Whether you're looking to replace a dual-monitor setup or just want a display with a very wide viewing area, the Philips Brilliance Curved UltraWide BDM3490UC/27 ($899.99) will certainly fit the bill. This huge, 34-inch monitor uses a slightly curved Advanced High-Performance In-Plane Switching (AH-IPS) panel to deliver accurate colors, solid grayscale performance, and wide viewing angles. It's equipped with a generous selection of ports, but it doesn't offer the advanced settings and ergonomic adjustments that you get with our top pick for ultra-wide monitors, the 34-inch Dell UltraSharp U3415W.

Design and Features
As with other ultra-wide monitors we've reviewed, including the Dell U3415W and the Asus ROG Swift PG348Q, the BDM3490UC/27 uses a sleek, zero-bezel design that makes the enormous 34-inch screen look even bigger. The 3,440-by-1,440-resolution AH-IPS panel has a peak brightness of 300 cd/m2, a 21:9 aspect ratio, a 1,000:1 contrast ratio, and a 5-millisecond (gray-to-gray) pixel response. It also has a non-reflective coating and a 3,800R curvature radius (this means that if you put these monitors edge to edge to create a complete circle, the circle's radius would be 3,800mm). This gives it a slight curve that is noticeably less pronounced than the LG 34UC98-W (1,900R) and the HP Envy 34c Media Display (3,000R).

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The 17-pound, white cabinet is 32.5 inches wide, so make sure you have room on the desktop for this big boy. It is supported by a black-and-gray, U-shaped stand that has a pair of 7-watt speakers built into its base. The speakers use DTS sound technology to deliver moderately loud audio with a smattering of bass. The stand offers 25 degrees of tilt adjustability, but lacks height, swivel, and pivot adjustments.

There is a generous array of I/O ports on the BDM3490UC/27, all of which are located at the rear of the cabinet, facing outward. Here, you'll find one HDMI 2.0 input, one HDMI 1.4 input, one HDMI 1.4 input with MHL, and one DisplayPort input. They are joined by a headphone jack and an audio input and five USB 3.0 ports (four downstream and one upstream). A four-way jog dial positioned below the lower bezel is used to turn the monitor on and off and access the settings menus.

The BDM3490UC/27 has seven SmartImage picture presets that include Office, Photo, Movie, Game, Economy, Smart Uniformity, and Off (Standard) modes. Picture settings comprise Brightness, Contrast, Sharpness, SmartResponse (pixel overdrive), SmartContrast, and Gamma. You don't get advanced color settings like you do with the Acer Predator X34 and the Dell U3415W, but there are six Color Temperature settings, an sRGB setting, and a User setting that allows you to set your own Red, Green, and Blue intensity levels. There are also several Picture-in-Picture (PiP)/Picture-by-Picture (PbP) settings that let you set the position and window size of a secondary input source, and Audio presets that include Standard, Classical, Rock, Live, and Theater modes.

The monitor comes with a three-year warranty on parts, labor, and backlight. It also comes with Displayport, HDMI, and USB (upstream) cables and a resource CD containing drivers and a User Guide.

Performance
The BDM3490UC/27 performed admirably on our tests. As illustrated in the CIE chromaticity chart below, out-of-the-box color accuracy is first rate. Red, green, and blue colors (represented by the colored dots) are very closely aligned with their ideal CIE coordinates (represented by the boxes). The AH-IPS panel delivered rich, uniform colors in my tests images and while displaying scenes from The Expendables on Blu-ray disc. Colors remained intact when viewed from an extreme top, side, or bottom angle.

Grayscale performance was also solid; the panel had no trouble displaying every shade of gray on the DisplayMate 64-Step Grayscale test, and delivered crisp shadow and highlight detail in my test video and photos.

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While not touted as a gaming monitor, the BDM3490UC/27 did a relatively good job of handling fast-moving images with only minimal ghosting on my Crysis 3 (PC) and Grand Theft Auto V (Sony PlayStation 4) gaming tests. Using a Leo Bodnar Video Signal Lag Tester, I measured an input lag (the time it takes for a monitor to react to a controller command) of 10.1 milliseconds, which is relatively short, but not quite as short as the 9.5-millisecond lag time of the BenQ XL2430T and SW2700PT.

The BDM3490UC/27 consumed 55 watts of power in my tests while set to the Standard preset, and 29 watts while set to Economy mode. By way of comparison, the Acer X34 used 49 watts (Standard) and 36 watts (Eco), while the HP Envy 34c Media Display used 61 watts in sRGB mode.

Conclusion
The Philips Brilliance Curved UltraWide BDM3490UC/27 is a strong choice if you're seeking to expand your viewing space with an ultra-wide monitor. Its slightly curved AH-IPS panel is ideal for viewing multipage documents and watching movies, and it delivers accurate colors and a sharp, detailed picture. Viewing angles are also superb. Although the monitor is equipped with lots of I/O ports, including four digital video inputs and a four-port USB hub, it lacks the advanced color settings, daisy-chaining capabilities, and ergonomic adjustability that you get with our Editors' Choice for ultra-wide monitors, the Dell UltraSharp U3415W.