Philips Brilliance 150P2

The Philips Brilliance 150P stole the show in our last 15in TFT group test (see Labs, issue 71, p137) with six stars across the board, thanks to its stunning combination of features, image quality and price. It's so good that it's remained on the A List to this day. So, what better to challenge this long-standing champion than its very own successor, the logically titled Philips Brilliance 150P2?

Over a year has passed since Philips launched the 150P and, compared to the sleek styling of the new 150P2, the original looks decidedly dated. The 150P2 is a lot trimmer, although much of this is due to the lack of integrated speakers, which Philips now offers as an attachable add-on unit for £49. A USB hub is also an optional extra. Instead, Philips has concentrated on the basics, including a D-SUB VGA and the all-important DVI input.

This new model boasts an attractive stand design that's also practical, providing tilt, swivel, pivot and twist capabilities, making the 150P2 very easy to adjust. Philips also includes Pivot software on the CD, although this is limited to a 30-day trial. It says this is because few people actually use the Pivot functionality and it would rather offer it as an option, which is a reasonable, if slightly stingy, answer.

This is all good so far, but I was eager to see if the 150P2 could match its predecessor in the crucial area of image quality. To determine this, I hooked the 150P2 up to the DVI output of a GeForce2 MX graphics card at the panel's native resolution of 1,024 x 768. The result was instantly notable, with a superbly bright screen that was razor sharp.

The 150P2 continued to make an impression with the rigorous tests in DisplayMate Multimedia Edition, breezing through them with a rare dexterity. Focus and resolution tests were well handled, with even the finest resolution patterns sharp and clearly visible. There was also no interference, ghosting or streaking, making the 150P2 one of the cleanest panels to view that I've seen.

An area where many TFTs, such as the Eizo L461 (see Reviews, issue 82, p160) falter is with colour performance, particularly colour fades, which are often broken and banded. Not so with the 150P2, though, as its colour performance was first class with vivid and pure colours. Colour ramps displayed virtually no banding and were smoothly gradated right to the end of the scale, although there was a slight truncation at the dark end of the ramp. Greyscale performance was exemplary, with perfectly smooth fades.

If I were to level a criticism at the 150P2, it would be at its slightly disappointing vertical viewing angles; but having said that, horizontal viewing angles are close to the best I've seen. Also, to be very finicky, playing 3D games highlighted fractionally slow response times. Despite this, the 150P2 is still easily the best panel I've used for running 3D multimedia and video.

In short, the Philips 150P2 is one of the most remarkable TFTs I've seen and easily the best 15in panel. The design is good, image quality is first class and it's great value thanks to an expected street price of £450, making it a worthy A-List entrant.

Author: Gareth Ogden