Last week at IFA, Philips demonstrated its upcoming ultra-wide curved 49-inch monitor. The new 499P9H display features a 5K resolution with a 32:9 apect ratio, and will be aimed at various B2B clients that normally use two LCDs. Among key selling points of the new monitor – besides its sheer size – are a pop-up webcam, a USB Type-C docking, and a GbE controller.

A number of display suppliers have introduced their 49-inch ultra-wide LCDs featuring a 32:9 aspect ratio and a 3840 × 1080 resolution over the past few quarters. The displays are based on a Samsung panel and target various applications, including business/productivity and gaming. Philips was first to launch its ultra-wide 492P8 monitor after Samsung released its 49-inchers last year, so it is not surprising that it will be among the first third-party companies to adopt Samsung’s 5K ultra-wide VA panel that we're unofficially hearing is expected to hit mass production this month.

The Philips 499P9H offers a 5120 × 1440 resolution, which is called DQHD (dual quad HD), and is designed to substitute two 27-inch 2560 × 1440 monitors. Based on what we know about this panel unofficially, it has a 1800R curvature and supports refresh rates up to 120 Hz. B2B monitors featuring the panel will likely support a 60 Hz refresh rate, whereas their gaming counterparts will likely gain AMD’s FreeSync technology and a dynamic refresh rate between 48 Hz and 120 Hz (or 30 Hz and 120 Hz). Meanwhile, since we are dealing with a VA panel, expect a high contrast ratio along with 178º/178º vertical/horizontal viewing angles.

One of the important features of the Philips 499P9H monitor is its pop-up Windows Hello-compatible webcam, which will likely be welcome by various business and enterprise users who require a biometric authentication.

Since the Philips 499P9H has to be compatible with a wide variety of PCs, it features not only a USB Type-C connector with docking and power delivery capabilities, but also a more traditional DisplayPort 1.2 input and two HDMI 2.0 ports. Like other large displays, the 499P9H naturally supports picture-by-picture (PBP) and picture-in-picture (PiP) modes as such LCDs are usually used with multiple PCs at once. In addition, the monitor has a dual-port USB 3.0 hub as well as an Ethernet connector to provide a GbE connectivity to Apple’s MacBooks and other laptops that only feature USB Type-C headers.

Philips did not touch upon the ETA nor MSRP of its upcoming 499P9H display at the trade show. Since Samsung yet has to kick off mass production of the panel and start using it itself, expect the 499P9H to arrive sometimes in 2019. Keep in mind that since the 499P9H is aimed primarily at B2B clients, it may not be readily available from the usual retailers.

Philips Ultra-Wide 49-Inch Displays
  499P9H 492P8
Panel 49" VA
Native Resolution 5120 × 1440 3840 × 1080
Maximum Refresh Rate ? 60 Hz
Response Time unknown unknown
Brightness high up to 600 cd/m² (?)
Contrast high up to 5000:1 (?)
Backlighting LED
Viewing Angles 178°/178° horizontal/vertical
Curvature 1800R
Aspect Ratio 32:9 (3.56:1)
Color Gamut sRGB (?) sRGB
Dynamic Refresh Rate Tech unknown unknown
Pixel Pitch 0.234 mm² 0.312 mm²
Pixel Density 108 PPI 81.41 PPI
Inputs 1 × DisplayPort 1.2
1 × USB Type-C
2 × HDMI 2.0
1 × DisplayPort 1.2
1 × D-Sub
2 × HDMI
Audio 3.5 mm input and output
USB Hub 2 × USB 3.0 Type-A connectors
Ethernet 1 GbE port
MSRP unknown unknown

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  • bill.rookard - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link

    Wow. That is one godda*n wide monitor. I don't even want to know what the MSRP is gonna be on that sucker.
  • lukeduff - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link

    I don't get these expensive large monitors that are incapable of showing 4K content, which is all over the place now (Youtube, Netflix, UHD Blu-ray, etc.).
  • DanNeely - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link

    No one's scaled up to a dual 4k panel yet. AFAIK only Samsung is making 32:9 at the moment.

    Until DSC (displayport data compression, or HDMI 2.1) come out a twin4k monitor would be limited to 60hz non-HDR due to bandwidth limitations. Given the inability to add other premium features I'm not surprised by the lack of a panel yet. The fact that we're nowhere close to having a GPU that could game at it is also a factor. Dual-1080p is roughly equivalent to single 1440p, that's been comfortabily within high end GPUs for a while. Dual-1440p roughly equates to a single 4k monitor, and even the 1080 Ti struggles at that resolution currently. Hopefully the 2080/Ti will better that situation in the very near future.
  • DigitalFreak - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link

    DisplayPort 1.4 can support 8K UHD (7680 × 4320) at 60 Hz with 30 bit/px RGB color and HDR. DP 1.4 has been available on the video card side since the Geforce 10xx series.
  • DanNeely - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link

    Only using Display Stream Compression (or 4:2:2 chroma compression which is terrible for anything with text eg any PC use), without that it tops out at 4k120hz 8 bit, or 4k 98hz 10bit (HDR) which is where the recently released 4k144hz HDR monitors sit.

    AFAIK there's no available setup using DSC, not sure if both the GPU and monitor control chips are lacking or if it's available on one end of the connection but not the other yet.
  • Diji1 - Sunday, September 9, 2018 - link

    Every single monitor article there's people explaining how something is wrong with the monitor because it doesn't do something in some scenario as though it's perfectly simple to build a monitor that satisfies all use cases.
  • Azethoth - Monday, September 10, 2018 - link

    The OP point is this is a useless gaming monitor as it is wasting R&D money on old tech. I already have a 4k monitor, my next one will be 4k HDR. Why would I downgrade to this?

    Sell it to businesses, but its dumb for gamers.
  • sor - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link

    Not bad. I currently have a 38” 3840 x 1600 with USB C and it’s great. If this didn’t give up vertical pixels I might consider upgrading.
  • HStewart - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link

    I would like to see one with 2160 vertical resolution and 32:9 format - so that actual 4K HDR could be shown - hopefully one day even movies will be available in this resolution. Of course this would like mean it will be a 8K monitor and super expensive.

    I have a LG 34U88 and its nice having wide screen especially for web and graphics work. Games are of course cool on it - even though I finally starting to grow out of gaming.
  • boeush - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link

    I'm right there with you. This one is getting close to perfect with the horizontal screen span and curvature. The only thing still lacking, is sufficient vertical space. If it kept the same horizontal span and 5120 pixel resolution but was tall enough to accommodate 2160 pixels vertically, the diagonal span of the screen would then be 51.2" (vs. 49") but the screen's height would be 20" (vs. 13.3".) Well, that hypothetical 51" monitor is the one I'd jump all over... even if it cost me an arm and a leg.

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