The Philips Brilliance 328P6AUBREB provides a Quad HD (2,560 by 1,440 native resolution at 60Hz) image with High Dynamic Range (HDR-10) support. It uses a 31.5 inch IPS display panel, manufactured in China by Philips associate TP Vision, with a wide gamut W-LED backlight.

Connections

This display's connections are mounted on a downward-facing ledge on the back of the monitor. Viewed from the back, on the far left is the 3-pin IEC plug for mains power and a power rocker switch. On the right is the I/O panel:

For Apple products that only have USB-C connectors, docking through the USB-C socket allows port expansion to the two USB 3.0 connections with fast charging, and connection to an Ethernet network via the RJ-45 port.

User controls

You control the Brilliance 328P6AUBREB's settings via five touch areas located at the lower left corner of the bezel, identified by small and rather hard-to-see white legends. At the far right, next to a small white status LED, is the power on/off touch point. The other four touch points are dual purpose and alternate between selecting a function or providing menu navigation, depending on whether or not the OSD menu is displayed on-screen. These are, from left to right: SmartImage Hotkey / move to higher menu level, switch signal input / move down through the menu, adjust brightness / move up through the menu and access OSD / confirm menu choice.

HDR

The Brilliance 328P6AUBREB supports HDR operation on the HDMI and the DisplayPort inputs, and is compatible with input signals in the HDR-10 format. There is an option in the menu to turn HDR on or off. Note that, for versions of Windows 10 earlier than V1013, HDR is only supported for the HDMI input and then only for a resolution of 3,840 by 2,160.

Current HDR displays work by providing local control of the backlight in zones across the display area, turning the backlight up for bright areas of the image and down for dark areas. The Philips Brilliance 328P6AUBREB is edge backlit and the backlight is divided into two columns and four rows across the screen area, for a total of eight zones. Backlight modulation is DC rather than PWM, so there's no flicker.

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The two-piece pedestal provided with this display has four degrees of freedom -- twist, height, tilt and clockwise-only rotate. It attaches with VESA standard 100mm-square plate with four captive screws. DisplayPort, HDMI, USB-C, VGA, audio and mains cables, all two metres in length, are included with this display.

SmartImage, SmartContrast, and LowBlue mode

As with many recent Philips displays the Brilliance 328P6AUBREB has a number of features intended to optimise the display. SmartImage and SmartContrast are active technologies that analyse image content displayed. SmartImage has eight preset modes and dynamically enhances the contrast, colour saturation and sharpness of images and videos, while SmartContrast extends contrast by changing the intensity of the backlight.

The LowBlue modes provide menu options for three levels of blue reduction to cater for those concerned about the possible eye-damaging effects of high-energy blue light.

Conclusions

Only early adopters of HDR playback systems and video content specialists are likely to find this display's HDR capability of use -- and given the number of competing HDR formats, support for Dolby Vision might be expected as well as for HDR-10. Similarly the 10-bit capability is nice to have, but realising a fully 10-bit workflow is far from simple. Right now, when plugged into even a high-end general-purpose computer, neither HDR nor 10-bit colour are automatically of any benefit to the end user. However, the Brilliance 328P6AUBREB does provide a high-resolution display at a good price, arguably with some future proofing. Apple users could find the USB-C docking feature attractive.

Beware possible confusion over model numbers, because Philips also makes a similar display, the 328P6VJEB, which offers true 4K UHD (3,840 x 2,160) from a VA panel with wide gamut. This model also has a built-in USB 3.0 four-way hub.

A leaflet on the Philips Brilliance 328P6AUBREB and the user manual are available for download from the Philips website.

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