Displays & Projectors News - Page 71

CES 2013 - Check out the following picture. It was taken by a camera about a half-inch from the screen. As you can see, text on 1080p at 55"+ is somewhat blurry.

Now, check out the following. Different TV, same picture and roughly same screen size. Only difference? 4K resolution.

That's pretty impressive, right? You can clearly see the difference between the two and how 1080p, when stretched to a large screen size, becomes blurry. But why should you care? Why should you buy a 4K TV? The simple answer: you shouldn't. Now, you're probably saying "Why not?!?!" and the answer is simple.

Google TV hasn't quite taken over the world, but it looks like more TVs are going to be released next year with partner LG stepping up to the plate announcing new sets.

The South Korean electronics giant have current Google TV-powered sets in both 47- and 55-inch models but will expand this range to offer five different sizes. The new sizes will be 42-, 50- and 60-inch options. LG haven't stopped there, either, they've also updated the design of the TVs, too, giving them a thinner bezel and new support legs.

LG's new TVs will ship with Google TV 3.0, as well as built-in OnLive support. LG will bring their new Google TV 3.0-powered TVs to CES 2013, so it'll only be a few weeks until we get some hands-on time with them.

We have been hearing about flexible displays for years now. It seems that every display company sees these as the future of mobile display technology. Up until now the claims have been mostly vaporware and prototypes only found inside labs. Samsung has announced that they will be showing off a 5.5 inch flexible display at CES 2013.

The display will most likely not be featured in any device releases in the near future, but the 720p prototype will be sure to grab the attention of all who get to see it in person.

We are going to take a chance and say that the display is OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) based, but we could be wrong. We want to hear from you on this whole flexible screen idea. Do you think that we will one day be able to roll up our smart phones and place them in our pockets?

Sharp have just announced a beautiful new screen, dubbed the PN-K321. The PN-K321 is built for professionals in mind, sporting a 4K resolution (3840x2160) as well as HDMI and DisplayPort connectivity.

Sharp has some bragging rights with the PN-K321 in the way that they claim it is the industry's thinnest frame, measuring in at just 35mm thick. We should expect a price of around 450,000 yen, or around $5500. The 4K-capable 32-inch monitor is to debut in February 2013, so it should be flashing itself around at CES in Las Vegas in January next year.

It's great that we're finally see desktop-bound 4K-capable screens in a decent size, just 32-inch, and not 85-inch like the huge HDTVs lately. At $5500 - it's also priced decently. 30-inch monitors were around $3000-$3500 when they debuted, so this is not that far out from those prices, for a much higher-res screen. I want one, no, three of them.

It looks like Sony are really pushing their new 4K TV, the XBR-84X900 Ultra HDTV - which is set to not leave first adopters twiddling their thumbs without 4K content when they drop over $20k on a new 4K TV. Ray Hartjen from Sony jumped on the company's blog to address some consumers concerns over the new 4K resolution-specific features that will ship with the new TV.

The new TV will feature three chipsets that will help give the X-Reality PRO picture engine the extra juice it requires to upscale today's programming to close to 4K quality, this includes even your collection of current Blu-rays that you already own. It does get better, much much better - in that the new Sony XBR-84X900 Ultra HDTV will include the world's first 4K Ultra HDTV delivery solution.

The new TV will come pre-loaded with native 4K content, and won't be just some flyover demos of a forest, but would be full-length Hollywood productions, available only to those who purchased this specific TV. There's no exact details of what content to expect, or what 4K delivery solution will be deployed, so we'll have to wait a little while longer to find out. Sony's 84-inch Ultra HDTV sports a resolution of 3840x2160, and has been up for pre-order since September for the wallet-busting price of $25,000.

Windows 8 is mere hours away, and now we have Dell announcing theri 23-inch S2340T display. The Dell S2340T sports a 1920x1080 resolution, flexible positioning (take that as you will), with an articulated stand, supporting up to 10 points of simultaneous multitouch, all on an edge-to-edge glass panel.

