Philips-346E2LAE-00 monitor – Specs, Pros / Cons: You Can Get A 0.7 dE Too

LaptopMedia.com Reviews and Analysis Philips-346E2LAE-00 monitor - Specs, Pros / Cons: You Can Get A 0.7 dE Too

From: Severin Kolakov 06 May 2024 / 16:03 | 0

The Philips-346E2LAE-00 is a productivity monitor from the European brand that’s solely carrying the torch on the continent. The monitor carries itself with class, offering a 34-inch UltraWide panel with a QHD resolution (3440 x 1440), a 100Hz refresh rate, AMD FreeSync, and a 1ms response time. We have a VA panel here, which means higher brightness (4000:1), a middle of the pack 300 nit brightness, and plenty of features.

These include a wide selection of ports, with USBs that allow you to hook up additional accessories and peripherals, as well as built-in speakers, so you can instead focus on a better pair of headphones, which is super important if you’re a video editor and want crisp audio clips for your edits. We mention video editing, as you’ll be able to do plenty, as the monitor offers very wide color coverage as well as a high level of accuracy, with the dE value dropping below 1.0 once we apply our Display Profiles.

You can check the current price of the Philips-346E2LAE-00 here: Buy from Amazon.com (#CommissionsEarned)

Specs sheet, Assembly, OSD, Drivers, Design, Connectivity
Display quality, Buy our profiles, Verdict

Specs sheet, Assembly, OSD, Drivers, Design, Connectivity

Screen size	34 inch (86.36 cm)
Refresh rate	100Hz
Response time	1ms
Panel type	VA
Backlight type	WLED
Screen finish	Matte
Resolution	3440 x 1440 (UW-QHD)
Technologies	Contrast ratio: 4000:1 (Static) Brightness: 300 cd/m² Viewing angles: H/V° 178/178 VESA mount: 100 x 100 mm Tilt: -5 to 20° Height adjustment: 0 – 100 mm Dimensions (with stand): 817 x 491 x 235 mm Power consumption (Idle): 35W Power consumption (Stand-by): 0.50W Built-in speakers: 2x 3W
I/O	1x DisplayPort 1.2 1x HDMI 2.0 1x USB Type-C 4x USB Type-A 3.0 1x Audio Jack

What’s in the box? Assembly

OSD Menu

Drivers and Software

You can find all the manuals and software of the Philips-346E2LAE-00 on the monitor’s Support Page. There are drivers and the Smart Control Software, which allows you to create layouts and presets for multitasking and improving your workflow.

Design and Connectivity

The design of the Philips-346E2LAE-00 is pretty classic, relying on sharp angles and a more industrial look. It features a rectangular base that’s hollow, along with a stand that attaches to the bottom part of the monitor, covering the VESA 100 x 100 mm mounting holes. Overall the panel is really thin on the top and in the middle, with the bottom carrying the extra thickness, where the electronics and most of the internal components are mounted, including the stereo speaker setup, with two 3W woofers. The stand offers only Height Adjustment and Tilt functionality.

On the back, the port selection includes one DisplayPort 1.2 port, one HDMI 2.0 port, a single USB Type-C port, four USB Type-A 3.0 ports, and an audio jack.

Display quality, Buy our profiles, Verdict

The Philips-346E2LAE-00 brings a 34-inch UltraWide Quad HD screen (3440 x 1440), which calculates to a pixel density of 109.68 PPI, a pitch of 0.2316 x 0.2316 mm, and a Retina distance of 31.34 inches or 79.60 cm. From this distance, the human eye can’t distinguish individual pixels.

The correlated color temperature on a white screen after a Factory Reset in sRGB mode is 6650 K (Luminance 150 cd/m2 at 20% Brightness). The average gamma value is 2.18.

Color coverage

Here’s an illustration (Fig. 1). The whole “sail-shaped” map below consists of all the colors we can see, while the black crooked line shows all the colors from real-world scenes and nature around us.

