Displays & Projectors - Page 77

LG has already unveiled its new curved ultrawide monitor, but now it is Dell's turn with the new 34-inch Ultrasharp U3415W. Like LG's curved panel, Dell's new ultrawide monitor is also curved, with a 21:9 aspect ratio and 3440x1440 resolution.

Dell says that the wide field of view on its Ultrasharp U3415W, matches with its curves will help gamers play better when compared to flat monitors, with less eye movement required to soak in all of the player's peripheral vision. Dell will be shipping its new curved ultrawide monitors in December, so you'll be able to check that claim out in just a few months time - we will get one in the TweakTown labs to test, as I'd like to see how it goes against the likes of a 4K monitor, or G-SYNC powered display.

LG Electronics has announced it will begin selling the first 4K OLED TVs, supporting 3840 x 2160 resolution in 77- and 65-inch screen sizes. Pre-orders will be accepted in Korea starting this week, with North America and Europe targeted next, according to a press release from the company. OLED TVs should overtake LCD sales in the next few years, but it seemed unlikely that companies would be interested in mass producing 4K OLED TVs.

"LG 4K OLED TV is the pinnacle of technological achievement and a new paradigm that will change the dynamics of the next generation TV market," said Hyun-hwoi Ha, LG Home Entertainment President and CEO, in a press statement. "As the next evolutionary step in display technology, OLED will play a major role in reshaping our industry. I feel confident when I say that 4K OLED is a bona fide game changer."

Both Sony and Panasonic showed off 4K OLED units during CES in 2013, but the TVs didn't enter production - LG hopes its "game changer" TV models will shake things up a bit - but 4K OLED will be expensive to manufacture and cost consumers a pretty penny. Instead, Sony and Panasonic have 4K LED TV units available to early adopters.

We've already seen Samsung launch its behemoth of an Ultra HD TV in its 105-inch $120,000 screen, but now fellow South Korean rival LG has launched its new 105-inch 4K TV, too.

LG is calling its unit a 5K TV, as it runs a resolution of 5120x2160, with something LG calls CinemaScope 21:9 aspect ratio. We're looking at nearly the same price as the Samsung unit, driving up into a price of $117,000 - so this is for the rich and famous, or the 1%. It has an integrated speaker which makes it better value for money, and yes I'm kidding with that last part about it being better value for money with the integrated speaker.

Samsung has released a behemoth of a new TV, measuring in at a truly gigantic 105 inches. The new TV is 4K-capable, and retails for for a price that puts it into the 1% category: $120,000.

For $120,000 you're getting yourself a 105-inch curved Ultra HD TV that features a higher-than-4K resolution of 5120x2160. This provides the new 105-inch TV with an aspect ratio of 2.39:1. The usual Ultra HD resolution of 3840x2160 provides the standard 16:9 ratio, but this new Smart UN105S9 TV from Samsung features an even wider aspect ratio than the 'true 4K' resolution of 4096x2160 (1.9:1).

The expensive, but luxurious TV is capable of delivering your content in 3D, too. But with next to no 4K-capable 3D content available, right now this feature is a little useless. We have four HDMI 2.0 ports that are capable of 4K support at 60FPS and a bundled 1TB HDD from Samsung that includes some 4K content.

TCL has just taken the wraps off of its new Ultra HDTV lineup, with five new products for consumers to choose from. The new 4K-capable TVs are all HDMI 2.0 compliant, which means you can use HDMI for 60FPS goodness.

Starting with sizes, where we have two non 'Smart TV' models with the EU5700 series, available in 40- and 49-inch. Then we have three Smart TV models, which are all from the UH9500 Smart TV series, these are available in 55-, 65- and 85-inch. The 40-inch is priced at $499, while the 49-inch is $100 at $599.

Moving onto the 55-inch UH9500 Smart TV, which is priced at $799 - this is going to be a hot seller in the coming months at that price. The 65-inch is priced very competitively at $1,299 while the 85-inch is priced for the serious HT users at a whopping $7,999. The 40- and 49-inch models are the models TCL will be pushing for gamers, photographers, designers or people who want to display Ultra HD content from an external device.

