What Display Daily thinks: We will have more coverage of CES 2024 over the coming weeks, giving ourselves some distance from the event to come up with a meaningful assessment away from the bright lights of Vegas. In the meantime, I thought it might be interesting to get some first impressions, something more general. CES is a spark at the beginning of each year, a sort of statement event for the consumer electronics industry and it tries to set the agenda for what to expect in 2024.
The first thing to say is that CES was successful as far as the organizers were concerned. Attendance was significant, 135,000 visitors, the show floors were better organized and laid out then I have seen in years past, and it felt like a major event. We’ve been seen a lot of that happening with these major events now that pandemic restrictions are no longer in the way. It’s a release of pent-up demand for in-person events. Whether the sentiment lasts into the future is anyone’s guess. Obviously, a lot of big name companies, like Apple and Microsoft, don’t rely on the kind of presence that they used to have, and it may be that beyond this post-pandemic surge, budgets will tighten again.
So, it was not a North American trade show by any means because the major US tech companies didn’t have a dominating presence. Samsung, LG, and Sony dominated the main hall with their booths, with TCL and Hisense following closely behind. European and Asian companies had the strongest presence. The media rooms were packed with journalists, analysts, and influencers from around the world, and the coverage of the event was pretty broad. While AI dominated some of the themes of the coverage, as did automotive, it is a consumer electronics show and there were plenty of gadgets to discover. If there is one criticism of the event it is that it is too broad, putting robot lawnmowers next to smart glasses.
A lot of the press was pre-briefed and hence the coverage was more a reflection of the power of the companies doing the promotion than the actual impact on the show floor. Sure, there was automotive and AI at the show but I was overwhelmed and underwhelmed by the number of Alt Reality companies on the show floor. Overwhelmed by the number and presence, and underwhelmed by the actual offerings. Having said that, the general audience seemed to be flocking to the demos and showing genuine interest in the technologies on display.
You can become a little jaded by the discussions we have had on these pages about Alt Reality display technology, but that shouldn’t take away from the fact that the non-presence of Apple, and an imminent, February 2, launch of the Vision Pro created a groundswell of interest in headsets and smart glasses. Could it be a fear of missing out? It was probably the most I have seen invested in a general event by Alt Reality companies which goes to the gist of the title of this piece, what you show doesn’t matter, meaning what was not shown did matter. That’s was the case with the Vision Pro when it comes to the Alt Reality presence at CES 2024.
The Display Presence: More Than TVs
Fortunately, we are beginning to see more and more emphasis on displays as being about lots of different things and not just a showcase of TVs. TVs are still there, and they do draw the eye and the crowds, but so did automotive displays, Alt Reality displays, transparent displays, rollables and foldables, digital signage, and virtual production. Samsung and LG dominated the main show floor with their presence, and they drew the crowds in with eye-popping presentations. For LG, its wall of transparent displays was probably the show floor winner, and for Samsung, there were crowds lined up to enter its encapsulated booth, one way in and one way out. This was probably by design and it worked, generating swarms of traffic through the booth.
Sony, on the other hand, was all about entertainment with the PlayStation at its core and areas for motion capture and virtual production juxtaposed with a collaboration between it and Honda on in-car display systems. Sony’s booth was minimalist, or as minimalist as you can get with that amount of real estate on a CES show floor, but the company did tie up all of its technologies in a seamless way, a branding of its combination of sensors and image processing silicon, gaming subsytems, and technology exclusivity. And, unlike the Korean and Chinese companies, there was much less emphasis on the sustainability and ecological soundness of its products.
I was impressed by the product layout at TCL, and the fact that there was a bank of attending product support people available to talk about everything on display. Hisense seemed to be the most TV-oriented presentation on the show floor, and this may anecdotal but you certainly would get a feel that you were at the Hisense booth to talk about TVs. Granted Samsung, LG, TCL and Hisense also produce other consumer electronics products for the home and there was room for all of them – fridges, washing machines and the like – but Hisense was manned to expand its distribution of TVs judging by the people doing most of the talking at its booth. Again, purely anecdotal, but probably not that far being a true reflection of the priorities of the companies. What wasn’t on show was a real game changer product. And that was quite telling.
LG made a splash with transparent displays and I think it is paying off for them in the coverage. Samsung really hammered home MicroLED chops. But none of it really reflected a sense of what is going to drive the market in 2024. We don’t have a must have display product, but we have plenty of display technologies that drive our interest. Is that a note of caution or uncertainty in what to expect in 2024? Or it is just mitigating the risks of overpromising and under-delivering during a year that is expected to be better than the last but still remains uncertain?
I will add that there was a significant sense of opportunities for gaming monitors. OLED gaming monitors, curved displays, and a general appetite for gaming products gave more prominence to the gaming displays being shown at the show. It could also be that the nature of the promotions and kind of content that gets clicks these days on tech sites is heavily biased towards gaming and entertainment. Time will tell.
