Enlarge/ Dell’s 6K USB-C monitor was the one of the most tantalizing displays at CES 2023.
Scharon Harding
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) never fails to deliver a pile of new gadgets and gizmos, but finding products that bring something new and valuable to the table can be a real challenge. CES 2023 had its share of product refreshes, clones, and minor updates, but this year also proved there’s still some “wow” factor to be found at the tech show.
And that includes the event’s PC monitor selection. All the monitors on this list are promised to be real products coming out this year. Better yet, they all have some unique features that aren’t readily available to consumers today.
Here are the seven most intriguing monitors from CES 2023.
Asus ProArt Display OLED PA32DCM
Enlarge/ An office-appropriate OLED screen, plus a base that’s half the size of its predecessor.
Asus
I ended 2022 begging for a better OLED monitor selection in 2023. Those pleas have already started to be answered.
There haven’t been too many OLED monitors smaller than 40 inches. That has meant limited OLED options for people looking for something to put on their desks for productivity and creative work. CES 2023 brought several desktop-sized OLED monitors, but most target PC gamers. That includes Acer’s Predator X27U (27 inches), Asus’ ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM (27 inches), and MSI’s MEG 342c QD-OLED (34-inch ultrawide).
Asus’ ProArt Display OLED PA32DCM is a 31.5-inch 4K monitor aimed at creative professionals. Asus’ blog markets the panel toward photographers, filmmakers, and people working with HDR content, comparing it to a reference display. It attempts to earn that not-so-humble brag with a claimed color error of Delta E <1 (many premium monitors claim a Delta E of <2 or 3). Asus also says the display has 99 percent DCI-P3 color coverage and a max brightness of 700 nits.
The company touts the OLED screen’s use of an RGB stripe panel rather than RGBW, which can hurt text clarity, particularly in RGB-optimized Windows or the much-maligned PenTile layout. The tech is also different from that seen in the QD-OLED monitors that started releasing last year, largely targeting gamers seeking vibrant colors. It’s exciting to see a new productivity-focused OLED option besides LG’s UltraFine OLED monitors hit the market.
Asus said it’s looking to get the PA32DCM VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification, which guarantees 500 nits in a 10 percent pattern and 300 nits full-screen with an ultra-low black level. That would help set it apart from LG’s OLED.
Some monitors announced at CES 2023 feature 140 W USB-C Power Delivery (PD), so the PA32DCM’s 90 W Thunderbolt 4 port isn’t very impressive. It’s still sufficient for powering many ultralight PCs, though. We don’t know the full port selection yet, but there should be a 15 W Thunderbolt 4 port and HDMI.
Asus didn’t reveal the monitor’s price but said it would come out in the first quarter of the year.
Dell UltraSharp U3224KB
Enlarge/ This 6K screen should be cheaper than Apple’s Pro Display XDR.
Scharon Harding
For pixel addicts seeking more space for multitasking, Dell’s UltraSharp 32 6K monitor (U3224KB) is the most exciting display to come out of CES 2023. The 31.5-inch display has a 6144×3456 resolution for an impressive pixel density of 223.77 pixels per inch (ppi). That’s 44 percent more pixels than a 5K monitor like the Apple Studio Display or the Samsung ViewFinity 5K, which was announced at CES 2023. The UltraSharp even packs more pixels than Apple’s Pro Display XDR (32 inches, 6016×3384).
The Vibrant colors popped when I went hands-on with the monitor. Its high resolution made images extra sharp and striking while providing additional space for the many tools and windows a creative may need. The screen also seemed plenty bright in decently lit rooms and exhibited strong image quality from side viewing angles.
But despite being more pixel-dense, the U3224KB will have a lot to prove to its target audience: video editing professionals and others working with 4K content. The monitor’s resolution is the most extreme part of the panel technology; it uses IPS Black technology, which I’ve seen effectively boost image quality over traditional IPS displays. It doesn’t deliver as much contrast as a strong VA panel, though, and it’s far behind Mini LED or OLED in that regard. Shoppers will compare the 6K screen to the current Pro Display XDR, which claims to hit 1,600 nits in HDR mode and has 576 local dimming zones to the U3224KB’s 12.
Still, the U3224KB has the versatility many Apple products forego. That includes a USB4 USB-C port with 140 W PD, the highest we’ve seen a monitor offer. Dell’s screen will also pair more easily with multiple systems. It supports Windows PCs and Mac devices and has a vast port selection and KVM switch.
Dell is hoping to win in the videoconferencing era, packing the monitor with a massive integrated 4K webcam, a pair of 14 W speakers, and two noise-canceling microphones. And for an easy one-up on the Pro Display XDR, it comes with a stand.
