(Credit: HKC)
For years, OLED has been the pinnacle of display technology for HDR movies, high-fidelity gaming, and just about anything else that needs color, contrast, and depth. But RGB MiniLED technology promises to be almost as good in every way, and at CES, display panel manufacturer HKC showed off an RGB MiniLED with almost 5,000 dimming zones.
As TechPowerUp reports, HKC touts its M10 Ultra monitor as the "world's first RGB-MiniLED monitor." We've seen a few of the big name TV makers launching huge RGB Mini-LED TVs, but monitors are a rarer sight.
(Credit: HKC)HKC's solution increases the number of dimming zones to an unprecedented 4,788. However, a December report from TFTCentral adds a light caveat to that numerical claim. With RGB-MiniLEDs providing more control over light, those dimming zones would be more equivalent to around 1,600 traditional dimming zones, but with more nuanced control over each of the colors in the band, since RGB MiniLED can control the light for each of the main colors individually.
The M10 Ultra measures 31.5 inches and sports a 4K resolution with a 165Hz refresh rate. It also comes with an alternate mode that lets you switch it to 1080p at up to 330Hz for high-speed esports gaming, although 1080p across 32 inches is going to lose a lot of pixel density and won't look anywhere near as good.
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It also sports a DisplayHDR 1400 certification, so should get very bright; reportedly up to 1,600 nits of peak brightness, and up to 1,000 nits when displaying full white across the whole screen, which I think would be enough to sear my eyeballs.
The only place this monitor falls short compared with OLED is response time. Where OLEDs typically sport response times in the sub-millisecond category, the M10 Ultra will be limited to a gray-to-gray response time of 2ms. That's perfectly fine for most gamers, but those wanting the most responsive gaming experience will probably still want OLED.
In another monitor example, HKC talked up its white MiniLED monitor technology as being capable of supporting up to 15,000 dimming zones. At that point, the difference between MiniLED and OLED is all but non-existent.