Philips Momentum 32M1N5800 test: 32″ w/ UltraHD and 144 Hz

Image properties

Philips has long focused more on professional and multimedia monitors, but it seems to be getting serious about gaming monitors as well. After the console-focused 329M1RV, we have the 32M1N5800, which offers the same 32-inch 4K 144 Hz HDR display, but in a slightly more aggressive design. The aim of the test will be to compare the two models and find the differences between them, as the paper specs are very similar.

Basic parameters

Packaging and accessories

The colorful packaging of the 32M1N5800 looks like that of the 329M1RV. So once again we see a depiction of the monitor and a few basic parameters such as 4K resolution with 144 Hz, IPS panel, DisplayHDR 400 certification or options for positioning and displaying multiple inputs at the same time.

The package comes with everything you need to get it working, such as a power cord, HDMI and DisplayPort cables, and technical documentation. However, unlike the 329M1RV, the USB-C cable is missing and has been replaced with a USB Type-B cable. Once again, i’m praising paper cable ties, which replaced plastic pull-tabs.

One of the main differences between the siblings is the design of the stand. This test piece features a C-shaped base as opposed to the T we saw in the 329M1RV test.

The second part of the stand is also different, which is slightly curved and significantly thinner. There is no lack of cable organizer here either. This has proven useful for tidying up cables behind the monitor.

Connecting the two parts of the stand is quick and easy, as you just push the two parts of the stand together and tighten the screw with your fingers, without the need for a screwdriver.

Another significant change is the design of the back, which offers a two-tone grey and textured black finish. Unlike the 329M1RV, however, there are no LEDs, so the 32M1N5800 does not offer Ambiglow backlighting. There is, however, a VESA 100×100 mount, which is used to mount the stand to the monitor body. The back, according to the manufacturer’s site, offers an antibacterial treatment with ionized silver to prevent bacteria from trapping and growing on touch points, which will be especially around the joystick.

Just slide the stand into the pair of holes and click the bottom part. The speed and ease of assembly here is top-notch, but it’s nothing exceptional. The same solution is offered by most of the competition. As soon as some tools need to be used or the procedure requires several steps, it would certainly be a target of my criticism, but nothing like that is the case here.

After assembly, we can take a look at the front side. This is dominated by the display with a bezel-less design on three sides. The bottom chin is slightly thinner than the 329M1RV, which I commend.

We have already described the back side above, after installing the stand you can better see the contrast between the grey and black part as well as the texture on the black part.

Let’s move on to connectivity, which is located on the bottom side. The difference from its sibling is the reduction of the number of HDMI ports from three to two and, conversely, the addition of one DisplayPort. Again, these are HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4, both of which support 4K 120/144 Hz and are thus suitable for connecting both PCs and new gaming consoles. The audio jack has been retained, as well as a quartet of USB ports for connecting accessories, two of which are also used for charging.

Perhaps the most dramatic difference from the 329M1RV is the lack of a USB-C port and thus the KVM switch function to easily use one accessory for two computers. It is also no longer possible to connect to a laptop using a single cable, which is used for video, data and charging. The last connector in the equipment is the power one, and again it is worth mentioning that the monitor has an integrated power supply, thanks to which you only need to connect the cable without the usual “brick”, which other monitors tend to have.

Once you turn the monitor on to see the “bezel-less” design in action, the 329M1RV offers what most monitors on the market do in this area, and it’s more the stand that adds a few points in the elegance department.

Compared to its sibling, the 329M1RV, it has a slight aesthetic advantage thanks to a thinner and more interesting stand and a thinner bottom chin.

The monitor offers multiple positioning options, including 130 mm height adjustment. At the lowest point, it is 85 mm from the pad with the bottom edge and 505 mm with the top edge. At its highest position it is 215 mm high and 635 mm for the top of the display. Again for comparison, 329M1RV was able to go significantly lower, at only 40 mm from the pad, by contrast at its maximum height it had the bottom edge at only 165 mm. So the 32M1N5800 tested can’t go that low, but on the contrary you can raise it higher. And one more interesting thing, the panel height is 420 mm for the 32M1N5800 and 425 mm for the 329M1RV. This 5 mm difference is in the bottom chin mentioned above.

You can also tilt the display from -5 to +20 degrees. The positive value is higher than 15 degrees for the sibling.

