AUO to Ship 8K UHD TV Panels in Coming Months

AU Optronics this week has announced plans to start shipments of 8K panels for large UHDTVs in the first half of 2018. The panels will enable TV manufacturers to produce “Super UHD” 8K TVs to compete against LG and Samsung later this year.

The lineup of panels featuring a 7680×4320 resolution will be aimed at ultra-high-end TVs and sizes will range from 65 to 85 inches, said Liao Wei-Lun, president of AUO’s video products business group, at a press conference. The high-ranking executive did not disclose other specifications of the panels, such as luminance and contrast ratio, but given their positioning, it is logical to expect their characteristics to be comparable to 8K UHDTVs to be offered by LG and Samsung.

Multiple TV makers demonstrated various 8K UHDTVs at various trade shows in the recent years, but so far no one has started to sell them. Given the lack of content, it is hard to expect high demand for 8K televisions in the next couple of years, aside from the halo factor – nonetheless, AUO expects 8K panels to account for 10% of its ’65-inch and above’ panel shipments in 2020. The presumably high-cost of the panels would indicate that in terms of unit shipments this might still be a low-ish number. However, as with 4K displays, someone has to release 8K TVs to stimulate content providers to offer appropriate material. At this year’s CES, Samsung demonstrated its Q9S, its first commercial 8K TV-set, but it did not announce its pricing or availability timeframe. LG and Sony also demonstrated their 8K TVs at CES 2018, but nothing is clear about their plans regarding these products.

Since AUO intends to start mass production of the 8K panels for UHDTVs in the coming months, it is highly likely that it has customers willing to use them for their products already. Because we are talking about volume manufacturing, it is likely that AUO’s partners have already developed their UHDTVs based on the early development panels and we are going to see AUO-based 8K UHDTVs later this year.

With Samsung, LG, Sony and various AUO partners onboard, it looks like 8K UHDTVs will finally start to be commercialized this year.

As for 8K displays for PCs, Dell is currently the only company to offer an 8K monitor (this one is based on a panel from LG, so the latter might introduce its own 8K display at some point). Philips last year promised to start shipments 328P8K monitor in 2018, so expect the product to hit the market in the coming months too.

We saw a number of the 8K PC displays last year at various shows:

 
Left: Dell 8K, Right: Philips 8K

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Dell Announces UP2718Q HDR Display, And Two InfinityEdge Displays

Right now, the National Association of Broadcasters conference is on, and Dell is using it to launch their latest UltraSharp display. The Dell UltraSharp UP2718Q is the company’s first display to support HDR10, in addition to its UHD 3840×2160 resolution, and it’s backed by the UHD Alliance Premium Certification.

Dell has been in the UHD display game for some time, and the UltraSharp U2715Q and U2415Q have been solid displays for the company for some time, but the latest model takes Dell to a new level. The UP2718Q offers a very wide color gamut, supporting up to 97.7% of DCI-P3 (76.9% Rec 2020), and each display comes factory calibrated. The monitor has an adjustable internal lookup-table as well, so it should be able to be further tuned accurately if necessary.

HDR, or High Dynamic Range, requires much brighter backlighting than is typical in a desktop display, and the UP2718Q is stated to hit up to 1000 nits, and while not listed in Dell’s brief press release, this is very likely being driven by full-array backlighting.

This display is targeted directly at professionals, and it has a price tag to go along with that, with availability scheduled for May 23 at $1999.99.

Dell UltraSharp U2718Q

Dell is also launching a couple of other UltraSharp displays, featuring InfinityEdge displays. The U2718Q is a 27-inch UHD model, and the U2518D is a 25-inch model that’s a lower resolution that’s not specified. These are targeted more at the consumer, and won’t support HDR or the wide gamuts. Dell didn’t announce a lot of details on these, but expect sRGB coverage only. The lower feature set drives the price down quite a bit though, with the U2718Q set to be available in July for $699.99, and the U2518D in the same time frame for $499.99.

Dell UltraSharp U2518D

Dell certainly isn’t alone in the HDR Professional display market, with ASUS and LG both announcing UHD HDR displays recently as well, but Dell has a substantial presence in the enterprise which will likely help them here.

Source: Dell

ASUS Launches VG245Q ‘Console’ Gaming Monitor: 1080p with FreeSync, $200

ASUS has introduced another monitor positioned specifically for console gaming that allows console owners to take their games out of the living room. The new display offers Full-HD resolution and uses an inexpensive TN panel with a fast response time, supporting a refresh rate of 40Hz to 75Hz. It features AMD’s FreeSync technology as well as a DisplayPort port, so while this is aimed at more console type gaming, in order to use Freesync it essentially has to be a ‘console’ PC rather than an actual console.

The ASUS VG245Q display uses a 24” TN panel with 1920×1080 resolution, and the general specifications are typical for budget devices: 250 nits brightness, 170°/160° viewing angles, a 1 ms response time (grey-to-grey) and so on. The monitor comes with two 2 W speakers and has two HDMI (so to connect to two consoles), one DisplayPort and one D-Sub connector. The VG245Q can adjust its height, swivel, and pivot. One of the important selling points of the ASUS VG245-series monitors is support for AMD’s FreeSync dynamic framerate technology that works at refresh rates ranging from 40 to 75 Hz.

In fact, ASUS’ VG245 family of displays, aimed at ‘console’ gaming, now includes three models: the VG245Q (introduced this month), the VG245H, and the VG245HE, with the latter two launched last fall. All the monitors use the same panel and have slightly different feature sets. The VG245H uses the same chassis as the VG245Q, but lacks DisplayPort. Meanwhile, the VG245HE is the most simplistic in the lineup, as it does not have swivel, pivot or height adjustments.

While ASUS formally positions its VG245-series displays as reasonably priced solutions for consoles, these devices are cheaper gaming monitors carrying the ASUS brand. They enable the company to address the entry-level segment of the PC market (keep in mind that the sRGB is supported as a feature of the ASUS GameVisual menu) without distracting attention of the masses from the higher-end models with advanced specs and features.

ASUS has not announced precise MSRP for its VG245Q monitor, but at present, the VG245H can be acquired for $179.99. It is unlikely that the addition of a DisplayPort connector significantly affected the cost of the VG245Q vs. the VG245H and it is logical to expect the two products to cost about the same.

Gallery: ASUS VG245Q Console Gaming Monitor

Related Reading:

• ASUS Announces Three New Displays with Adaptive-Sync Technology
• ASUS VA326H and VA326N-W: 31.5-Inch Curved 144 Hz FHD Displays for $399
• ASUS Demonstrates ROG Swift PG27UQ: 4K, 144 Hz, HDR, DCI-P3 and G-Sync