Enlarge/ The camera’s physical shutter can be set to open when a video app opens and close when you’re done.
Scharon Harding
There’s no price yet, but the U3224KB should be cheaper than the current Pro Display XDR, which starts at $4,999 without a stand. The monitor should be out by the end of June.
Lenovo ThinkVision P27pz-30 and P32pz-30
Mini LED will become a more reasonable option when these monitors come out.
Lenovo
For the many who aren’t sold on OLED or don’t have the budget for it, Mini LED is a top consideration for boosting image quality over your typical monitor. A Mini LED backlight doesn’t yield OLED-level contrast, but it’s the next best thing. Mini LED monitor prices have been falling, and they’re already lower than OLED screens while carrying a smaller risk of bloom than what we see in LCD-LED monitors.
That’s partially why Lenovo’s new Mini LED monitors made a splash at CES: They hail from Lenovo’s business-focused ThinkVision line and target productivity users. They should also be the cheapest monitors of their class upon release, making work-ready Mini LED more attainable than it was last year.
The Lenovo ThinkVision P27pz-30 and P32pz-30 are 27 and 31.5-inch 4K monitors. Lenovo expects the smaller one to cost 1,699 euros (it hasn’t confirmed US pricing yet) and the bigger one to be $1,599. Each monitor will have 1,152 dimming zones, a typical brightness of 600 nits, and a peak brightness of 1,200 nits in HDR mode. They are DisplayHDR 1000-certified.
While we wait for these monitors, those interested in an office-appropriate Mini LED panel have limited options. One of the closest competitors is Lenovo’s $2,399 ThinkVision Creator Extreme. It’s 27 inches and has the same number of dimming zones as the upcoming, lower-priced displays. There’s also the 32-inch Asus ProArt Display PA32UCR-K, which carries a $1,499 MSRP but only has half the dimming zones as Lenovo’s upcoming monitors.
Like Dell’s 6K monitor above, the ThinkVision displays should also have enough juice to power a workstation-level system. With 140 W power delivery, the Mini LED monitors have something that no other Mini LED monitor currently offers. Even Lenovo’s own ThinkVision Creator Extreme maxes out at 90 W.
One downside is the monitor’s reported contrast of 1,000:1. That’s normal for even a quality IPS screen, but other monitors surpass that number, particularly IPS Black monitors like the Dell UltraSharp U3223QZ, which hit 1,600:1 with max brightness and default settings in our testing.
Asus ZenScreen MB249C
Enlarge/ A handle on the backside prompts Asus to call this 24-inch monitor portable.
Asus
Think of a portable monitor. Is it a cute, slender thing that’s only about the size of a laptop display? Asus has another image in mind. In the ZenScreen MB249C’s case, it’s a display that’s big enough to be a desktop monitor but lithe enough to carry about via the handle built into its backside.
Yes, Asus is marketing its 23.8-inch MB249C as a portable monitor because of how easily it moves around and sets up. Asus sees people carrying the 6.17-pound, 0.7-inch-thick display from the office to a meeting or from the living room to the home office, for example.
Once you get to a new location, you can use the handle as a kickstand. An included C-clamp lets the monitor perform 7.09-inch height and Z-axis adjustments. Asus says a “quick-release” mechanism will ensure you can de-clamp the display easily, and the monitor can come bundled with a “partition hook kit” for setting up the display in additional ways.
Enlarge/ How would you use a 23.8-inch portable monitor?
Asus
But no matter how many setup tricks Asus incorporates, a 6-pound, nearly 24-inch screen is a lot for someone to carry daily, and the hook kit only increases the burden.
As you might expect, this isn’t the most highly specced display, either. It’s an IPS panel with a 1920×1080 resolution and just 92.56 ppi. It seems more like a secondary—or even tertiary—type of monitor.
Part monitor, part PC, all-in-one (AIO) systems haven’t been very exciting over the last couple of years. Following 2021’s update to the 24-inch iMac and Apple killing the 27-inch iMac, there have been very few AIOs that could entice power users. Last year, Lenovo’s CES booth showed an AIO, but it wasn’t made available in North America. This year is different with the Yoga AIO 9i.
The computer comes with an Intel Core i9-13900H (six performance cores at 2.6–5.4 GHz, eight efficiency cores at 1.9–4.1 GHz, and 20 threads) or i9-13700H (six performance cores at 2.4–5 GHz, eight efficiency cores at 1.8–3.7 GHz, and 20 threads) and, according to Lenovo’s press materials, an optional, next-gen Nvidia laptop GPU—according to NotebookCheck, it will be the RTX 4050. It’s the only AIO announced at CES for the US that doesn’t rely solely on integrated graphics. The system also supports up to 32GB of LPDDR5 memory and 1TB of SSD storage.
