ASUS ProArt PA32UCX with 32″ 4K Panel and 1000+ zone Mini LED Backlight
At CES 2019 Asus have showcased their forthcoming ProArt PA32UCX display, aimed at professional users and colour critical work. The PA32UCX is 32″ in size and most interesting of all is its 1000+ zone Mini LED backlight system. This offers superior, more detailed local dimming capability for HDR content, beyond the current FALD backlights used in the top end displays right now . Those are limited to around 384-zones on current 27″ models, so the move to Mini LED and a 1000+ zone offering is a big step change, and could offer vastly superior HDR experience.
Asus said: “The very best LED-backlit LCDs employ a technology called full-array local dimming to improve their contrast ratios. The LEDs are arranged in zones, with each zone corresponding to part of the screen, and dimming individual LEDs makes it possible to display an image with bright and dark areas while preserving detail in both.
Our ProArt PA32UCX expounds on this technology with Mini LEDs. These physically smaller LEDs are packed in more densely, which increases the granularity of our brightness control. Less space between the LEDs means small details, like a white cursor on a black background, can be illuminated more precisely. The halo effect that’s common with coarser LED arrays normally manifests as light bleed around bright points, but that’s minimized when there’s a higher number of smaller LEDs.”
The screen is 32″ in size and offers a 3840 x 2160 Ultra HD resolution IPS-type panel. A wide colour gamut is provided offering Adobe RGB, 97% DCI-P3 and 89% Rec.2020 colour space coverage, and this is paired with a 10-bit colour depth panel. The Mini LED backlight is capable of offering a 1200 cd/m2 peak brightness.
The PA32UCX supports multiple HDR formats including HDR10 and HLG. It is certified to the VESA Display HDR 1000 standards as well.
It comes factory calibrated with a dE <2 for accurate colours, and supports hardware calibration of the monitors 14-bit LUT. A uniformity compensation feature is also included as per many high end professional screens.
We know from the early spec page that 2x Thunderbolt 3 USB type-C connectivity is provided. DisplayPort and HDMI 2.0 will also be included.
No word on release date or price yet, but we know that AU Optronics (the manufacturer behind this 32″ Mini LED panel) were planning for the panel to go in to development during Q1, so it will likely be Q2 before we see this display released.
Source: Asus
Update 18/7/19 – we have some further information about the PA32UCX now. The Mini LED backlight will offer 1152 zones in total. Spec wise there is a 5ms G2G response time, 1000:1 static contrast ratio, 600 cd/m2 brightness (SDR). The colour gamut specs have been finalised with a 99% DCI-P3, 99.5% Adobe RGB and 89% Rec.2020 offered.
The screen is 60Hz only but will also support VESA adaptive-sync for variable refresh rates. Still useful with only 60Hz given the high resolution here. The factory calibration is now expected to offer a dE <1 (instead of dE <2 from original news piece). A range of PiP and PbP options are available from the menu. The stand offers a full range of tilt, height, swivel and rotate adjustments. The connections are also confirmed with 2x Thunderbolt 3 USB type-C (1 in and 1 out), 1x DisplayPort 1.2, 3x HDMI 2.0b, 3x USB 3.0 ports and a headphone jack. There are also 2x 3W stereo speakers integrated in to the screen.
No word still on release date or pricing but it’s expected soon.
Update 5/8/19 – according to an official update from Asus, the PA32UCX is expected to be available in the UK towards the end of September. Pricing is still TBC.
Official spec page: Asus
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