Consumer virtual reality is coming of age, at least Samsung thinks it is, and a tie-in with Facebook-owned Oculus and the new Samsung Gear VR for the Galaxy Note 4 is how it will deliver it. The head-mounted display is, as the rumors suggested, an adapter to turn a smartphone into a 3D wearable; I tried the system on for … Continue reading
Samsung has released a new 31.5” UHD monitor with a resolution of 3840 x 2160 which is aimed at designers and other professionals who need both ultra-high resolution and good color accuracy and calibration options. The 3840 x 2160 resolution is very close from 4K (4096 x 2160), but Samsung has been particularly diligent not to call it 4K, even if retailers or users might. The difference is small, but I wanted to mention it, just in case you hear people arguing about whether it is 4K or not. It’s not – but it is close enough.
The monitor is very well built. The façade looks clean and has thin bezels with sharp angles, with an aluminum-looking frame. The bezels are thin enough that I would consider them to be multi-monitor friendly if you were to line up several of these side by side.
In the back, there is a large silver panel. This looks like metal, but it’s actually plastic. It can be removed to access the VESA mount, which is great if you plan on mounting it on an LCD Arm. Many UHD monitors don’t come with this option to cut the price down, but once you’ve tasted an office setup with LCD Arms, it’s really hard to come back, believe me.
The stand is neatly designed and offers both vertical and directional tweaks. If you wonder, the monitor can also be rotated into portrait mode, which is great for things like publishing, programming and even web browsing. News sites like Ubergizmo look wonderful in portrait mode, I recommend to try it, ha-ha. The base of the stand makes the ensemble very stable and looks discrete enough to not attract attention. The top is flat, so you can put stuff on top of it if you need the extra space. These are little things, but a few more square inches of flat surface aren’t a bad thing at all.
We’ve looked at a number of photos, and out of the box, they appeared to have very natural colors. It’s hard to know exactly without doing extensive tests with known values, but overall, this monitor sits among the best UHD displays that we have seen on the market. At the high-end, color accuracy tends to be very good.
Technically, this monitor is capable of rendering 99.5% of the Adobe RGB gamut, and can accept 10-bit per channel data input if you have a graphics card capable of doing that. This means that it should be able to reproduce 1 Billion colors without color banding, when compared to a regular 8-bit per channel monitor (16.7M colors).
I was impressed by the brightness distribution of this monitor: it looked extremely consistent with no visible weak or strong spot. This is relatively rare since even $3000 UHD monitors can have uneven brightness which is visible with the naked eye. This is usually confirmed by using a light meter across the surface of the display, but I can often see these.
The brightness distribution is even more challenging when you think that this is a monitor that is edge-lit, which means that the light comes from the bezels, and is then distributed across the surface of the monitor. The easier way would be to place a grid of LED light behind the panel, but that has huge cost and size implications.
Obviously, looking at photos (which are typically 4K+) and watching 4K videos yielded a noticeably sharper result on the screen when compared to 1080p. People often wonder if the difference is visible when compared to 1080p displays, and yes, it definitely is. Try it for yourself if you have the opportunity to do so.
The UD970 has a view angle of 178 degrees, which is often the norm for these IPS-like LCD screens. This means that colleagues or clients looking at your monitor should perceive colors and brightness in nearly the same way as you do when sat right in front of it. This also means that if you have a second monitor like this in a multi-monitor setup, the color accuracy will be much more consistent as you look at it from an angle.
Finally, the full resolution of this monitor allows it to display up to four 1080p streams simultaneously. There’s also an option to have two side by side images coming from different signals.
It is possible to imagine that a 4-way split could be useful for things like high-end video surveillance. This seems very fancy, but if the video sources are 1080, that would be extremely sharp on the screen. The two-way split can have different color calibration, which may be nice to emulate how PC and Mac users perceive a specific design (the game is not the same between the two), or one section can be calibrated to emulate a printer output.
