ASUS ProArt PQ22UC 4K OLED Monitor: £4699, ~$5150
by Anton Shilov on March 22, 2019 5:00 PM EST
ASUS announced its first professional OLED display back at CES 2018 over a year ago. The compact and lightweight 21.6-inch 4K monitor covering 99% of the DCI-P3 color aimed at professionals attracted a lot of attention from various parties, but it has taken ASUS quite some time to perfect the product. Only this month the company began to sell the display on select markets with broader availability expected going forward. Meanwhile, the price of the monitor looks rather overwhelming.
The ASUS ProArt PQ22UC features a 21.6-inch 4K RGB stripe OLED panel produced by JOLED using its printing method. The panel supports a 3840×2160 resolution, 140 - 330 nits brightness (typical/peak), a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1, and a response time of 0.1 ms. The monitor features an internal 14-bit 3D LUT (lookup table), can reproduce 1.07 billion colors, and comes factory-calibrated to a Delta E <2 accuracy. The ProArt PQ22UC is said to feature a 95% uniformity compensation to avoid fluctuations in brightness and chromaticity on different parts of the screen. ASUS says that it can cover 99% of the DCI-P3 color space (without specifying whitepoint chromacity) and supports HDR10 as well as HLG formats for high dynamic range content. Meanwhile, ASUS yet has to reveal which other modes the display supports (e.g., REC2020, REC709, etc.).
Besides very accurate colors and a very high contrast ratio, the main features of the ProArt PQ22UC are its compact dimensions, a foldable stand, a foldable protection case, as well as a low weight (about a kilogram or so with the stand). To further save space and make the product thinner, ASUS equipped the the ProArt PQ22UC with two USB Type-C and micro-HDMI inputs (no word on exact protocols, but DP 1.2 and HDMI 2.0x are likely). The compact dimensions and weight enable owners to easily carry it around, which is particularly important for people who need to do post-production outside of their studios as well as various on-set routines. ASUS does not ship the monitor with a light-shielding hood, a common accessory for displays used for cinematography and color-critical workloads, due to its portability.
| Brief Specifications of the ASUS ProArt PQ22UC | |
| PQ22UC | |
| Panel | 21.6" OLED |
| Native Resolution | 3840 × 2160 |
| Maximum Refresh Rate | 60 Hz |
| Response Time | 0.1 ms (black to white) |
| Brightness | minimum: 0.0005 cd/m² typical: 140 cd/m² maximum: 330 cd/m² |
| Contrast | 1,000,000:1 |
| Viewing Angles | 178°/178° horizontal/vertical |
| Pixel Pitch | 0.1245 mm² |
| Pixel Density | 204 ppi |
| Display Colors | 1.07 billion |
| Color Gamut Support | DCI-P3: 99% sRGB/Rec 709: 100% (tbc) Adobe RGB: ? SMPTE C: ? Rec2020: ? |
| Stand | Tilt and height adjustable |
| Inputs | 2 × USB Type-C (DP 1.2?) 1 × mini HDMI (2.0a? 2.0b?) |
| PSU | External |
| Launch Price & Date | Spring 2019 €5000 ~ $5000 |
The ASUS ProArt PQ22UC display is now available from select stores in Austria and the UK for €5,160 and £4,699 with taxes. TFTCentral claims that broader availability is expected in April, but the official price for the UK will be £4,799 with taxes. If we roughly subtract the UK sales tax from the current retail price and convert the sum to US Dollars, we will get something like $5150, which means that the product will likely carry a ~$5000 MSRP in the US.
Related Reading:
- ASUS Unveils ProArt PQ22UC OLED Monitor: 4K, 99% DCI-P3, 0.1 ms Response Time
- JOLED Demos 21.6-Inch OLED Monitor for Gamers
- Dell at CES 2019: Alienware 55-Inch 4K 120 Hz OLED Gaming Monitor Showcased
- New 8K OLED Displays for Tablets and Laptops: 8.3 and 13.3 Inches
Sources: TFT Central, AVMagazine
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BenSkywalker - Monday, March 25, 2019 - link
How bright are you talking? I pulled up rtings top rated PC monitor and it has peak brightness levels of 361 which is markedly lower than LG OLED tv peak brightness(sustained 100% is lost though).I think there is confusion because new high end LCDs offer retina burning brightness levels. My OLED never gets set higher than 50% brightness and it is *much* brighter than the $500 BenQ monitor I have hooked up to the same PC(that monitor has a peak of sub 250 iirc).
eastcoast_pete - Monday, March 25, 2019 - link
Doesn't have to be more than 250-300 most of the time. What worries me is burn-in over time, as some screen elements are unavoidably in the same place all the time. Simplest thing that ASUS can do to disspell that worry is have a 3 or more years, no questions asked, warranty against burn-in.BenSkywalker - Monday, March 25, 2019 - link
What type of work are you doing? If you're in say excel with toolbars locked in place all day ten hours a day, better to stay away, if you have a mixed work flow though, they may actually work for you.eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, March 26, 2019 - link
Probably mainly for video editing. If used alongside another set for the static elements (user interface etc), it'd probably work. I would love it if Anton or another writer for AT shoots an email to ASUS and JOLED asking them about how sensitive their panels are to burn-in. Would be great if somebody finally solved this vulnerability.zodiacfml - Monday, March 25, 2019 - link
Why? Why not simply take LG's 4K OLED panels. This is too small and too expensive.eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, March 26, 2019 - link
Thought about that, BUT, a recent (2018) longer-term test of 4K panels (review by rtings) confirmed that using an OLED TV as a monitor lead to burn-in within a few weeks of intense use. The LCD panels run alongside were fine (VA panel) or showed some minor degradation (IPS panel), but even the IPS was much less affected even after months of intense use.vikingvista - Saturday, April 27, 2019 - link
The high price is likely because this is the only product using this panel. Even 4k 22 in LCD panels are only used in one product that I have seen. Larger panels benefit from economy of scale.The benefit of 21.5 inch, is that it is the largest size you can fit in carry-on luggage, and therefore the largest size you can conveniently travel with. You could easily fit 2 of these in carry-on. Also, 200 dpi is much closer to 1200 dpi print resolution than 70 dpi.
Still, $5k will be a very limited market, even for first adopter professionals. Hopefully the price can be made to drop quickly.