More 4K desktop monitors presented at CES. Is this the new standard?
posted Thursday, January 9, 2014 at 4:18 PM EDT
Only recently, we reported about a new 28", 4K resolution desktop monitor from Philips. Today, news of more 4K-capable displays being presented at CES reaches us via The Verge. The Ultra High Definition format seems not only to be one of the main theme's at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, it also seems to be slowly making its way into computers. Not long ago, Full-HD was considered state-of-the-art. Now high-DPI displays are standard in mobile devices, and even laptop displays are beginning to out-resolve the 1920x1080 format. So it seems only logical that large desktop monitors should feature even higher resolutions.
Besides the Philips model, there are four more affordable 4K desktop monitors coming: one from Asus, one from Dell, and two from Lenovo. Unfortunately, all of these seem to focus on price more than on quality, as none of them features the specs that professionals in creative industries such as photography and video production will be looking for. Specifically, all of them seem to built around TN panels instead of the more superior and also more expensive IPS panels with their better contrast, viewing angles and color reproduction. (At least that's what we judge from their price tags and overall specs.) To make matters even worse, the Dell P2815Q only supports a 30 Hz refresh rate at UHD resolution.
On the other hand, though, these low-end 4K display come with short response times (as low as 1 millisecond in case of the Asus PB287Q,) and they offer a lot of real estate, which should be very helpful if you're doing a lot high resolution photo and video editing as well as office work. The prices for these 4K displays are ranging from US$699 for the Dell up to US$1199 for the touch-enabled Lenovo ThinkVision 28. This is a great development, as seeing 4K becoming truly affordable means that also professional-grade 4K displays won't cost you an arm and a leg in the long run.