Proving AIOs can still excite, the Yoga packs in some rare features. Its base is air-ventilated, as that’s where almost all the components are, save for the speakers (there are two 2 W tweeters and two 5 W woofers). The base also has a built-in Qi charger, though Lenovo hasn’t confirmed its max charging abilities. But considering how long people sit at their monitors, the screen’s base isn’t a bad place for an easy charging spot, even if it’s not your fastest charger.
Enlarge/ With USB4 and HDMI 2.1 out, the AIO can be a PC or a second monitor for a different computer.
Scharon Harding
In a press demo, Lenovo showed the striking metal hinge at work, providing a sleek alternative to boring monitor stands and enabling backward and forward tilts.
But what about the display? It’s a 31.5-inch IPS panel that Lenovo claims has 100 percent sRGB coverage and up to 600 nits peak brightness per its DisplayHDR 600 certification.
Lenovo’s AIO will start at $1,800 in Q3.
Samsung Odyssey Neo G9
Enlarge/ 16.6 million pixels and Mini LED technology in a 57-inch frame make the G9 one of CES’s most extreme monitors.
Samsung
There’s nothing like wandering the halls of CES while gawking at the massive screens, and this year’s Monster Monitor Award goes to Samsung’s 57-inch Odyssey Neo G9. It takes more than a large panel to impress, though, and the G9 has other unique attributes earning it a spot here.
Continuing the “more is more” theme, the G9 is an 8K horizontal screen. With a 32:9 aspect ratio, that’s 7680×2160 pixels for a sufficient pixel density but not wildly impressive at 139.96 ppi. These specs let Samsung claim the G9 as the first “dual 4K Mini LED monitor,” though.
Mini LED—now there’s something truly impressive. As mentioned above, while Mini LED monitors aren’t as contrast-rich as OLED ones, they’re as close as you can get, and they’re much cheaper.
Critical information about this monitor, like how many dimming zones it has, is missing, however (the 2022 Neo G9 has 2,048 dimming zones across its 49-inch Mini LED display). We also don’t know what type of panel the monitor uses. SamMobile, which tried out the monitor, suspects it’s VA. If that’s true, there’s a lot of potential; I’ve seen high-contrast VA Mini LED monitors that are impressive OLED replacements. Mini LED tech instead of OLED also increases the G9’s brightness potential, with Samsung claiming the monitor can get up to 1,000 nits in HDR.
A hands-on of the monitor by CNN said the display created a more immersive feel than typical gaming monitors can give thanks to its engulfing size, 1000R curve, and 240 Hz refresh rates over DisplayPort 2.1. SamMobile saw the display as great for racing games and flight simulators. The monitor’s curve is one of the most extreme available, though, precluding it from being a TV replacement.
Samsung’s G9 proves that over-the-top CES displays can be more than just ginormous. The monitor will be available in Q2.
Asus Swift Pro PG248QP
Enlarge/ Through overclocking, this is CES’ fastest monitor.
Asus
What would a tech trade show be without a new super-speedy display? This year, the magic number is 540. Asus’ ROG Swift PG248QP earns the honor as the fastest monitor at the show, with a 500 Hz native refresh rate, overclockable to 540 Hz.
The PG248QP’s native refresh rate edges out Alienware’s new AW2524H, which has a 480 Hz refresh rate that can overclock to 500 Hz. Asus says its speedy screen produces lag as little as 2 ms, or 1.85 ms when overclocked. Compare that to a 60 Hz (16 ms), 144 Hz (6.9 ms), or 360 Hz (2.78 ms) monitor, and you’ll start to see the appeal for the ultra-competitive gamer.
Asus teased this monitor in April, saying it uses a new take on the twisted nematic (TN) LCD panel; the company calls it “eSports TN” (E-TN). At the time, Asus said E-TN had a 60 percent better response time than traditional TN, but we’ve yet to hear specifics on how exactly the technology works.
The PG248QP is aimed at pro-level gamers who seek to minimize lag, even if it costs resolution and image quality. But that sacrifice may mean an inferior experience when not competing compared to IPS and VA monitors, as TN is known for weaker color reproduction and worse viewing angles.
Unfortunately, Asus isn’t tagging in the high-speed IPS technology it announced at CES 2022 with the 2560×1440 ROG Swift 360 Hz PG27AQN. As niche as you’d expect a 540 Hz monitor to be, the PG248QP looks even more polarizing due to its use of TN tech.