| A Sampling of Gaming Monitors at CES 2024 | |
| Acer Predator SpatialLabs View 27 | A 27” 4K gaming monitor capable of switching between 2D and 3D content, providing an immersive gaming experience without the need for glasses. |
| Acer Predator Z57 | A 57-inch super-ultrawide Mini-LED monitor with a 7680×2160 resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. It features a Mini-LED backlight with 2,304 dimming zones and is VESA DisplayHDR 1000 certified. Priced at $2,499.99, available |
| Alienware 32 4K QD-OLED Gaming Monitor | Offers immersive OLED color and gaming performance with a sharp 4K resolution, suitable for a variety of gaming setups. |
| Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDP | A 26.5-inch monitor with a 480 Hz refresh rate and a 1440p resolution, making it the fastest OLED monitor ever announced. It uses an LG Display WOLED panel with a microlens array for increased brightness. This monitor is particularly suited for competitive gamers. The release is expected in the second quarter of the year, but pricing is not yet confirmed. |
| Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDP | A 27-inch 1440p OLED monitor with a 480Hz refresh rate and Micro Lens Array (MLA) technology, boosting peak brightness to 1,300 nits. Shipping is expected in the second half of 2024. |
| Asus ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDP | Similar to the LG UltraGear 32GS95UE, this monitor can also switch from a 4K resolution at 240 Hz to 1080p at 480 Hz. It’s certified by the Video Electronics Standard Association (VESA) for its dual-mode capabilities. The release is scheduled for the second half of the year, with pricing yet to be set. |
| Asus ROG Swift OLED PG39WCDM | A 39-inch curved OLED monitor with a 3440×1440 resolution and a 240Hz refresh rate. It uses MLA technology for peak brightness of up to 1,300 nits. Includes USB-C port with Power Delivery, KVM switch, and picture modes. Shipping expected in the first quarter of 2024; price not yet announced. |
| Asus ZenBook Duo | A dual 3K OLED display laptop with an innovative design, including a pop-off keyboard deck and multiple usage modes. |
| Asus ZenScreen Fold OLED MQ17QH | A 17.3-inch portable OLED monitor that can fold in half to a 12.5-inch display size. It’s expected to be the first foldable-screen OLED monitor, featuring a thickness of 0.38 inches when open and lightweight design. The expected price is about $2,000, and it’s set to release in Q2’24. |
| Dell UltraSharp 40 Curved Thunderbolt Hub Monitor (U4025QW) | A 39.7-inch ultrawide monitor with a 5120×2160 resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate. It includes an integrated ambient light sensor and has received a 5-star certification from TÜV Rheinland’s new Eye Comfort program. The monitor uses IPS Black technology and ComfortView Plus for reduced blue light exposure. Priced at $2,400 and set to release on February 27. |
| Dell Ultrasharp U3425WE Display | A 34” WQHD display with a high refresh rate and excellent color coverage, featuring a built-in Thunderbolt 4 Hub. |
| LG UltraGear 32GS95UE | A monitor that can switch from a native 3840×2160 resolution at 240 Hz to 480 Hz by dropping the resolution down to 1080p. It’s designed for different gaming needs, allowing users to select between high-resolution gaming and ultra-fast refresh rates. Release date and pricing are not confirmed. |
| MSI MEG 321UPX | A 31.5-inch QD-OLED monitor featuring AI accelerator SkySight, which adds gameplay enhancements like enemy direction indicators. It’s designed for competitive gaming and includes features like smart crosshairs and Optix Scope, an on-screen magnifier. The monitor also has a Spectrum Bar, an integrated RGB light bar that changes color based on in-game health. The release is planned for spring 2024, with pricing yet to be announced. |
| MSI MEG 321URX | A 32-inch 4K 240Hz OLED monitor using Samsung’s QD-OLED panel. It features AI-enhanced gaming elements, including a lighting element for health bar detection and Skysight for highlighting off-screen enemies. Priced at $1,799, expected to arrive in June or July 2024. |
| MSI Modern MD242UPW | A practical 24-inch 4K office monitor with USB-C Power Delivery, a KVM switch, and built-in speakers. Ideal for productivity, especially with laptops that have USB-C. Pricing and availability are yet to be announced. |
| MSI Titan 18 HX | A high-end laptop with powerful specs, including an Intel Core i9 processor, 128GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPU, featuring the world’s first 4K 120Hz mini LED laptop display, claims the company. |
| Samsung Odyssey G6 OLED (G60SD) | A 27-inch 1440p OLED monitor with a 360Hz refresh rate, focusing on motion clarity. Pricing and availability are not announced but expected to be around $1,000 or less. |
| Samsung Odyssey G8 OLED (G80SD) | A 4K 240Hz QD-OLED monitor, emphasizing image quality with a sharp, high-contrast display. It has a practical design with a great ergonomic stand, two HDMI 2.1 ports, one DisplayPort, and a USB hub. Pricing and availability are not yet announced but expected between $1,000 and $1,300. |
The Opacity of AI
Of course, it could also be that AI is the buzz making tech of the day and that’s where you put your biggest emphasis. But AI is opaque, and has a lot of questions surrounding its use versus the hype of its opportunity. What was clear from CES 2024 is that AI is a feature looking for an application. By that I mean that for consumer electronics companies it is not clear how they add value to AI other than through some sort of mechanism to use it to enhance performance of TVs, sensors, or other devices or as service that will be inevitable and require hardware acceleration and support to be more effective.
But, there was very little indication of what the killer AI products are outside of what we already have with things like Bard and ChatGPT. However, that does not mean that AI is not going to change things in the industry. It most certainly will. There is every possibility that it changes the human-computer interaction and moves us beyond the ubiquitous WIMP interface that we have all become accustomed to using. Does that mean that voice control takes over? It’s not likely if only because we have voice assistance – pretty good applications of the technology already exist – yet, it is impractical to rely on its use. The lack of privacy, the intrusive nature, and the need to learn how to talk in a certain way to get the best results. As it stands, there was little clarityy as to what the path is to success with AI in consumer electronics. For now, you can slap on the moniker for any FPGA or image processor you stick in your TV and it’s good enough.
