Unboxing: Philips P-Line 499P9H 49" DQHD SuperWide 32:

When spending hours, days, months and lifetime in front of a computer, a good monitor is essential for the workplace. Personally I prefer large monitors with huge resolution to get enough space to work efficiently with Microsoft 365, Endpoint Manager, scripting and automation. Traditionally I have used 3 to 4 monitors lined up. I will now share my experience after migrating to one single superwide screen. will it fulfill my needs and expectations out of the box, or do I need to do some hacks?

Please note: This is not a sponsored post!

The Philips 499P9H Hard Facts

The monitor I am installing is the Philips P-Line 499P9H 49" DQHD UltraWide 32:9 Curved which is like two full-size QHD monitors in one with its 5120x1440 resolution. It has a built in USB-C docking station and a pop-up webcam supporting Windows Hello!

The resolution of 5120x1440 is designed to let the monitor replace multiscreen setups. I will have the same space as if I had two 27" monitors side by side. The setup will however be less complicated with less cables to arrange, like power cables, hdmi cables etc.

The monitor features a built-in USB type-C docking station allowing for one-cable connection from the computer. Peripherals like keyboard, mouse, ethernet cable and usb devices are then connected directly to the monitor. By connecting my laptop to the USB-C cable, I am all set to work while my laptop are being recharged at the same time.

The builtin KVM-switch allows you to use two computers witch the monitor sharing keyboard, video and mouse (kvm) with a simple klick of a button to switch between sources.

The monitor does also support MultiView which allows for the two connected computers to be projected to each part of the monitor at the same time.

Unboxing

The monitor is relatively big, and the box is even bigger (1308x384x553mm, 21,5kg). Place the package on a flat surface where you have some space to unpack. 

Pay attention to the "open here" which seems to be on the "wrong side" of the box since you have to place it with the text on the sides upside down.

Turning the box on the head reveals the "Open here" marking and some instructions on how to unbox without damaging the product.

When opening the box, you should find the cables, instructions and the base. If not, you have opened the box at the wrong end. Remove the cables, base and the paperwork.

Next you should loose the binding strap and remove the top of the styrofoam. Now you should see the back of the monitor. Since this is a curved monitor, you should leave it in the styrofoam when mounting the base - improper pressure will cause a broken panel! It could be wise to be carefull with the box and keep it if you have to move the monitor later on.

Carefully mount the base to the monitor backside.

The base must be mounted with 4 screws found inside the bag with the quick start guide. You will need a Philips driver to mount the screws.

Carefully place the monitor on the desk and locate the cables needed for your setup. Initially all I needed was the power cable and the USB-C cable connecting my laptop to the docking where my peripherals was connected.

The USB-C cable has a built-in adapter for USB-A, but you will loose the power supply charging the battery of your laptop if you use this.

Lastly you have to remove the transport tapes from the webcam and unfold the camera from the monitor.

At this point, the modern workplace should be ready for some seriously endpoint manager work.

My experience

After using the monitor for a couple of days, I have made some experiences and found some hacks to fit the product even better to my workday.

The pros

The options for KVM and MultiView might be of value for me when working with Microsoft Endpoint Manager and testing several devices. I can now easily connect test devices to my primary monitor and peripherals without having to restructure all cabling at my workplace.

The built in webcamera with Windows Hello support gives me the possible to sign in passwordless to my devices and services. The fact that it is built in to the product makes my desk tidy and clean with less cable cluttering.

The base is solid and has a neat design giving me a good place for placing some devices on my desk. The monitor also have a standard VESA mount (100x100mm).

The resolution is superb, especially when setting the scaling to 100%!

The challenges and the hacks

I notice that the USB-C cable is not delivering the same amount of power as my Surface Studio is expecting. This gives a notification in Windows - but the battery gets charged anyhow.

For a person like me used to work with 2-3 monitors, the first challenge in my daily work on the monitor was the fact that this is only one monitor and I have fewer frames to snap my windows to (windows key + arrows). Open windows in full screen on "one of the monitors" is also not available anymore. 

Windows 11 is kind of addressing these challenges with it's new Snap Assist for snap layouts and snap groups.

Snap Assist didn't meet my needs. I found a better solution in the FancyZones utility from PowerToys. This tools allows me to design my own zones on the large monitor where I can snap my windows. By holding down <shift> while moving a window, I can easily snap the windows to one or multiple zones. I have also configured this to override Windows snap. This way I can use the windowskey+arrows to move windows between the zones by use of the keyboard.

FancyZones has an editor allowing to build custom layouts. I have made my own layout fitting my needs. In this layout I have a handfull of zones where I can place application windows (or snap applications spanding several zones) and a main zone in the middle of the screen with a 1980x1080 size/resolution.

It is possible to create several custom zones which can easily be switched with keyboard shortcuts <ctrl>+<alt>+<win>+<number>. In this way you can make zone settings fitting the needs for the actual work you are doing. In the example below you find my two current custom setups: The first one is the one explained above being used for online meetings - the second one is used for focus work.

Another challenge is related to Teams meetings and "sharing of a screen" in a meeting. This has been flawless when working with 2-3 monitors where I have been dedicating one monitor for sharing. Now that I have one large screen, this is kind of more problematic, because nobody will be able to see anything if I share a screen with 5120x1440 resolution. I do have the laptop screen which could be shared, but even this monitor has kind of huge resolution of 2400x1600 in 100% scale. I also like to use the laptop screen for notes and sketches in Whiteboard.

I found my solution in a third party solution named Region to Share. This is a helper application to share only a region of a screen in video conference apps that only support full screen or single windows. This tool simply mirrors the content of a screen region into a hidden window which then will be shared in Teams as an application!

When starting Region to Share, I can simply snap it to my FancyZone number 3 covering an area of 1920x1080 in the middle upper part of my screen (close to the built-in webcamera).

During Teams meetings, I can share the "Region to Share" application into the meeting and have all my other applications supporting me in the meeting snaped to appropriate zones around my screen. This is even better than sharing one of the screens in my old setup!

I do believe this is a monitor that will support me well while doing remote work mainly focusing on Microsoft 365, Intune, Endpoint Manager and maybe using several devices for testing and running proof of concepts!