HP Professional Displays and R&D show off

September 2014 – At the HP workstation briefing in Ft Collins, CO they were showing off the latest version of the professional displays, plus some prototype that have in progress in R&D. The kickoff of the briefing on displays was done by Ann Lai – Director of the Commercial Business Segment for the Displays Business Unit. The main presentation was on the refresh of the DreamColor displays followed by both prototypes and soon to be released products for the commercial computer display market.

The DreamColor displays are available in two models – the Z27X and the Z24X in addition to the DreamColor display option for the 17” ZBook laptop. The key to these displays is the 10bit color accuracy with five color space presets : sRGB, Adobe® RGB, BT.709, User and Native— and the option to set your own custom color space and calibrate with the optional HP DreamColor Calibration Solution. The displays feature a professional content creation and broadcast class color quality with 100% coverage of sRGB, BT.709 and 99% of Adobe® RGB color space. These are shown in a high resolution display (native resolution of 1920 x 1200 wide-angle IPS panel for the Z24x and 2560 x 1440 native resolution for the Z27X) with a 1000:1 contrast ratio. The displays will support up to 4096×2160 images for 4K video development.

HP Dreamcolor Z27x pivioting Professional Display

Both the Z27X screen and the Z24X screen can rotate from horizontal to vertical applications which it is driven by either the HDMI or the Display Port v1.2 connection. The Z24X also has DVI support as an input. One key of the industrial design is the stand for the display, supports raising & lowering the display as well as a -5o to +20o tilt angle. The displays also serve as center point for connectivity. The Display Port connection can be daisy-chained from the devices and it serves as a USB hub, to minimize cables back to the main workstation.

Connection ports on HP DreamColor Z27x Professional Display

On the R&D side Ann showed a number of new display types. The first is actually a model that is available in the marketplace – the HP EliteDisplay S140u USB portable display. This is a single cable (USB 3.0) connected display (power and video in a single cable) that adds a second screen to portable devices (weighing in at 2.7lbs) or can be used in mirror mode for presentations from a laptop. The 14” display features a 1600 x 900 resolution and is available from retailers now, in a sub $170 MSRP.

Also on display were a prototype curved professional series display. This was being designed for immersive applications with an expanded peripheral viewing angle. The form factor, display size and if it was a fixed or “movable” curve are still in development. The screen was currently a 2K display and the option for 4K was also still being reviewed. They also showed a 3D interactive display. It allows the user to rotate, manipulate and navigate a 3D image or object on screen similar to a holographic display. The unit uses Zspace to provide a Zview 3D render of the objects with a fully lighted 3D view. This is targeted at education and training, design and creation, as well as geophysical exploration and spatial design.

Like the HP Workstations, the professional displays are designed for reliability and there are extensive burn-in and compatibility testing done on them for all standard applications.