In addition, the monitor also offers the ability to rotate sideways 45 degrees in either direction, which is again more than the 20 degrees offered by the 329M1RV.

Unlike the 329M1RV, the stand here also supports pivot, i.e. changing the orientation to portrait and even in both directions, which is really unusual.

The backlight bleed of the test piece is better than what you saw with the 329M1RV. Small deviations can be seen at the edges of the display and especially in the upper right corner, but it is definitely a significantly better result than what we have seen with its sibling. Of course, as always, every panel is different and your piece can be better or worse. We will also measure uniformity with a colorimetric probe in the next chapter.

Philips has long focused more on professional and multimedia monitors, but it seems to be getting serious about gaming monitors as well. After the console-focused 329M1RV, we have the 32M1N5800, which offers the same 32-inch 4K 144 Hz HDR display, but in a slightly more aggressive design. The aim of the test will be to compare the two models and find the differences between them, as the paper specs are very similar.

Range of settings

A 5-way joystick is used to control the OSD menu, which is my favourite way to do it. Located on the right side from the back, the joystick is relatively easy to feel, so from a usability standpoint I rate it excellent. Worth mentioning once again is the SIAA certified antibacterial protection on the back of the monitor.

Quick input and picture mode selections are available when the joystick is moved sideways.

You already know the OSD menu well from other Philips monitors and unlike the 329M1RV, you won’t find Ambiglow here, which is the backlighting of the backside. The other options are virtually identical, so there is no lack of the ability to set game features such as changing Smart Response, turning on the crosshairs or controlling Adaptive Sync. You can turn on LowBlue mode for reading or control the frequency of the HDMI inputs between 120 and 144 Hz for each individually.

There’s also a PBP mode, which we’ll look at below, a selection of colour profiles including dedicated sRGB.

You can switch the settings to Czech language or change their location and transparency, as well as the shutdown time. Compared to the 329M1RV, this one lacks USB and KVM switch settings, which we have mentioned in the port equipment.

As mentioned earlier, the monitor offers a PbP mode to display two inputs side by side. At 32″ this mode makes sense, but personally I think PiP would be more useful. But unfortunately that is missing here. In PbP mode, you can keep the image at 16:9 or use the full height and thus the 8:9 aspect ratio.

Perhaps the only thing the Philips monitor lacks is some form of OSD menu control via an app, something you’ve seen with a number of monitors.

Philips has long focused more on professional and multimedia monitors, but it seems to be getting serious about gaming monitors as well. After the console-focused 329M1RV, we have the 32M1N5800, which offers the same 32-inch 4K 144 Hz HDR display, but in a slightly more aggressive design. The aim of the test will be to compare the two models and find the differences between them, as the paper specs are very similar.

Image properties

We tested the display properties using the Datacolor Spyder5Elite probe. The display has a 31.5″ IPS matrix with a traditional 16:9 aspect ratio, 3840×2160 px resolution, anti-glare treatment and even bezels on three sides. The main selling point of the display is the 144 Hz refresh rate combined with FreeSync premium with a range of 48–144 Hz and also certified G-Sync support, which I was convinced of as soon as I connected the display thanks to the announcement as well as in my tests. The manufacturer claims 124 % coverage of the sRGB spectrum, 113 % for NTSC and 87.5 % for AdobeRGB, 1000:1 contrast and 1 ms response times for both GTG and MPRT. The display also received VESA DisplayHDR 400 certification, the manufacturer states a brightness of 500 nits, which is more than we usually see. Aside from official G-Sync support and a lower AdobeRGB value, these are the same specs we saw with the 329M1RV.

We compared the display quality in the basic mode, which is the mode the monitor will be in right out of the box. We measured 100 % sRGB, 83 % AdobeRGB, 94 % DCI-P3 and 82 % NTSC with the probe. These are pretty much the same numbers we saw with the 329M1RV, which just confirms the theory that these are nearly identical monitors. The test piece offers slightly lower brightness with a value of 471 nits, which is about 30 less than its brother, as well as the average Delta E color deviation with a value of 1.31 is slightly worse than the value of 1.01 measured with the 329M1RV. In both cases, however, these are better values than we measured with the AOC Agon 4 Pro, which is a monitor in the same category. Similar to the black display test, the deviation in the top right corner was noticeable, and the probe noticed it too.

