General usage and SmartControl
Colour vibrancy is a definitive strength of the 272P4APJKHB - it looks stunning thanks to its 10-bit panel, ultra-wide colour gamut and glossy finish. Images, movies and games all stand out as being vibrant and poppy, potentially even a touch oversaturated in terms of colour depth. Viewing angles are very strong, too, thanks to the IPS technology that is used, and only reflections pose any significant issue to the viewing experience so the monitor should be placed away from direct light sources.
Philips gives the user a very granular level of control over the 272P4APJKHB in the OSD or using the provided SmartControl software. Within the OSD, which is controlled using touch buttons, there is brightness, contrast, hue, saturation and OverDrive (SmartResponse) adjustment options. More low-level individual colour adjustments (for blue, cyan, green, magenta, red and yellow) are also available as well as three colour space presets (RGB, YUV444, YUV422).
Within the SmartControl software users can pretty much implement all of the OSD settings from within the desktop environment, meaning the finicky touch buttons can be avoided. There are also additional options not found in the OSD provided by SmartControl including a theft deterrence system which requires the user to enter a PIN if the display is used with a different system to the one on which the Theft Deterrence system was set up on. A variety of desktop partitioning options as well configuration for the PiP and PbP modes are also present. In general the SmartControl software adds a lot of value to the user experience.
