Philips 275P4VYKEB 5K monitor

Massive resolution in a well‑designed but costly case

$1,410 Manufacturer Philips, philips.com Resolution 5120x2880 Connections 2x DisplayPort, 3x USB 3.0, headphone out

This 27-inch display has a massive 5120x2880 resolution, the same as Apple’s 5K iMac, which equates to 14.7 megapixels. The result is more space for tool palettes, multiple documents side by side, or the ability to show 4K video plus editing tools on a single screen.

Physically, this is a well-designed screen. The display is substantial, unsurprisingly, and the stand allows tilt, swivel, and height adjustments with more-or-less fingertip control. Philips calls it the “SmartErgoBase,” and it does its job well. The display has a few extras including three USB 3.0 ports – one with fast charging – plus a two-megapixel webcam, microphone, and couple of 2 watt speakers. The display controls are touch-sensitive, but the labels are positioned where they’re easy to see, so it’s simple to tweak settings as needed.

This 5K display is something of a beast; we don’t mean so much its overall size, but rather in what it demands from your Mac. First of all, if you don’t have a Mac that can support dual-cable 5K output, forget it – you might be able to use this at a much lower resolution, but you lose the entire point of this device. What that boils down to is the Mac Pro from late 2013, the Retina 5K iMac from late 2014, or the MacBook Pro from early 2015 – or newer, of course. It needs two DisplayPort sockets to run, or two Thunderbolt ports and a couple of DisplayPort adapters.

Philips says the monitor achieves 99% of Adobe RGB color space and 100% of sRGB, and it comes near-as-damnit to this: DataColor’s Spyder Elite pegged it at 98% Adobe RGB, making it an excellent display for critical color work as long as you keep it freshly profiled. It has the same ultra-wide 178-degree viewing angle as Philips’ 4K display, and it can even be rotated 90 degrees to portrait orientation.

This is obviously not a budget device, and it does cost substantially more than a 4K display. Also bear in mind that the 5K iMac starts at $1,799 for an entire computer. But if you absolutely, positively need to have the most pixels in the room, and need them to be delivering highly accurate color, get your wallet out – assuming your Mac can handle the dual-cable requirements of this demanding monitor.

the bottom line. It’s only compatible with some of the latest Macs, but it works extremely well when paired with the right models, and offers a superb picture with exquisite color for just about any purpose.