The display offers up to five gamma modes, which, apart from the first one, correspond exactly to the values in their names, i.e. 1.8, 2.0, 2.2, 2.4 and 2.6. The first mode had only a minimal deviation of 0.01. The colour modes are also exceedingly numerous, offering a range of temperatures from 5200 to 11700 K. The highest measured contrast at 100 % brightness was 810:1 in the native colour mode, where the maximum brightness of 478 nits was also achieved. HDR support is still rather on paper despite the higher brightness, as some form of local dimming is missing, but here again I’m probably spoilt for choice due to my day-to-day OLED use. For users of this monitor, the bottom line will be that it can display HDR content whether it be games or videos, but for a true HDR experience you need to look elsewhere.

Input Lag and Response Time

We also measured the input lag on the monitor in multiple SmartResponse modes and in both active and inactive Low Input Lag mode.

The basic setting with Low input lag mode turned off and without SmartResponse achieves a response time of 23.4 ms. Gradually switching SmartResponse takes us to 23.0 ms, which is only a marginal improvement. Much more important is the activation of Low input lag mode, when the response time drops dramatically to 11.0 ms. SmartResponse can then reduce this value by three steps, namely Fast, Faster and Fastest. The measured value then drops to 10.6 ms. The measured values are again very similar to those of the 329M1RV. So enabling Low input lag mode is more than recommended, the next picture will tell us better which of the SmartResponse modes to choose.

On the manufacturer’s website you can find information about 1 ms response time GTG, i.e. pixel refresh rate. MPRT mode with 1 ms response time is also available, but then Adaptive Sync is inactive, the brightness is dramatically reduced, and it cannot be controlled. Moreover, outside of gaming, this mode is not suitable due to screen flicker, so we will stay with the tests without active MPRT. SmartResponse offers three options in addition to disabling it. On the fast setting the difference is very minimal, however, the faster and fastest settings suffer from significant inverse ghosting. Thus, of the available modes, Faster/Faster seems to be the most suitable for both lowest input lag and minimizing ghosting without unwanted inverse ghosting, although the real change compared to the “Off” state is really only cosmetic. However, unlike the 329M1RV, inverse ghosting is not seen in Faster mode.

Power draw

We measure the power draw with a new methodology using a UNI-T UT71E multimeter. The monitor consumes 25 W at 0 % brightness and white color display, at 100 % brightness it is more than twice as much, namely 61.4 W. For comparison, we also measured the black color, where the values differ only minimally from the white color – 0 % = 24.7 W, 100 % = 61.2 W, so almost not at all. The following is a power draw test when viewing 4K HDR video of Costa Rica on YouTube. We tested the HDR movie mode, in which the power draw hovered around 68.4–69.3 W. This is lower than the 329M1RV, which is more than interesting.

The monitor lost both Ambiglow and the USB-C connector, so no further tests were possible.

Gradually we will collect results from other monitors and translate the values into graphs, as is our usual practice.

Philips has long focused more on professional and multimedia monitors, but it seems to be getting serious about gaming monitors as well. After the console-focused 329M1RV, we have the 32M1N5800, which offers the same 32-inch 4K 144 Hz HDR display, but in a slightly more aggressive design. The aim of the test will be to compare the two models and find the differences between them, as the paper specs are very similar.

Conclusion

When testing the Philips Momentum 32M1N5800, I’ve been experiencing a minor déjà-vu, as it shares a lot of things with the Philips Momentum 329M1RV, which we tested recently. So I can again praise the 32″ 4K panel with 144 Hz, FreeSync Premium and in this case, official G-Sync compatibility. The interesting thing is the lower power draw, which is probably reflected in the 30 nits lower brightness, but it is still more than good. Among the differences, besides the visible stand with a pivot and a smaller chin, we should definitely include the absence of a USB-C port and therefore the possibility of connecting a laptop with a single cable or the use of a KVM switch, which we just saw with the 329M1RV.

Unlike the 329M1RV, the monitor does not offer Ambiglow, which is also one of the sibling’s unique features. Other aspects of the monitor are virtually identical, be it the OSD menu, controls, speakers or the build quality, and the only decisive aspect may be the price, which in the case of the 32M1N5800 is about 100 EUR lower than the 329M1RV, i.e. about 900 EUR. It is then up to you to decide whether you need or want a USB-C port and Ambiglow or prefer a lower price and G-Sync certification.

English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš

• Contents
• Details
• Range of settings
• Image properties
• Conclusion