We reported extensively on Sharp’s changes in Europe last week (Sharp Explains its Reorganisation and Restructuring in Europe), but this week at Gitex, we looked at products. Sharp said that it would start to sell an 85″ TV with 8K resolution (http://tinyurl.com/nhmgleo), but at the show it had an 80″ display, the 80XU930X. The monitor has local dimming, although local staff could not identify how many regions were supported and told us that the unit will be available “later this year”. Performance looked a lot better than some of the 8K LCDs that we have previously seen and that may be a result of the local dimming.
The next monitor was the 120″ PN-H120 which is an UltraHD unit. The company has previously shown the 120″ as a technology demonstration, for example at CES, but the product now has a part number and will be available for purchase in “early 2016”. Pricing will be somewhere around $250,000, so the monitor is only for those that really need the size. We would also expect there to be quite a lot of challenges in shipping and handling, as Panasonic found with its 100″ and 152″ PDPs.
An alternative to big single displays is the development of ultra-narrow bezel panels and Sharp was showing a new 70″ panel that is expected to be available in Q3 of 2016 and will have final image gaps of less than 5mm and is also likely to have brightness of 700cd/m² although final specifications are likely to be available nearer to shipment.
Next, we looked at the high brightness panels that Sharp talked about last week and is expected to be used in dynamic digital signage applications in, for example, shop windows. In shopping malls, a lot of money is spent putting displays into showcases to make the most of the wall space in the malls. Replacing static displays with LCDs allows not only dynamic displays, but with the addition of Kinect-style gesture recognition (as we saw last week), the consumer can interact with the display.
Sharp had an area devoted to showing how its displays could be used in cinemas, a target market, and the demonstration included a Sharp 19.5″ touch display, used to perform transactions, but also to allow customers to look at the previews and posters of forthcoming attractions on an adjacent LFD.
The PN-VW651 is a new professional monitor with 65″ diagonal and 660cd/m². Resolution is FullHD and native contrast is 4,000:1. Sharp was highlighting the weight at 39kg. The PN-VW501 is a 50″ set with 500cd/m² of brightness and FullHD, but using edge lighting. Both of these products are said to be already available in the market.
A further new model is the PN-H801 which can support UltraHD resolution and can be used in landscape and portrait modes. It will be available in Q1 and because of the higher resolution, the brightness may be below the 500cd/m² brightness level. The product will sit in the range above the 70″ PN-H701 (which has 400cd/m²).
Sharp showed its small displays including E Ink typeAfter looking at the demos of the Big Pad and other touch products, we looked at Sharp’s 7″, 10″ and E Ink based displays for meeting room control and other monitoring applications.
The final area was education and the emphasis was on how different (65″, 70″ or 80″) could be used as alternatives or in combination with Sharp’s latest software, which is also available in Arabic. An iPad was being used to control BYOD mobile devices and the main display.
