Philips 49B2U6903CH ultrawide monitor review

Multiple monitors or one very big screen. That’s ultimately what your choice comes down to if you want the very best in multitasking display support. And it’s very much the single-screen option of the two that the new Philips 49B2U6903CH delivers on a very large scale.

This is a 49-inch ultrawide model that offers essentially the same screen area and resolution as a pair of 27-inch 1440p panels. To that basic productivity proposition Philips has added high specification connectivity features including Thunderbolt 4 and a KVM switch and basic HDR capabilities. You also get an integrated pop-up 5MP webcam with Windows Hello and AI tracking support.

If that all sounds appealing, the catch is the price. At over four figures, both in the US and the UK, it’s much more expensive than a pair of equivalent 27-inch 1440p panels. So, the question of whether the convenience and seamlessness of a single-screen solution trumps the obvious superior value of going with two screens. Let’s find out how Phillips’ latest model compares to the best ultrawide monitors on the market.

Philips 49B2U6903CH: Design & features

• No nonsense aesthetics
• Great productivity feature set
• High-spec webcam

The Philips 49B2U6903CH is unambiguously a productivity panel, that much is abundantly clear from the simple black aesthetic. RGB lighting and other gamer-centric flourishes definitely do not feature. Still, this is a mostly well-engineered display with a fantastic feature set.

The main negative from a design perspective is the stand. The stability of the panel itself on the stand isn’t hugely reassuring, though that’s not a huge issue in static use. What is more of a problem is the large size of the flat, solid stand base, which easts into desk space and isn’t the most ergonomic solution to propping up a screen this big.

The other ergonomic issue you may or may not like is the location of the audio-out port and USB sockets on the side of the display. There’s also USB connectivity on the rear, but if you run with an audio connection full time, it’s a little unsightly sticking out of the side. Then again, it’s easier to access when plugging in headphones.

Aside from the comprehensive connectivity including USB-C with a generous 100W of power delivery for single-cable laptop docking, Thunderbolt 4 support with daisy chaining, and full KVM functionality, one of the main attractions is the pop-up integrated 5MP webcam situated on the top bezel.

It definitely offers better image quality than most built-in monitor cams. It also supports AI tracking, the idea being that the camera tracks and follows you, removing the need to always sit perfectly centrally. In practice, it’s very hit and miss to the point of routinely cutting your head off and being almost unusable. It’s probably a software tweak away from being great. As it is, the AI tracking element is best ignored.

Philips 49B2U6903CH: Performance

• Nicely calibrated VA panel
• Epic desktop space
• Mediocre pixel density

The basic format of the Philips 49B2U6903CH isn’t exactly novel. But the physical reality of a 49-inch curved monitor with a 32:9 aspect ratio is still very impressive. This is an awful lot of monitor.

The benefit for multitasking is obvious enough. Once you’ve got used to easily being able to run as many as four full application windows, side-by-side, going back to a standard 27-inch 16:9 monitor feels like a real injustice, it’s just so constraining.

As for image quality, the biggest downside of this Philips is the pixel density. If you’re familiar with 27-inch or 32-inch 4K monitors, the quality of fonts and image detail is a clear step down. However, for now there are no 32:9 aspect, 49-inch ultrawide monitors available with higher pixel density. So, if you favour this form factor, well, this is as good as it gets in terms of DPI.

Still, Philips has calibrated this monitor well, as indicated by the included calibration report showing an average DeltaE of just 0.88. In practice, that means the SDR colours look accurate and well balanced.

This is also a very punchy display, with a rated brightness of 450 nits SDR and 500 nits HDR. That’s plenty for burning off even very bright ambient light conditions. What’s more, the panel’s SDR-calibration in HDR mode is bang-on, too. That means you can run this monitor in HDR mode all the time and with no need to switch between modes depending on content type.

That said, you do have to be realistic about the HDR capabilities of a display like this. There’s no local dimming, let alone the per-pixel lighting of an OLED screen. Long story short, this isn’t really an HDR-capable display, despite the VESA HDR400 certification. Indeed, VESA HDR400 pretty much tells you there’s no real HDR capability, more support for HDR content rendered with correct colours, which is better than nothing.

Elsewhere, Philips quotes this monitor as being capable of 100Hz. However, in our testing it offered 120Hz and ran smoothly, so the quoted 100Hz may be an error.

Whatever, 120Hz is plenty for desktop responsiveness and smoothness. To be frank, even for a spot of gaming it’s more than enough given the high resolution and likely frame rates as a consequence. Not that this is a gaming monitor, but it will do that job on the side just fine.

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Philips 49B2U6903CH: Final verdict

From a productivity perspective, this is a very fine display tool. The huge workspace and outstanding connectivity see to that, while the webcam adds a further productivity flourish even if the AI tracking doesn’t really work.

The image quality is likewise all you could ask for from this type of display. It’s punchy, it’s accurate, it’s well calibrated, it’s plenty quick enough. Sure, the HDR support is limited. But the real downside for productivity is that mediocre pixel density. For whatever reason, none of the very small number of actual LCD panel makers are currently offering a high density panel in this form factor. You can’t blame Philips for that.

What you could take Philips to task over is the price. For sure, a monitor this size with the features it offers is never going to be cheap. But it’s more expensive than some OLED 49-inch gaming panels with the same form factor, which doesn’t really make sense. All that said, even at this high price, this is still an appealing proposition and a decent long-term investment.

For more content creation displays, we tested the best business monitors and the best monitors for a dual-screen setup.