The Samsung UD970 UHD monitor should find its way to retail channels for about $2000, which is pretty aggressive for this category of Displays. It will compete with monitors like the Dell UP3214Q that we have reviewed recently. Both are extremely nice UHD monitors and at this moment, I haven’t had time to run the UD970 through its paces, but after playing with it, I would say that the image quality remains competitive, but the option of having it in portrait mode could sway some users.
It is very nice to see an influx of large UHD monitors, along with increased competition and price drops. If you have never used one of these, the work comfort is unbelievable. If you plan on using a multi-monitor setup, I recommend reading the UP3214Q review linked above since there are a few caveats that you should know ahead of time.
Samsung UD970 UHD Monitor Preview
, original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
When we talk about the issue of cookies, most of the time the regular man on the street would think of Famous Amos or other kinds of delicious cookies that are lovingly baked each day, and crunchy to the taste. For folks who live in a more digital world, constantly surrounded by smartphones, notebooks and tablets, the cookie will most probably evoke some sort of tracer or tracking whenever you browse through select websites. Well, here is something that deals with the latter, although the virtual has made the jump over to the physical realm – that is, the Physical Cookie system has been developed.
The Citycenter shopping center at Helsinki’s (which is in Finland) Makkaratalo complex is not any mere building, as it also comes with the kind of technological advances which will enrich consumers’ shopping experience. A company known as Pilot has developed and patented the Physical Cookie system, and this particular system is all set to enter the testing phase really soon.
The whole idea of the Physical Cookie system is to harness the power of technology in order to make the entire shopping experience a whole lot more pleasant, and at the same time, it will help unlock and increase the value of the tenants’ floor space. Rather than dealing with complaints on how online shopping is basically causing a massacre on all the little shops on the streets, how about drawing inspiration from online technology as well as churning out new innovations? The Physical Cookie will bring the best lessons from online shopping into the stores themselves.
The keychain that you see above is known as the Citycenter VIP Key, where customers can unlock an entire new digital level for the traditional shopping experience. Holders of the VIP Key will be entitled to exclusive offers and events, where they gain special and first-class treatment. The digital monitors over at the shopping center will be able to recognize the VIP Key holders, where they will then take advantage of special benefits and offers generated just for them, based on one’s shopping history. People are not identified, just the keychain, so you can be sure that your privacy is protected totally.
Press Release
[ Physical Cookie system developed copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
If I am playing a game on my iPhone, it’s probably Plague Inc. I love trying to infect the world with one sort of disease or another to win the game. A new game has landed for both iOS and Android gamers called Bio Inc. that like a kindred spirit to Plague Inc. in that you get to create and tweak your own illnesses to try to kill off a human.
Bio Inc. has 12 different stages with different types of game play. Players can tweak 100 realistic medical conditions. Your disease will spread across all human systems and players can see the body degrade in real-time.
Three difficulty settings make the game as challenging as you want. You can download the Android version of the game right now on Google Play and the iOS version from the iTunes App Store.
Asus has announced its first smartwatch at IFA in Berlin. Shuning the fashionable round faces of Moto and the like, this watch has a whole heap of home-grown software and a hefty price, too.
And you thought the days of the netbook were done in the wake of the tablet takeover. Think again. It’s using IFA to launch the EeeBook X205, a netbook in all but name, that will cost $200.
If you’re smart home-curious, Belkin’s WeMo line of outlet and light switches is a great gateway drug into the world of home automation, and several of the most popular models are on sale right now.
In just a few short minutes, Samsung will begin its keynote presentation at IFA, Europe’s version of CES, which is America’s version of “hey look at all these fancy new gadgets.” While the headliner should be an updated Galaxy Note , Samsung’s never been shy about peddling out a whole lot of screen sizes and seeing what sticks.
The headline says it all, really: Samsung is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, companies here at IFA, and it’s about to unveil some shiny new stuff. Join us at 9AM ET today as the tech giant holds its annual “Unpacked” event. Will we see a new…
Though the effectiveness of quantum computing is highly disputed right now, that hasn’t deterred Google from throwing more money at it. Mountain View just announced that it’s backing another effort to build a new breed of quantum processors with…
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
