel a little difficult to justify spending over 50 percent more money for, in my testing, about 25 percent more brightness. Of course this will come down in price, and eventually it’ll be as good a deal as the non-P version, but until then I think it’ll be up to you to work out if the extra cash is worth it for you. This is a brilliant display for everything from gaming to chilling watching YouTube, and I’m confident if you end up with one you’ll have a very good time with it. Although I’m happy with my 3rd gen ultrawide.