Ultimately, testing will prove just how much image quality is lost, though, and TN should help keep the monitor’s price lower. For those with systems capable of pushing ludicrous frame rates but who are also willing to sacrifice a tiny bit of speed, Alienware’s AW2524H achieves a 480 Hz native refresh rate via a 24.5-inch IPS screen.
Asus didn’t share a price for what is poised to be the fastest monitor of the year. It should come out in Q2.
MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Dollarama Inc.’s food aisles may have expanded far beyond sweet treats or piles of gum by the checkout counter in recent years, but its chief executive maintains his company is “not in the grocery business,” even if it’s keeping an eye on the sector.
“It’s just one small part of our store,” Neil Rossy told analysts on a Wednesday call, where he was questioned about the company’s food merchandise and rivals playing in the same space.
“We will keep an eye on all retailers — like all retailers keep an eye on us — to make sure that we’re competitive and we understand what’s out there.”
Over the last decade and as consumers have more recently sought deals, Dollarama’s food merchandise has expanded to include bread and pantry staples like cereal, rice and pasta sold at prices on par or below supermarkets.
However, the competition in the discount segment of the market Dollarama operates in intensified recently when the country’s biggest grocery chain began piloting a new ultra-discount store.
The No Name stores being tested by Loblaw Cos. Ltd. in Windsor, St. Catharines and Brockville, Ont., are billed as 20 per cent cheaper than discount retail competitors including No Frills. The grocery giant is able to offer such cost savings by relying on a smaller store footprint, fewer chilled products and a hearty range of No Name merchandise.
Though Rossy brushed off notions that his company is a supermarket challenger, grocers aren’t off his radar.
“All retailers in Canada are realistic about the fact that everyone is everyone’s competition on any given item or category,” he said.
Rossy declined to reveal how much of the chain’s sales would overlap with Loblaw or the food category, arguing the vast variety of items Dollarama sells is its strength rather than its grocery products alone.
“What makes Dollarama Dollarama is a very wide assortment of different departments that somewhat represent the old five-and-dime local convenience store,” he said.
The breadth of Dollarama’s offerings helped carry the company to a second-quarter profit of $285.9 million, up from $245.8 million in the same quarter last year as its sales rose 7.4 per cent.
The retailer said Wednesday the profit amounted to $1.02 per diluted share for the 13-week period ended July 28, up from 86 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
The period the quarter covers includes the start of summer, when Rossy said the weather was “terrible.”
“The weather got slightly better towards the end of the summer and our sales certainly increased, but not enough to make up for the season’s horrible start,” he said.
Sales totalled $1.56 billion for the quarter, up from $1.46 billion in the same quarter last year.
Comparable store sales, a key metric for retailers, increased 4.7 per cent, while the average transaction was down2.2 per cent and traffic was up seven per cent, RBC analyst Irene Nattel pointed out.
She told investors in a note that the numbers reflect “solid demand as cautious consumers focus on core consumables and everyday essentials.”
Analysts have attributed such behaviour to interest rates that have been slow to drop and high prices of key consumer goods, which are weighing on household budgets.
To cope, many Canadians have spent more time seeking deals, trading down to more affordable brands and forgoing small luxuries they would treat themselves to in better economic times.
“When people feel squeezed, they tend to shy away from discretionary, focus on the basics,” Rossy said. “When people are feeling good about their wallet, they tend to be more lax about the basics and more willing to spend on discretionary.”
The current economic situation has drawn in not just the average Canadian looking to save a buck or two, but also wealthier consumers.
“When the entire economy is feeling slightly squeezed, we get more consumers who might not have to or want to shop at a Dollarama generally or who enjoy shopping at a Dollarama but have the luxury of not having to worry about the price in some other store that they happen to be standing in that has those goods,” Rossy said.
“Well, when times are tougher, they’ll consider the extra five minutes to go to the store next door.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
TORONTO – The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered TD Bank Group to pay US$28 million for repeatedly sharing inaccurate, negative information about its customers to consumer reporting companies.
The agency says TD has to pay US$7.76 million in total to tens of thousands of victims of its illegal actions, along with a US$20 million civil penalty.
It says TD shared information that contained systemic errors about credit card and bank deposit accounts to consumer reporting companies, which can include credit reports as well as screening reports for tenants and employees and other background checks.
CFPB director Rohit Chopra says in a statement that TD threatened the consumer reports of customers with fraudulent information then “barely lifted a finger to fix it,” and that regulators will need to “focus major attention” on TD Bank to change its course.
TD says in a statement it self-identified these issues and proactively worked to improve its practices, and that it is committed to delivering on its responsibilities to its customers.
The bank also faces scrutiny in the U.S. over its anti-money laundering program where it expects to pay more than US$3 billion in monetary penalties to resolve.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
