Toshiba's 22-inch monitor touts insane 3,840 x 2,400 resolution (and price)

Ready for yet another 22-inch LCD? How 'bout if it was pumping 4 times as many pixels as just about every other monitor in its class? We're talking 3,840 x 2,400 pixels for a WQUXGA display. Unfortunately, the specs fall off quickly (but not too quickly) from there: 235cd/m2 brightness, 300:1 contrast, and a weak-sauce 120-degree top/bottom and 100-degree left/right viewing angle. Of course you'll need a dedicated (dual-link, presumably) PCI graphics card to drive that resolution over the monitor's single DVI input. Shipping in Japan before summer for an anticipated ¥2,079,000. Right, a staggering $17,500 or about 50 of Dell's 22-inchers.

P.S. Sorry, no picture, that's just a generic 22-incher to the right.

Update: Toshiba will sell you a PCI graphics card for an additional ¥312,000 ($2,783). How nice.

[Via Impress]

[DerekPowell @ Nov 2nd 2007 2:50AM]

try playing crysis on that

[Patuxentbball @ Nov 2nd 2007 2:55AM]

Ahh, the birth of a legend. Goodbye we say to "But will it play Doom."
Hello to "Try playing Crysis on that."

[bombastinator @ Nov 2nd 2007 4:22AM]

But I don't want to play crysis. If I do it means I have to run Vista and then everything else will suck too.

[noisia @ Nov 2nd 2007 4:32AM]

crysis runs also on xp. even with most of the dx10 effects, just have to do some tweaks.

[Will @ Nov 2nd 2007 2:59AM]

Will it blend?

[blade417 @ Nov 2nd 2007 9:12AM]

no

[Adam @ Nov 3rd 2007 8:25AM]

Why dont you ask :D

[Dan Parmelee @ Nov 2nd 2007 3:01AM]

So it's basically 1080p x 2.

Can someone fill me in on the practical use of this display? Things won't even be readable.

[bombastinator @ Nov 2nd 2007 4:23AM]

its so you can sit really really close to the screen

[Galley @ Nov 2nd 2007 9:43AM]

Actually, that would be "x4" since it could display four 1080p signals at once.

[Andrew @ Nov 2nd 2007 9:44AM]

My first thought was MEDICAL systems. You want really good displays to figure out which of those cells are cancerous and not. Or perhaps spotting where I left those damn scissors after the operation?

[rv @ Nov 5th 2007 5:29PM]

2140p!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[rai @ Nov 2nd 2007 3:03AM]

can your new 8800 Ultra even pump out enough juices to power that thing? and does it require a mini reactor to keep the screen on?

[computer.dude.28 @ Nov 2nd 2007 11:22PM]

Speaking of juices, how about "Not to be used with Battery Backup"

[Reader @ Nov 2nd 2007 3:23AM]

I'll take the 50 dells, please.

[ridestp @ Nov 2nd 2007 3:27AM]

This was done in 2001. See the IBM T221, and it had better specs than this.

[kalieaire @ Nov 2nd 2007 5:55PM]

yea, seriously, welcome to 2001.

[Jerry @ Nov 2nd 2007 3:32AM]

Eek! Oh no, the price is going the wrong way!

A 22" WQUXGQ LCD is nothing new. They've been around for years, but have mostly faded away. I would guess due to lack of demand. IBM was first, then Viewsonic. I still see a few of the Viewsonic VP2290b out there, going for $6000. Better specs to boot. 400:1 and 170º view angle.

200 DPI looks so good on my N770, I can only dream of that on a desktop LCD for now, I guess. :P I'd also wait for DisplayPort or something better than DVI too.

[Dan @ Nov 2nd 2007 3:55AM]

It's most likely designed for the healthcare or scientific imaging industry. Radiologists and physicians must be able to get as much detail out of an X-Ray or CT scan in order to differentiate between "cancer" and "artifact". Refresh time isn't too much of a concern for them.

[shaliron @ Nov 2nd 2007 4:12AM]

Most medical institutions don't use these types of monitors (the 300:1 contrast ratio negates any resolution advantage). They prefer to use grayscale monitors with 10 or even 12 bit displays so that they have a huge range of shades to diagnose with.

