What They Say
Dell has made available a new OLED display option for its flagship XPS 13 notebook. The display has 3456 x 2160 resolution (a bit squarer than UltraHD and 16:10 aspect ratio). Contrast is quoted at 100,000:1 and it supports 100% of DCI P3. It supports the DisplayHDR 500 TrueBlack certification and has an AR coating with just 0.65% reflectance. The option adds $300 to the US price of the FullHD version (there is also an UltraHD LCD version with touch).
What We Think
Dell has offered OLEDs before on the XPS 13, but not on the current version. Samsung is looking to really boost its sales of OLEDs for IT applications this year, so I think we can expect more activity in notebooks.
The DisplayHDR 500 True Black certificate mandates a peak brightness of 500 cd/m². On a rehearsal for the forthcoming CEO Forum at SID Display Week, one of the CEOs talked about the importance of ‘lust for new products’ as an important driver of new business, in addition to the ‘elimination of pain points’. If you haven’t seen an OLED notebook and don’t want to have to buy one. Once you have seen the great display, it’s hard to go back. In this way, it’s a bit like the change from anti-glare panels to gloss panels in consumer notebooks a few years ago. Once one brand (was it Acer?) had a unit on the shelf, it stood out from the rest. Very soon, everyone had gone to glare displays, even though, arguably, they were bad for ergonomics, so not appropriate for commercial notebooks. (BR)
