Gaming - Page 6

At CES 2019, Alienware demonstrated a gaming monitor that uses a 55" 4K 120Hz OLED display. This monitor supports 4K at 120Hz using the new HDMI v2.1 connection (also supported by LG's latest 2019 OLED TVs).

Earlier this week we reported that Alienware has not plans to actually launch this product - but according to PCGamer, a Dell spokesman says that the company is definitely going to release it - at Q4 2019 in "selected markets". This is good news for many gamers who were looking forward to this exciting (but probably highly expensive) monitor.

Asus recently launched a new gaming laptop, the Zephyrus S GX502, which uses a 15.6" 4K 120Hz LCD IPS display. At Computex 2019 in Taiwan, Asus demonstrated one of these laptops with an 15.6" SDC AMOLED display.

Asus OLED laptop (left) vs LCD one (right)

Asus says it has no immediate plans to release an OLED gaming laptop as it still has concerns over the shorter lifespan of OLED displays, image retention (burn-in) and long-term color accuracy. As soon as these concerns are resolved, Asus says it will push forward with incorporating OLED panels in gaming laptops.

Pulse-Width Modulation, or PWM, is the most common way to adjust the brightness of an OLED display. PWM is the easiest way to achieve high quality brightness control, but it has some serious drawbacks - such as flicker that may cause eye strain and headaches. Some people suffer greatly from PWM-controlled displays.

Device makers are seemingly starting to acknowledge this. Xiaomi has added DC-Dimming as an alternative to PWN in its Mi 9 smartphone (6.39" 1080x2340 AMOLED display) and its Black Shark 2 gaming phone (which uses the same display). OnePlus confirmed that it is also looking at adding a DC-Dimming option in a future OS update.

In February 2019 Samsung Display started to mass produce its new 15.6" 3840x2160 OLED display panels, and finally we have the first laptop to ship with such a panel - Dell is now offering its 2019 Alienware m15 laptop. The 15.6" OLED display is a $350 extra compared to the regular 15.6" FHD LCD (according to Digitimes, the price gap between these two displays should have been closer to $60).

SDC is targeting premium laptops, as these ultra high resolution panels are optimized for gaming, graphic design and video streaming. At CES we saw three companies that announced 15" OLED laptops - HP with its Spectre x360, Lenovo with the Yoga C730 and Dell with the XPS 15, Dell G7 15 and the Alienware m15 which is indeed now shipping.

Japan-based printed OLED developer JOLED demonstrated several new OLED displays at Finetech Japan last week. We already posted on these new OLEDs, and now we have photos of the new panels.

So first up is JOLED's first OLED TV panel. The 55" 4K (3840x2160, 80 PPI) panel offers a 120Hz refresh rate and a color gamut of 100% DCI (135% sRGB) and is printed on JOLED's Transparent Amorphous Oxide Semiconductor (TAOS) backplane.

In the past few weeks we heard many reports that following lower than expected OLED orders from Apple (due to disappointing iPhone X sales) Samsung Display has suddenly found itself with under utilized OLED production lines.

Samsung already said that it aims to find new customers for its OLEDs, mostly in smartphone makers in China. Some analyst say however that this won't be so easy as the higher costs of SDC's AMOLED displays deter some of its potential customers, who prefer to opt for lower-cost high-end 18:9 LCDs.

So we might as well get used to this - OLEDs have arrived at the laptop market. Dell's Alienware announced their latest gaming laptop, the Alienware OLED 13 R2 - and it uses a 13" 2560x1440 AMOLED display.

The Alienware OLED 13 laptop will ship in April 2015 starting at $1,499. It's quite similar to the LCD Alienware 13 R2, just with an OLED instead of the LCD (which has a higher 3200x1800 resolution). The LCD model currently starts at $1,068 - this means that the OLED premium is about $450 - but then again it may also have higher specs, so it is difficult to compare. Alienware themselves says that the OLED model will cost exactly the same as the LCD model.

A few days ago Sony announced the new PS Vita (PHC-2000, or Vita 2013). This new device uses an LCD display that replaces the OLED used by the original PS Vita. Both screens are 5" 960x544. Now someone took a couple of photos comparing the two devices. Here's on of those photos, the original OLED is on the top:

On this picture it seems as if the OLED is better, but on the other picture it's not so clear.Hopefully we'll get some reviews of the new Vita with a display comparison to the older device. I think it's highly likely that Sony opted for an LCD either to save costs, or simply because Samsung does not have enough capacity to supply them with a relatively large (5") OLED panel at the moment.

Sony announced that as of February 26 they shipped over 1.2 million PS Vita consoles. The Vita was launched worldwide just a few days ago (up until then it was available in Japan, where sales were a bit disappointing at first). The Vita costs $249 for the Wi-Fi model and $299 for the 3G model.

The Vita features a 5" touch Samsung-Made OLED display (960x544), a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 processor and a quad-core PowerVR (SGX543MP4+) GPU (Sony says that it is as powerful as a PS3), Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and 3G (AT&T, optional). Gaming controls include dual analog sticks, motion controls and a multi-touch pad on the rear side.

Sony's next generation portable gaming device, the PSP Vita, has a 5" AMOLED display. It was always assumed that that display is made by Samsung - which is the only company that has the capacity to deliver so many displays. According to a post in a Korean site a Samsung official says that indeed that's the case.

The Vita features a 5" touch AMOLED display (960x544), a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 processor and a quad-core PowerVR (SGX543MP4+) GPU (Sony says that it is as powerful as a PS3), Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and 3G (AT&T, optional). Gaming controls include dual analog sticks, motion controls and a multi-touch pad on the rear side. It will ship in the US and EU on February 22nd 2012, and will cost $249 for the Wi-Fi version and $299 for the 3G one.