Worldwide PC monitor shipments saw a meager 0.4 percent drop year-over-year during the first quarter of 2014, totaling 33.7 million units. Not surprisingly, LED backlit monitors had 92 percent market share, increasing 16.4 percent year-over-year, research firm IDC found.

Monitor sizes at least 21" wide continued to lead the way, racking up its sixth consecutive quarter, capturing 20.5 percent of the market. Dell (14.9 percent) is the No. 1 manufacturer with Samsung (13.2 percent) trailing in the No. 2 position, while Hewlett-Packard (11.5 percent), LG (10.5 percent), and Lenovo (7.8 percent) trail behind.

"Despite the overall decline, the shipment totals were stronger than the forecast of 31 million units," said Phuong Hang, IDC Worldwide Trackers Program Director, in a press statement. "Geographically, Japan and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) regions delivered the largest gains during the first quarter while Dell and HP both experienced solid shipment growth."

Now that 4K monitors are being pushed heavily, the next question is, when will we see 120Hz-capable 4K monitors? Well, according to some ASUS engineers, this won't happen for another 1-2 years.

What is stopping it from happening right now is the display connectivity, for 4K at 120Hz to happen, we need DisplayPort 1.3 to be finalized. ASUS said: "4K at 120Hz (or 8K at 60Hz) will require DisplayPort 1.3 (which is not a finalised spec yet), and we estimate 1-2 years before there is the DP 1.3 spec, GPU support, and a scalar chip for the LCD electronics that could support this. HDMI 2.0 is only good for 4K at 60Hz".

Not only that, but driving your games at 3840x2160 at 120FPS is going to be an incredible feat for your GPUs. You're going to really need four-way GPUs to get there, so you'd be opting for some very expensive video cards. I still can't wait for silky smooth 4K displays.

ASUS has just unveiled its new PB287Q monitor, which is a 4K-capable display that is priced at just $799. The new monitor is a 28-inch, 4K display, with a resolution of 3840x2160 at 60Hz.

The ASUS PB287Q has 330cd/m2 brightness, 100,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 1ms grey-to-grey response time and 170/160-degree viewing angles. On the connectivity side of things, we have DisplayPort 1.2, two HDMI ports - with one of those being MHL-capable. ASUS has baked in a range of adjustment, with swivel, tilt, pivot and height adjustments as well as VESA mounting capabilities for wall and stand mounting.

ASUS will be pricing the new 4K-capable PB287Q starts at just $799, and is available right now in Taiwan, Asia Pacific, Europe and the United States.

A new patent application from Apple has shown up online that is for a new holographic display for devices that allows the user to interact with 3D objects. Those 3D objects appear to flat in the air above the surface of the display. The patent application is titled "Interactive three-dimensional display system" and shows a method that Apple has created that allows the user of a device to manipulate 3D objects with gestures and touch.

The display system that patent app outlines has three major parts. One is a display system that creates a primary 3D image. Another is an optical system to translate that first image into a secondary 3D image that floats in the air. The final part is a sensor that logs user input.

Apple also uses a processing unit and control security to give feedback. Images projected with the display are digital. Apple talks about infrared laser or other light emitting devices to project an image into a medium like a non-linear crystal. That medium would be located between two parabolic mirrors. This sounds like an interesting display, but as with all tech that shows up on a patent application, there is no way to know if the tech will ever be used.

Yesterday, we visited the Taiwan-based offices of VIA, where they showed us a massive Video Wall Solution that used 8 x 1080p TVs, pushing enough pixels to easily display 4K content in a very, very unique manner.

VIA is pushing the technology in Taiwan, but will be offering it up to consumers in more countries as time goes on. VIA's Video Wall Solution even has an app that communicates with the screens, where you can send messages or even play games on them. The massive video wall is powered by VIA S3 Graphics, which is shown toward the end of the video.

VIA even goes as far as offering it as a complete solution, where a customer can order a massive display of TVs, with VIA coming in and installing everything for the customer, including custom content to display on the massive Video Wall.