Then, we’ve drawn some of the most important and interesting color spaces, compared to the colors the panel of Philips-346E2LAE-00 can show:

Standard/For Web: sRGB – widely used color space for most consumer devices, ideal for Web design and development
For Print: AdobeRGB – used in professional photo editing, graphic design, and print
For Photographers/Video Editors: DCI-P3 – used in high-end film production, post-production, and digital cinema
Premium HDR: Rec.2020 – the widest consumer ITU color standard, covering a massive 75.8% of the visible spectrum, a benchmark for premium HDR content

Philips-346E2LAE-00: the yellow dashed triangle (– – – – – –) represents the range of colors this monitor can display. In our tests, we calculated the total color coverage of the monitor at 100% of the sRGB gamut and 94% of the DCI-P3 color gamut.

(Fig.1) Philips-346E2LAE-00 covers 94% of the Digital Cinema colors (DCI-P3, Display P3)

This means that if the Philips-346E2LAE-00 tries to show any color outside of its triangle, it will show the closest color to it that’s inside the triangle.

Color accuracy

Now let’s see how big is the difference between the real colors and the ones you’ll see on the Philips-346E2LAE-00. We measure that distance in DeltaE – the bigger the number, the more different they look.

For the next illustration, we’ve chosen 24 common colors like dark and light skin, blue sky, green grass, etc.

Values below 2.0 are considered suitable for color-sensitive work. Before our calibration of the Philips-346E2LAE-00, the Average color accuracy was 1.6 dE (Fig. 2), and with our Web Design and Office Work profile, it lowered to 0.7 dE (Fig. 3), which is a 228% increase in accuracy. The human eye can’t distinguish dE values below 1.0, so you’r getting the best possible accuracy.

(Fig. 2) Philips-346E2LAE-00 in its factory condition

(Fig. 3) Philips-346E2LAE-00 with our display profiles

Comparison in the sRGB color space (primaries and D65 white point specified in ITU-R BT.709, sRGB encoding curve).

Left: No Profile | Drag the slider to see the difference | Right: Design & Gaming Profile

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom-tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate (they may seem strange at first but after a few minutes our brain will start recognizing them as accurate ones – that’s how Health-Guard differs from alternatives like f.lux).

Pro Tip: As the Health-Guard profile simulates paper and has as accurate as possible colors, it could be a great tool for prepress designers!

Left: No Profile | Drag the slider to see the difference | Right: Health-Guard Profile

Gaming and Movies

We also have a third Gaming and Movies profile, which regulates the black colors, making dark areas in games and movies appear more visible, thus giving you a better viewing experience. Shooting at your opponent first can be a make-or-break moment, so make sure you’re best prepared with our profile.

Left: No Profile | Drag the slider to see the difference | Right: Design & Gaming Profile

BUY OUR DISPLAY PROFILES

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for the Philips-346E2LAE-00.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$9.90 BUY NOW

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$9.90 BUY NOW

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$9.90 BUY NOW

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount

$19.90 BUY NOW

Verdict

While the Philips-346E2LAE-00 appears as a more conservative productivity monitor for the office, however, it’s got the features to be quite a good mix of gaming and content creation/productivity. The design is more subdued and industrial to appeal to the office and corporate crowd, so you can surely ask for one of these for your home office or the office at work.

The stand and the port selection are on point, offering the two more important movements (Tilt and Height) as well as plenty of ports, including USBs and both HDMI and DisplayPort. The gaming characteristics come in the form of a 100Hz refresh rate, a 1ms response time, and FreeSync support. Pair that with the amazing color coverage and accuracy, your games will look as good as ever. If you want to always have the edge in games, our Gaming and Movies profile makes every game environment more visible, thus increasing your chance of victory.

In terms of colors, the Philips-346E2LAE-00 comes with 100% sRGB and 94% DCI-P3 coverage, ensuring that every image is super vibrant and pops on the screen with great detail. The color accuracy is good with the factory settings, however, our Web Design and Office Work profile makes it even better, lowering the dE value from 1.6 to 0.7, which is a 2.28X increase in accuracy.

Lastly, the Health-Guard profile gets rid of any Blue Light and PWM (Flickering), so you can enjoy long sessions without your eyes feeling tired.

You can check the current price of the Philips-346E2LAE-00: Buy from Amazon.com (#CommissionsEarned)