ASUS PQ321Q Monitor Brings Multi-Stream Tiled Displays Forward 94
Vigile writes "While 4K displays have been popping up all over the place recently with noticeably lower prices, one thing that kind of limits them all is a 30 Hz refresh rate panel. Sony is selling 4K consumer HDTVs for $5000 and new-comer SEIKI has a 50-in model going for under $1000 but they all share that trait — HDMI 1.4 supporting 3840x2160 at 30 Hz. The new ASUS PQ321Q monitor is a 31.5-in 4K display built on the same platform as the Sharp PN-K321 and utilizes a DisplayPort 1.2 connection capable of MST (multi-stream transport). This allows the screen to include two display heads internally, showing up as two independent monitors to some PCs that can then be merged into a single panel via AMD Eyefinity or NVIDIA Surround. Thus, with dual 1920x2160 60 Hz signals, the PQ321Q can offer 3840x2160 at 60 Hz for a much better viewing experience. PC Perspective got one of the monitors in for testing and review and found that the while there were some hurdles during initial setup (especially with NVIDIA hardware), the advantage of a higher refresh rate made the 4K resolution that much better."
Re:Impact on Photography (Score:4, Interesting)
Grain?
What does screen size have to do with your "cropping range"? You believe the purpose of a camera is to fill your screen?
People whose goal is to share on "Flickr and Google Plus" don't need DSLRs or 4K displays. People who don't realize that grain is a film characteristic don't either.
Re:39" 4K monitor - $700 (Score:4, Interesting)
If it is anything like their 50", which I'm sure it is, the 30Hz limitation will be the least of its awful problems. It may be passable as a TV but not as a monitor.
Of course, many people's standards are low and they wouldn't know better anyway. If you think DSLRs exhibit grain, it's the product for you. You won't notice the horrific color problems anyway.
At least the screen size is right. I don't get the 30" screen size for this resolution. 50" is too big for a desktop.
Re:Unusable aspect ratio (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, if you like square monitors, this one is even better than a 4:3 display.
Since there's no display standard that can do 4k at 60Hz, this monitor works around that limitation by conceptually presenting itself as two 8:9 monitors side-by-side.
So not only do you get two monitors in one, but 8:9 is closer to square than 4:3.