REVIEW | Philips Momentum 55″

LifeisXbox’s Philips Momentum 55″ review | I was thrilled when the Philips Momentum arrived at my place, a gaming monitor specially designed for Xbox Series X|S! The first impression, this thing is huge and heavy! So be sure to get some help when you install this gaming monitor. As a regular reader, you’ll know that this is our first monitor review, we thought long and hard about how we wanted to present these kinds of hardware reviews. We’ll take a bit of a technical journey but we keep things easy to understand. More importantly, we try to be as clear as possible about what it can and can’t do. We don’t necessarily have the biggest technical knowledge but as hardcore gamers, we do immediately notice quality and ease of use. In other words, we don’t go for the Digital Foundry approach, you know an in-depth analyse of everything but we review it as knowledgeable gamers.

It has all you need to get the best out of your Xbox Series X! HDMI 2.1, a 120 Hz display, 4K, crisp HDR (1000-certified), VRR and is on the market in Belgium for around €1450. 

First impression

A 139,7cm (55″) screen and an attached soundbar make this monitor quite a monster. A nice looking monster though! You’ll immediately notice that pretty looking Bowers & Wilkins soundbar and stand foot. A heavy but at the same time elegant design that perfectly matches the tower look from the Xbox Series X. What surprised me was the depth of the monitor, so be prepared to lose some space on your desk or television stand. You’ll notice some space between the monitor, soundbar and foot, probably to have enough space for the sound to move freely. I liked the design a lot and I proudly showed it to all my friends who came over, who all thought it was a television screen…

Stunning sound from Bowers & Wilkins

By far the best thing about this Momentum monitor is the crystal clear sound from the built-in soundbar from Bowers and Wilkins. A well-renowned company when it comes to audio. The sound quality wise it is ridiculously impressive with well-balanced mid tones. Arguably bass is important when it comes to videogames, with for example explosions. Here’s where things could be a bit better but I feel that it is neglectable as the sound is very impressive overall. I completely understand why Philips is proud to have sound from Bowers & Wilkins. For me, the sound even beat what I was hearing through my headsets, the Razer Kaira Pro and even the expensive Bang & Olufsen.

Performance with Xbox games

A gamer wants the best graphics and performance, when you buy something expensive like this Philips Momentum you expect the best quality. So time to go a bit technical, don’t worry I try to keep things easy to understand. This monitor features an easy option to automatically fix the best screen value’s for Xbox Series X, I picked this option (Xbox picture mode) and didn’t need to tweak anything to improve or change colours. Pretty useful as otherwise, you have to tweak the blacks or change colours as they are too washed out. I cannot stress enough how fantastic this easy-to-set-up option is! I tested the monitor with a lot of Xbox games, HDR, with the console’s auto-HDR function or without and never did I experience ghosting or weird blacks. If you aren’t familiar with that term, ghosting is something that you often see while watching a football game on television. It happens when frames are off in position resulting in an annoying screen effect. 

The picture quality was crisp and beautiful to watch. Colourful and fast games like Hot Wheels are so impressive on this screen! Same with darker games like Gears 5, with the picture mode set to Xbox it is an absolute shocking video quality performance that every Xbox gamer should experience. One thing to note is that the viewing angle isn’t that great, that’s a bit of an unfortunate issue as I’m also using a Nintendo Switch for motion games and that experience was atrocious. (also the fault from the Switch as the resolution is 1080p)

Performance as pc monitor

I hooked up the monitor on a gaming laptop as I briefly wanted to compare the performance being connected on Xbox Series X or not. Here something weird happens as the picture quality takes a pretty deep drop. There has to be an explanation for this but I’m afraid that I lack the knowledge as to why. I fiddled around with the picture quality settings but couldn’t get them at the same quality as on Xbox. Subtitles for example didn’t look as clear and the depth of colour dropped noticeably too. And yeah, that was with changing the HDMI to pc-mode. So I really recommend using this monitor on the Xbox console, as the picture quality is much better.

Input lag

Here’s another thing I’m really happy about, the very low input lag. Xbox has a lot of game examples for testing out the input lag. Fighting games like Mortal Kombat or Killer Instinct are fine examples. Best example? Playing Just Dance or Let’s Sing. It is quite shocking to see the difference between my previous television screen and this Philips Momentum monitor. I, unfortunately, lack the tools to put all of that into a factsheet but you’ll have to trust my word for it. We all know how important it is to have a fast response in shooters, doing the first move of attack in Halo Infinite for example is a difference between life or death.

Ambiglow

Ambiglow is a light source that’s at the backside of the monitor or television screen. I often call it the magical touch in Instagram pictures… but it actually helps to reduce the eye strain too! The Philips Momentum has a few features with Ambiglow, my favourite was the ‘follow video mode’ helping with extending the colours on the monitor. Another useful option was to follow the music, great when you are listening to Spotify and want to increase the atmosphere in the living room.

LowBlue-mode

I want to write up a special mention for the LowBlue-mode as this is honestly a life-saver for someone who plays a lot of games. I regularly have to face review deadlines that force me to play long hours. Migraines or tired eyes are two things that I have quite a lot because of that. Here comes in LowBlue-mode that changes the picture quality so it becomes less tiresome for the eyes. Kinda like an eye-protection setting on a smartphone. A lot of television and monitor screens have this option but Philips Momentum LowBlue-mode is the best I experienced so far.

Not a TV, this is a monitor!

A small note of warning as I can imagine that this might confuse a few people but this Philips Momentum is a monitor. That means you won’t be able to connect it for traditional television, you’ll need to plug in a Google Chromecast. As the Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One have all the applications on the system I didn’t really mind that, but this might be an issue for you as for example, TV Vlaanderen isn’t an option.

Should you buy it?

Everything looks absolutely fantastic in motion, as the picture quality is near perfect. Having an easy to use setting for the Xbox console is a welcome feature for gamers who aren’t so familiar with setting things up. What really convinced me to love the Philips Momentum is the soundbar from Bowers & Wilkins, the added value of that is incredible. So even if it lacks a few features that television screens have I really recommend this beautiful monitor!