[Sporkinum @ Nov 2nd 2007 9:45AM]

CT's don't require a high resolution screen as the image matrix generally goes no higher than 512x512. Digital mammography requires at least a 5 megapixel resolution, though I don't think these would have the gray scale dynamic range for proper interpretation.

[henry @ Nov 2nd 2007 4:06AM]

>Of course you'll need a dedicated (dual-channel, presumably) PCI graphics card

PCI? Oh wow, then i can hook this thing up to my old Rage 128 card! Sweet! :P

[computer.dude.28 @ Nov 2nd 2007 11:27PM]

i SERIOUSLY doubt that your Rage 128 has DVI..

[nak @ Nov 2nd 2007 4:15AM]

"Seventeen thousand dollars. Hey, Mr. Oh, how much would these run you in Tokyo?"

"Ahh... about uh... two million yen."

"Two million?!?! These are practically free!"

[Drew @ Nov 2nd 2007 5:33AM]

No. It's more than 1080p times 4.
1920*1080 = 2073600.
2073600*4 = 8294400.
3840*2400 = 9216000.

[Ian Tullie @ Nov 2nd 2007 5:47AM]

Most "1080p" hi-def monitors run at 1920x1200, so this is monitor-1080p x 4

[Sean D. @ Nov 2nd 2007 6:49AM]

I read "most other monitors in it's class" to be other 22"ers, and most of those are sporting 1680x1050 (1.764 Megapixels). So, it's actually 5.2x the rez of most other monitors in it's class.

Yes, it's 4x 1080p + a megapixel or so.

Something of that resolution would be great for editing 1080p content, but I'd much rather have a 30"er and a new car (or another camera and a couple of light kits) for that price.

[Jonn @ Nov 2nd 2007 9:07PM]

It looks like Toshiba has in mind not just
the 2 x 1080, but also 3 x 720. I hope they
make it automatically adjust (or user override-able) to fit the image pixels into a whole number of hardware pixels, 2x2, 3x3 or other.

[John @ Nov 2nd 2007 7:40AM]

or just buy a couple 50 inch 1080p tv sets with multidesktop on to get the same resolution and a big picture...

[nrg753 @ Nov 2nd 2007 7:58AM]

YES!! This is the way computers should be going, more DPI! who would need Anti-Aliasing on that beast?? Seriously, you would have to look really closely to see those pixels!

[lapa @ Nov 2nd 2007 7:57AM]

Iiyama AQU5611DT is better, and it is ~2 year old.
IBM also had some hi-res display for years.

[Mark Richardson @ Nov 2nd 2007 8:21AM]

Yeah, I saw the IBM model a few years ago and was blown away by it, but I think it was only $6,000.

@Thomas Ricker
"(dual-channel, presumably)"
What on earth is a "dual-channel" video card? We're not talking about RAM here. Do you mean "dual-output"? "Dual-head" maybe?

[firebat45 @ Nov 2nd 2007 9:12AM]

I think he meant dual link, as in the DVI connection. I'm not sure about this monitor, but the IBM T221 needed 2 dual link DVI inputs. Single link can only handle 1920x1200 IIRC, and since this has 4x the data, it needs 4 inputs. I'm curious as to how this monitor runs off a single dual-link DVI, if you tried doing that with the T221, the refresh rate dropped to a dismal 25hz.

[JP @ Nov 2nd 2007 10:06AM]

Wikipedia.org a list of supported resolutions for DVI. According to those stats, the monitor can be run over single or dual link, but the refresh tops out at 15Hz and 33Hz respectively, so this thing is really only good for pictures, but with 300:1, that leaves the only suitable job to be something along the lines of displaying adds in a window.

[Mark Richardson @ Nov 2nd 2007 10:53AM]

Ah, yes, I believe you're right. I remember the IBM needing the two dual-link DVI.

[Jared @ Nov 2nd 2007 10:42AM]

Sounds like its for medical imaging. When your talking medical equipment, the sky is the limit on pricing.

