The Philips Brilliance 272P7VUBNB is an office-productivity monitor with a few surprises in its portfolio. Its panel is blazingly bright, and its 4K resolution makes it good for working with photos or detailed images. Plus, its selection of ports, in effect, gives it a built-in docking station. It can accept a video signal from a laptop or desktop PC (while at the same time powering or charging an attached notebook) over a USB Type-C cable, and it can even connect to a network via Ethernet to provide Internet connectivity to an attached laptop over the same Type-C connection. In essence, it's a bright monitor—literally and figuratively—that serves two roles. With all its features, and good performance in our testing, it’s an easy pick as an Editors’ Choice high-end corporate productivity display.

A Productivity-Plus Monitor

This monitor’s 27-inch IPS screen really packs the pixels in. The 4K native resolution is also known as UHD (3,840 by 2,160 pixels), which translates to a 163 pixel-per-inch (ppi) pixel density. All else being equal, the higher the pixel density, the sharper the panel’s image, and the Brilliance 272P7VUBNB should be fine for working with photos or detailed diagrams.

The screen has an inch-thick bezel across the bottom, and minimal bezels across the top and on the sides, making it a good choice for lining up in a multi-monitor array.

Extend the Brilliance 272P7VUBNB to its full height, and the monitor plus the stand measures 21.6 by 24.2 by 10.1 inches, and weighs 16.9 pounds. The black cabinet that houses the screen is supported by a silver-colored, bifurcated shaft through which you can snake cables for neatening things up on your desk. The shaft fits into the top of a heavy, disk-like base. That's good that it is hefty, because you can adjust the panel plenty. The Brilliance supports a full set of ergonomic twists and turns, including height, tilt, swivel, and pivot adjustment.

The spate of ports are all downward-facing in back, which in other circumstances would make them hard to reach. But thanks to the monitor’s pivot adjustability, you can simply stand at the monitor’s side and turn it 90 degrees, making the ports easily accessible from the side.

Those ports include one HDMI port, one DisplayPort 1.2 connector, a USB Type-C port that supports power delivery of up to 65 watts, two downstream USB 3.0 ports, an audio-out jack, and an RJ-45 jack that supports gigabit Ethernet. The Ethernet jack is primarily there to provide Internet connectivity to a laptop (connected to the monitor via USB-C), especially in environments where there is poor or no Wi-Fi, and in light of the fact that many of today’s newest laptops lack Ethernet ports of their own.

Much like the Editors’ Choice HP E24d G4 FHD Advanced Docking Monitor, the Brilliance 272P7VUBNB has, in effect, its own built-in USB Type-C docking station. You can connect to a computer via USB Type-C to provide video and data connectivity, as well as enough juice to power or charge your laptop, and to connect to your LAN via the Ethernet port if need be. If you are using the USB-Type C between the monitor and the system, you can attach a keyboard, a mouse, or other peripherals to the monitor’s USB Type-A ports.

You control the monitor’s onscreen display (OSD) through five tiny buttons built into the bottom bezel’s right-hand edge. I didn't find them particularly responsive, but it was easy enough to learn to navigate the OSD’s menus.

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Philips backs the 272P7VUBNB with a generous four-year warranty.

Performance and Experiential Testing

I tested brightness, contrast ratio, and color accuracy using our standard test equipment: a Klein K-10A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, and Portrait Displays' CalMAN 5 calibration software. (See how we test monitors.)

True to the 272P7VUBNB’s "Brilliance" branding, it tallied a dazzling 396.6 nits (candelas per meter squared) of luminance, exceeding its already impressive 350-nit rating. This is the highest luminance reading of any non-HDR monitor I have tested. Its 851:1 contrast-ratio reading, as measured by our gear, is a bit short of its 1,000:1 Philips rating.

Philips rates the Brilliance 272P7VUBNB as covering 102 percent of the sRGB color space. In testing, it fell a bit short of that, covering 92.7 percent of sRGB (see the chromaticity chart below).

I viewed some of our standard test movie clips and still images with the Brilliance 272P7VUBNB. It did well in displaying movies. Although it lacks HDR support (like most productivity monitors), it showed a bright image while preserving both contrast and dynamic range. Colors seemed largely true to life, with a trace of dullness in reds and purples, which I probably wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been scrutinizing the image quality. Photos also displayed well.

The Brilliance 272P7VUBNB has a larger screen, with a higher native resolution, than the HP E24d G4, which is more explicitly marketed as a monitor with docking traits. The Philips also tested at nearly twice the luminance of the E24D, which mustered a mere 209 nits in our testing. The HP does have a few extra ports, including a second USB Type-C port that allows for daisy-chaining multiple monitors, plus two additional USB 3.0 ports.

A Stealth Docking Panel

Its high brightness and 4K resolution, full set of ergonomic features, and built-in docking station with USB-C, USB 3, HDMI, DisplayPort, and Ethernet connectivity make the Philips Brilliance 272P7VUBNB a solid choice as a productivity monitor that's also well suited for multimedia consumption and light photo editing. The latter isn’t quite the case with the relatively low-resolution, low-brightness HP E24d G4. Plus, despite having a smaller screen, it costs about the same as the Philips monitor. The Philips Brilliance 272P7VUBNB earns its own Editors’ Choice as a high-end corporate productivity monitor.