Philips Evnia 42M2N8900 Gaming Monitor
design
Above all else it shouldn’t be underestimated just how large a 42” monitor is. The Philips Evnia 42M2N8900 is a giant of a monitor that looked almost comically large on my Autonomous Desk Eureka. It’s certainly an impressive beast though and the closest thing to zero-bezel I’ve seen, the Evnia 42M2N8900 is almost entirely screen. Most impressively, while a majority of monitors are stuck with a large bottom chin, the Evnia 8000 series manages to maintain a consistently slim bezel along all four sides.
While from the front the Philips Evnia 42M2N8900 is noticeably sleek, turning side-on things aren’t so compact. Not only is the rear of the Evnia 42M2N8900’s main body particularly chunky, it sits a long way forward from an equally chunky back pillar. All up they demand a hell of a lot of horizontal real estate and on my standard depth desk I felt like the Evnia was sitting far further forward than I would ever choose. When perched on the included, wide-footprint stand, the Philips Evnia 42M2N8900 commands nearly 40cm of desk space with the front of the screen sitting in the front quarter of that. Thankfully though the familiar Evnia stand features two long, skinny feet rather than a large pad and I had no problem fitting my keyboard and various streaming controllers around these legs.
Unsurprisingly, the Philips Evnia 42M2N8900 isn’t just large but it’s particularly heavy too. The monitor itself weighs nearly 14kg but despite this, the included stand did a tidy job of keeping it stable and even when adjusting the height I felt like the Evnia 42M2N8900 was locked in. At its highest level there’s a noticeable amount of wobble but not so much that I found it overly distracting while gaming or at risk of toppling over. There’s standard VESA mounting compatibility here too but you’ll want to make sure you invest in a beefy monitor arm or even a TV style wall mount if you choose to go this route.
check latest prices
In fairly standard fashion the Philips Evnia 42M2N8900’s range of ports live along the bottom of that chunky rear unit. There’s a good selection here with a pair of HDMI 2.1 ports, a DisplayPort, a USB Type-C and four downstream USB 3.1 ports. The only shame is that despite having nearly a metre of width to play with, they’re all bunched together towards one end. For a monitor of this size that’s clearly targeting being used with multiple devices in the same setup it would have saved some headaches to see these split across both sides of the Evnia.
The Philips Evnia 42M2N8900 gaming monitor’s party piece is Ambiglow, an integrated lighting system that replicates colours on the screen with a halo of glowing light behind it. It’s technology Philips is fond of and you’ll find it across its Ambilight TVs too, though how effective it is will vary wildly from setup to setup. For me, initially it’s cool when you’re looking for it but ultimately I found it a little underwhelming. In anything other than a particularly dark room the effect is muted and given how far the back of the monitor ends up sitting from the wall it never really throws a huge amount of impactful light. It’s harmless though and fun to show off to friends but I wouldn’t pick the monitor just for the feature alone.
performance
Ultimately it’s what’s on a gaming monitor that counts though, not what it looks like, and what’s on the Philips Evnia 42M2N8900 is exceptional. For gaming and watching content it’s hard to find fault with this behemoth, though for day to day productivity it’s perhaps not as strong.
The Philips Evnia 42M2N8900 is billed specifically as a gaming monitor and across both PC and console play, it excels. The OLED panel produced perfect, deep blacks that meant bright and colourful scenes popped with real gusto. It’s that combination of full 4K clarity and rich contrast that make the Evnia 42M2N8900 so eye-catching. The stunning jungle scenery of Shadow of the Tomb Raider was worthy of Attenborough narration and racing around Silverstone in F1 24 you’d be forgiven for thinking you were watching highlights from the broadcast.
When it comes to frame rates the Philips Evnia 42M2N8900 can’t quite hit the lofty heights some others do, but the 138Hz it does max out at is likely to be enough for all but the most serious competitive gamers. Even more fast-paced titles like Call of Duty still felt wonderfully smooth and console players are capped at 120fps anyway so it makes sense for Philips to not try to push the limit here. The choice of 138Hz over the more common 144Hz is a curious one, though I’d challenge you to be able to recognise where those 6 extra frames are going – don’t stress it.
The thing is though, outside of very specific (giant) setups, the Philips Evnia 42M2N8900 doesn’t actually feel well suited to being a PC monitor. It’s too much monitor for one gamer. Sitting at a normal-sized desk in a normally positioned chair (the Secretlab Titan EVO in case you were wondering), I felt like the Evnia dominated my entire field of view in a way that meant I was almost at a disadvantage. I’d have to make deliberate head movements to check all corners of the screen, I struggle getting the first shot off in CoD as it is, I can’t deal with an extra delay.
check latest prices
The same was true trying to use the Evnia 42M2N8900 for general productivity tasks, a maximised Word document was comically overbearing and trying to use software snapping to divide the display up into smaller segments was a chore and meant I was often looking off at an angle to one quadrant – not great for ergonomics. None of this is an actual criticism of the Philips Evnia 42M2N8900 itself however, just a word of warning that bigger isn’t always better for a monitor and you should consider the realities of your setup before going for the largest monitor you can.
So let’s rebadge the Evnia 42M2N8900 and add the word ‘console’ or even ‘controller’ in front of ‘gaming monitor’, because with this tiny change of perspective it’s sensational. If you’re able to take a step back, give the 42M2N8900 a little extra room to breathe and almost treat it like a TV then the problems of the last two paragraphs fade away. The in-built speakers are surprisingly good too and offer DTS Sound virtual surround sound that while not as pleasant as the SteelSeries Arena 7 speakers I usually run, was more than good enough for gaming or watching films.
summed up
There’s no denying that the Philips Evnia 42M2N8900 is an outstanding gaming monitor, though you’d want it to be for £1399 and truth be told it’s this startling number that can make things a little awkward. While it will deliver the same impressively sharp, deep and colourful image whether it’s attached to a gaming PC or console, it’s the latter when it feels most at home. That’s great for console gamers, but it turns the Evnia 42M2N8900 into a TV and not a monitor, which brings a new batch of challengers into the mix.
Admittedly you likely won’t need to pay that full £1399 asking price anymore, but if we’re allowing for sale prices then console gamers are more likely to find an equally impressive 42” 4K OLED TV for a fair chunk less. So while yes, the Philips Evnia 42M2N8900 is wonderful to game on and is deservedly scoring very highly here, no you shouldn’t race out and buy it without at least surveying the market first. If you get one, I’m certain you’ll love it, but you might be able to find something equally as good and have some money leftover for a few games too.
