The Philips 150B is an extremely attractive monitor, silver with gunmetal grey highlights. The base can extend to give an extra 60mm in height, so bonus points go to smart ergonomics in the design. The rear of the unit is has a removable plastic cover built into the adjustable base which acts as a cable guide. The base is also easily removed to allow wall mounting.
Features
There are five ports/sockets on the rear of this monitor, one D-SUB 15-pin VGA port, one DVD-D digital video port, a standard IEC power socket and two audio jacks, one for headphones and one for audio in. There is also a Kensington security lock port at the back of the unit.
The base offers an amazing deal of fore and aft movement, but it understandably becomes unsteady at extreme angles. The base also features a swivel ability.
Performance
We tested the 150B using analog video input so we could perform a equal comparison between this monitor (which also has DVI input) and the other monitors in this round-up (which only have the analog 15-pin input). The initial configuration is via an automatic setup which is launched by pressing the "auto" button.
Once the auto setup had completed, the image was bright and sharp. The whites were very crisp and the black text stood out clearly. Contrast was particularly good. Video playback tests were very good with excellent depth of field and very little tearing or pixellation even in the faster scenes.
The Philips 150B was the only monitor with DVI in this review, and considering its very good performance via the standard analogue port, the use of DVI could only provide better results. It was also the only monitor here with a height-adjustable base and a base that allows swivelling, which considering the relatively light weight of these monitors is a slight bit of overkill.
The 150B was also one of only two monitors in this review with in-built speakers. Overall the 150B is very well designed, finished and particularly attractive. This monitor is also perfect for use in a multiple-display arrangement due to its very small side bezels (17mm). A very hard monitor to go past and is certainly worth shortlisting for evaluation.
