Philips 346B1C display
Boost your productivity with this ultra-wide 34-inch display
The curve radius makes the display feel immersive
£539 FROM Philips, philips.co.uk FEATURES 34in 21:9 curved LED-backlit VA (Vertical Alignment) LCD, 3440x1440 WQHD resolution, 5ms, 1x DisplayPort 1.2, 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x USB-C (3.2 Gen 2) with power delivery, 4x port USB 3.2 hub, 1x USB-B
Way back in MF #352, we marvelled at Philips 24-inch 243B9 monitor – chiefly because of its sensible pricing, single-cable USB-C connectivity and extreme practicality. Now its bigger brother is here: the 34in ultra-wide 346B1C.
The display boasts a 21:9 aspect ratio, which is kind of like placing two regular monitors side by side but without the ugly join in the middle. You can easily run a web browser in one half of the screen and a productivity app in the other and still view each one at a decent size. It’s also great for watching Apple TV movies on, many of which are shot in the cinematic 21:9 aspect ratio, meaning you won’t see black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.
Oh, did we also mention that this monitor is curved? Rated at 1500R, this means it has a curve radius of 1500mm (1.5m), that’s not as curved as some gaming monitors, which can have curve radiuses of 1800R or 2000R, but it feels immersive when you’re sat at your desk working, playing a game or watching a movie. Going hand in hand with that are its 3440x1440 (Wide Quad High Definition) resolution – that’s pretty standard for an ultra-wide monitor, although it is a long way short of 4K, which is 3840x2160.
Another thing to bear in mind is that this is primarily a productivity monitor – perfect for everyday computing tasks at your Mac, but not for colour-critical design work, photography or video editing. This monitor only delivers 90% of Adobe RGB and doesn’t support the DCI-P3 colour space at all. It’s 300cd/m2 brightness level is merely average for a productivity monitor and it can struggle to present movies in bright ambient light, even with the built-in LightSensor (sic) active. The monitor also comes with eight different display presets (Movie, Game, etc) to suit what you’re viewing.
The display’s matt-black looks don’t distract, while the supplied stand enables the monitor to be swivelled by up to 180° left or right, tilted backwards and forwards by up to 25° and raised or lowered by 180mm.
Plenty of ports
We also love the 346B1C’s connectivity options. These include a USB-C port with up to 90W of power delivery, enabling you to view your MacBook’s desktop on the big screen, while also charging its battery. It also comes with a four-port USB hub for connecting peripherals, plus an HDMI 2.0 port, a DisplayPort 1.2 and another USB upstream port – this lets you take advantage of the 346B1C’s built-in KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) switch, enabling you to switch between your main Mac and a second connected device, while using a single keyboard and mouse connected to the display.
You even get Picture Beside Picture (PBP) and PIP (Picture In Picture) modes, which enable you to view two different sources at the same time. Note that these only work with USB-C and DisplayPort or HDMI and DisplayPort: you can’t view HDMI and USB-C connected sources at the same time.
In everyday use, the 346B1C is certainly easy to live with – having all that screen estate and all those connectivity options at your fingertips is awesome sauce. The monitor is sensibly priced too, given its many virtues. It’s not great for creative pros, true, but for the rest of us the 346B1C is monitor enough.