[Jared @ Nov 2nd 2007 10:50AM]

Oops, didn't see Dans post above.

I know that fighter jet systems use very high resolution displays so that if one portion of the display dies they can resize the image on a working portion of the display without loosing information. Though those displays are generally fairly small.

Guess this might just be an example of "look what we can do".

[Mark Richardson @ Nov 2nd 2007 10:59AM]

Ah, yes, I believe you're right. I remember the IBM needing the two dual-link DVI.

[Leroy Vargas @ Nov 2nd 2007 11:04AM]

I would only buy it if it matched the same brightness/contrast/viewing-angle specs of my 24" Dell 2405FPW (1920×1200 pix, no HDCP support, 500 cd/m², 1000:1 contrast, and [guess] 178° horiz view angle!!!). Anyway, I'd only replace my 2405 with a BIGGER 30" 3007WFP super-monster!

The interesting question is whether porn studios would want to benefit from such monster resolution. (Would they want their libidinous customers to view four XXX clips at the same time on the same screen? Or would they push it further and present 2160p-resolution (4×1080p) forbidden content?)

FYI: I don't buy that lascivious crap either.

[kadajawi @ Nov 3rd 2007 4:54PM]

Honestly, I'd be glad to have a monitor with less brightness. You only need brightness on a notebook (outdoors) and when you have that crappy glossy stuff. I don't want to wear sunglasses in front of my computer. Sure you can reduce the brightness on most monitors, but sometimes not far enough, and it's bad for color and contrast.

[Loonie @ Nov 2nd 2007 11:06AM]

Man, you've got to REALLY need 3,840 x 2,400 to shell out that kind of dough.

[pwnies @ Nov 4th 2007 3:38PM]

How is this different from viewsonic's 22 inch with the same resolution that was released a few years ago? http://www.viewsonic.com/support/desktopdisplays/lcddisplays/proseries/vp2290b/index.htm

[Jonathan Worrel @ Nov 2nd 2007 1:49PM]

So, this is basically a QuadHD monitor (1080p x 4) with only 300:1 contrast?! How pathetic!

Dell's DisplayPort monitors at CES 2008 are going to own this thing so hard.

[STrRedWolf @ Nov 2nd 2007 3:03PM]

3,840 x 2,400?!? Forget playing any 3D game on it, even Second Life! There's no way any PCI or PCIe card can pump out that much data that fast!

This is a CAD/Autodesk monitor.

[nrg753 @ Nov 2nd 2007 6:15PM]

Hey, you know what anti aliasing does? It actually renders a resolution, say 8 times the screen resolution, then it scales it back with linear filtering to give you the extra quality. If you turned your AA off and played a game normally on the screen, in theory it should work fine. It would be like playing in 2xAA on a 1080p screen right?

[STrRedWolf @ Nov 2nd 2007 6:19PM]

True, but you're pumping, what, 28 million bytes out to the monitor? Of course, I'm being very ignorant as to how DVI and what current cards work...

[Brian @ Nov 3rd 2007 5:27AM]

IBM has had a monitor with the same resolution for YEARS. They run under $5k. (They were intended for medical imageing)

I wonder what makes Toshiba better?

The funny thing about these monitors is that they have a 12hz refresh rate. 20hz if you use two DVI cables. Theoretical maximum of 40-48hz... if you can find a card to drive it.

Here is a site with some good information:
http://tech . groups . yahoo . com /group/IBM_T2X_LCD/

[ComradeZ @ Nov 4th 2007 12:24AM]

I think I'd rather buy four 1080p screens, arrange them in a rectangle, and just sit twice as far away from the screen for the same field of view with $10,000 more in my pocket.

[TheHDGeek @ Nov 4th 2007 11:04PM]

Since both the liyama and ViewSonic 22" WQUXGA monitors were just rebadged IBMs. The only advantage I've been able to find in Toshiba's model is the 60Hz refresh rate mentioned in the translated article, though it still seems rather inept for many applications because of the poor contrast ratio and viewing angles.

[Paul in Maryland @ Nov 5th 2007 12:44PM]

The IBM T221 was driven by a special double-card Matrox.