Philips Evnia 27M2N8500 Gaming OLED Monitor Review

The Philips Evnia 27M2N8500, at least on paper, seems like the perfect monitor for both gaming and everyday use. It’s not overly large, it has a flat design, excellent or even outstanding refresh rates, and a decent resolution. As the icing on the cake, it features an OLED screen panel, which will warm up any hearts slightly chilled by this cool autumn season.

And the price for an OLED screen like this isn’t too bad either—OLED monitors usually cost over $1000, but the Philips Evnia 27M2N8500 is priced around $649. I’m already excited!

Technical Specifications

Design and Build

With its Evnia series, Philips has set a high standard in monitor design. Many may not appreciate it when choosing a purchase, but having the power supply built into the monitor is a huge plus.

In the Evnia series, you can also predict the size and features of the monitor stand quite well. I must say, the size of the stand always catches me off guard—it tends to push the screen far from the wall or the back edge of the desk. My desk is 60 cm deep, and on a desk like that, the Philips Evnia 27M2N8500 monitor feels a bit too close to my face.

The selection of ports is decent—the Philips Evnia 27M2N8500 includes two HDMI 2.1 ports, which will be appreciated by console gamers. There’s also a DisplayPort 1.4 port and even a USB port that allows you to charge connected devices. However, at this price point, a USB Type-C connection would have been a nice addition. The Philips Evnia 27M2N8500 has built-in speakers that are fairly decent, though not quite good enough for daily music listening. They could, however, work fine for some relaxing games.

The back of the Philips Evnia 27M2N8500 has RGB LED lights intended to illuminate the wall behind it. The RGB LEDs aren’t super bright and will only be noticeable on the wall in a darker room. The RGB LED effects can be adjusted through the monitor’s interface.

Interface

The Philips Evnia 27M2N8500 has a rather minimalist interface, but it includes everything you need. All controls are managed through a five-way joystick on the back right side of the monitor. For gaming features, there’s a crosshair overlay and what’s called a sniper mode, but that’s about it.

Please ignore the Hz and the connection to the computer in the images; for convenience, I connected it to a laptop rather than moving the main test computer to another room for the photos.

Image Quality

The Philips Evnia 27M2N8500 has a glossy screen with a special coating to reduce glare. This allows the screen to maintain vibrant colors without the dullness of a matte display, and glare is minimal unless there’s a direct light source behind you. A nearby window doesn’t pose much of an issue.

The manufacturer has factory-calibrated the Philips Evnia 27M2N8500, and it comes with a report showing that its color accuracy is DeltaE<2, which is a strong result. It’s said that an untrained eye wouldn’t notice any improvement beyond this level of accuracy.

The Philips Evnia 27M2N8500 truly delivers a pleasing picture, and the 2560 x 1440 resolution is a perfect fit for its 26.5-inch size. Unfortunately, it’s hard to capture all this beauty in a photo—you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Let’s Play!

Our computer setup is built to handle around 280 Hz at 1080p resolution in esports games, but here we’re working with 360 Hz and a significantly higher resolution. While the processor power is excellent, the Intel Arc graphics card struggles to even reach a third of the Philips Evnia 27M2N8500’s maximum refresh rate in more demanding games. You might notice an unlikely frame rate in some images, but that’s only because, for the photos, I connected a laptop via HDMI instead of hauling over the main desktop.

Here are our computer components:

I had the chance to enjoy a few hours of CS2, and it’s quite nice to see that in those few dark areas, you don’t have to guess if someone is hiding in the shadows of a corner. The high frame rate also helps, and overall, CS2 looks fantastic and engaging on this monitor. If you want to enjoy the richness of the colors, you can play games like Rocket League or something similar.

Some of the visually appealing games we have, like the Assassin’s Creed series, really call for a more powerful graphics card. However, other AAA games still look very impressive on the Philips Evnia 27M2N850.

Conclusion

The Philips Evnia 27M2N850 could be one of my absolute favorite monitors. Especially when looking for an OLED screen for gaming, the Evnia 27M2N850 is hard to beat in terms of price and benefits. Other manufacturers offer OLED monitors at significantly higher prices while providing something similar or even inferior in terms of brightness and image refresh rates.

With OLED, you should be careful not to display static images for long periods on this type of monitor, although the risks of burn-in have decreased with each passing year. However, we don’t buy monitors for just a year or two. The Philips Evnia 27M2N850 comes with all the necessary tools to help prevent burn-in.

If I had to complain about something, it would be the monitor’s stand, which pushes the Philips Evnia 27M2N850 quite far from the wall. It would likely be more comfortable if the desk depth is at least 65 or 70 cm. On a 60 cm deep desk, the Evnia 27M2N850 can be challenging to use.

Overall, the Philips Evnia 27M2N850 is nearly a perfect monitor if you are looking for something vibrant for gaming, and it performs excellently in everyday tasks as well.

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