HP was not on the show floor or even at the Venetian (like Dell and Lenovo) was at several of the evening events at CES and had a number of different announcements at the show.
The first product that we looked at was a new HP Z 3D Camera which is like the camera that is integrated into the Sprout 3D workstation product (CES Unveiled: Technology Showcase) but will now be available as a standalone accessory for other PCs. It will cost $599 and will be available in March in the US, later in other regions.
A highlight of the demos at the events was the BFGD gaming display. This 65″ UltraHD display was developed by Nvidia as a reference design with AU Optronics, which made the panel. The display is designed to be quick, with low latency and running at a true 120Hz (no MEMC) and supporting Nvidia’s GSync technology to control the frame rate down to 24fps for movie content. Nvidia said that the monitor have the same latency as the best current gaming monitors. The display supports HDR with peak brightness of 1,000 cd/m² based on full array local dimming (FALD) direct backlights. The panel is fitted with QD film and can support a full P3 gamut and the set has an integrated Nvidia Shield system to support OTT video content (and HDMI, mainly for external audio).
The monitor was very impressive and staff that we were trying to talk to were continuously being tempted back to play on it! At the show, HP was not able to supply dates or pricing for the monitor, but did believe that it was feasible to make a commercial product and the press materials talked about the Omen X65 monitor.
Nvidia’s BFGD reference design was shown at HP, Asus and Acer. Image:Meko
HP was also demonstrating GeForce Now at the show. This is a ‘virtual GPU’ service that is in development and was initially available as a beta only to Mac users. However, the platform is now being made available to PC users to play games (the list of supported titles is here)
Also new at the show were the Spectre x360 15, claimed as the world’s most powerful convertible PC, with a 15.6″ Gorilla Glass 4 UltraHD touch display and built around an 8th Gen Intel Core i7 8705G processor with Radeon RX Vega M or an Nvidia MX150 GPU. Battery life is 13.5 hours with the Nvidia, 12 hours with the AMD and the PC has a smart charge mode that can reach 50% in 20 minutes or 90% in 90 minutes. The unit is 19.5mm thick and weighs 4.62lbs (2.1kg).
The company was also showing the ‘Always-Connected PC’ that it announced at the end of 2017 (HP Has Qualcomm-based 2-in-1) and it certainly looks very usable, based on the brief look that we had at the unit. It has a 2:1 aspect ratio (1920 x 1280) and is claimed to have a 22 hour battery life. Pricing is still TBD.
Analyst Comment
We didn’t have a chance, of course, to measure the BFGD display, but, subjectively, we couldn’t see any smearing and the samples that we saw at HP and also at Asus looked very fast. (BR)
