Philips' 40-Inch Brilliance 4K UHD Curved Monitor Is Certifiably Hot Productivity Goodness

On the desktop, a 4K resolution isn't just hard on our graphics cards; it can be hard on our eyeballs as well. When the first 4K monitors hit the market, most of them used similar form-factors as 1440p models, despite needing to cram way more pixels into that space. Speaking from experience, 4K on a 28" monitor can be headache-inducing, and it's for that reason that larger 4K panels can hold a lot of appeal.

Philip's latest foray into 4K definitely has a lot of appeal with its 40-inch screen size, which means it'll require a fair bit of desk space, but your eyes won't bleed from squinting at the desktop. The Brilliance BDM4037UW is also priced attractively ($999) and foregoes a TN panel in favor of a VA one (vertical alignment).

Oh, did we also mention that it's curved?

At 40 inches, this "monitor" could double as a television quite easily for most people, especially since it's so nicely spec'd. Its response time is a respectable 4ms, and it includes plenty of video outputs: 1x HDMI 1.4, 1x HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort x 2, and for some reason, VGA. That's enough ports to hook up two PCs to the same monitor, as well as two game consoles (or BD-ROM players and whatever else floats your HDMI boat). Further, because this is a monitor, it also includes 4x USB 3.0 ports, one of which can be used for fast charging.

For its cost-of-entry, this latest Philips display looks to be one of the hottest monitors to come out in a while. It definitely should appease those who've been craving a larger selection of 4K monitors to choose from. It might not be IPS, but it does have a great response time - and, it's at least not TN (which we imagine wouldn't fare too well with a curve).