We're looking at a 23-inch, VIS display with LED backlight, a 1920x1080 resolution at 60Hz and a 178-degree viewing angle. Filling out the number side of things, we have an 8,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. DisplayPort and HDMI connectivity are on offer for inputs.

The S2340T does have one requirement that most monitors don't have: it needs to be connected to a USB3.0 port to enable the touchscreen. The monitor itself provides more USB3.0 ports on-board, Gigabit Ethernet, a headphone port and microphone port. Dell's S2340T needs Displaylink's multitouch driver for functionality to enable, and the S2340T is not Mac-compatible right now, but will be in the future through a drive update.

Those digital picture frames were all the rage a few years ago. Instead of having just one picture displayed 24 hours a day, you could insert a memory card and it would automatically cycle through the pictures. D2M has taken that idea just a bit further with a new product they are pitching on Kickstarter called Instacube.

It's an Android-powered picture frame that shows Instagram pictures at their full 600x600 native resolution. It's operated by a touchscreen and three buttons along the top. Measuring in at 7.5-inches, with a 6.5-inch screen, it will fit most places. Better yet, the cube is themed as the Instagram app icon.

While you will usually have it hooked up to an A/C adapter and located on a shelf, the company is packing in a battery so that it can be taken on the move with you. Only problem is that it needs your help to get into production. As it sits, we only have a proposed spec list and some renders of what it would look like.

Dell have just replaced their UltraSharp U2711 monitor with some seriously slick looking screens, with specs to match their looks. Dell's latest display is the UltraSharp U2713HM and is Dell's first monitor to sport the AH-IPS (Advanced High-Performance IPS) panel, which is meant to feature improved color and clarity over other IPS-based technologies.

Dell's UltraSharp U2713HM sports a resolution of 2560x1440, with the company claiming that the U2713HM offers a color gamut of more than 99% sRGB, maximum brightness of 350 cd/m2, grey-to-grey response time of 8ms, a 178/178-degree wide viewing angle, as well as an anti-glare coating.

The U2713HM has a plethora of connectivity, featuring four USB 3.0 ports, dual-link DVI, DisplayPort 1.2, HDMI and VGA. All of the connections are on the back of the display, keeping those nasty cables out of sight. Dell also mentions that their U2713HM is environmentally friendly, with the U2713HM's chassis made out of 25% post-consumer recycled plastics, as well as providing a 37% reduction in energy consumption when compared to its predecessor, the U2711.

In these days of high refresh rates, 120Hz is about the best you can get without some trickery in profiles and "overclocking" your monitor in a sense. ASUS have stepped in with a brand new monitor, the ASUS VG2788HE.

ASUS' VG2788HE is a 27-inch monitor, which has broken through the limit of 120Hz most monitor seems maxed at these days. It hits 144Hz, providing an extra 24 frames per second (or images per second) compared to 120Hz. Personally, I don't think you'd see that much of a difference from 120Hz to 144Hz like the jump from 60 to 120 provides, but for 3D it could be a difference that is quite noticeable.

The VG2788HE is compatible with NVIDIA's 3D Vision 2 technology, but it comes separately to the monitor. The monitor sports HDMI, dual-link DVI and D-SUB connectors, 2x3W stereo speakers are included as well as a mini-jack output that lets you connect headphones. One of the best things I love about this monitor is that it is capable of not just swivel and tilt, but has height adjustment.

We heard about Samsung's flexible AMOLED technology a couple of months ago now, called "Youm". But it seems that new reports from Korean website DDaily are suggesting the production of these panels could be any day now.

Samsung were rumored late last year to have these flexible AMOLED displays in mass production by Q2 2012. The first production run of these displays won't be too flexible, as the displays will be fixed to a rigid sheet of "protective" glass, at first. DDaily's sources claim that Samsung has an internal goal of mass-producing fully flexible screens by 2014.

Producing some of them now would give Samsung a head start on the competition, as they can get the screen tech working now, and get to work on the devices shrinking down (power sources, chips, PCBs, etc). This means we could see flexible smart devices sometime after 2014. We should see new forms of fashionable technology such as watches, headware, and others. The future is flexible.