ViewSonic Launches 28-inch 150 Hz 4K Monitor with PS5 Support

[TheLostSwede]

ViewSonic's new VX2882-4KP seems to be the 4K gaming monitor for those looking for a no-nonsense design, as it could be mistaken for a Dell office monitor. That said, not everyone is keen on the over the top designs some gaming monitors of late have featured, so it's nice to see something a bit more normal here, especially for those that use their PC for more than just gaming.

Unfortunately the only stand-out spec is the 150 Hz refresh rate, which lands somewhere between most 144 Hz 4K monitors and the two or three that can do 160 Hz. It's not an overclock setting in this case, as it's the official refresh rate of the VX2882-4KP. ViewSonic went for an IPS panel here, although it only has a brightness of 300 nits, which is not as impressive as much of its competition, neither is the HDR10 rating.



It also looks like ViewSonic has sourced what can only be considered as a "cheap" panel these days, as it's not even a true 8-bit panel, as it uses 6-bit + FRC, which you don't see on many 4K IPS monitors today. ViewSonic claims to use flicker free backlight with low blue light. On the other hand, the VX2882-4KP is said to be PS5 Ready, which suggests that ViewSonic has had it approved by Sony and it's also said to work with the Xbox Series X/S.

The good news is that it comes with two HDMI 2.1 ports, two DP 1.4 ports and a USB-C port with DP Alt mode, all of which support refresh rates of up to 150 Hz. The monitor is AMD FreeSync Premium certified and the FreeSync range starts at 30 Hz for the HDMI ports and 48 Hz for the DP and USB-C ports. Further connectivity includes two USB-A 3.2 ports and one USB-B 3.2 port, although we presume these are of the 5 Gbps variety. There's also a 3.5 mm audio jack and a barrel jack for the external power adapter. Finally there are a pair of built-in 2 W speakers.

So far the VX2882-4KP only seems to be on sale in Japan and there it retails for a fairly steep US$830. We're expecting that price to be more competitive in other markets.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Space Lynx]

$830 for a 6 bit panel??? LOL

nah... as someone who games a 6 bit panel laptop... I can 100% say nah... I mean its not horrible, but I can def tell a difference between a nice 10 bi/8 bit with dithering panel and this 6 bit one.

 

[Tardian]

Color Space Support: 8 bit (6 bit + FRC)

Avoid.

 

[Valantar]

That price is insane, and the 6-bit panel is a dealbreaker for me, but prices in Japan generally tend to be insane, so I'm holding out hope that this is actually the first (of hopefully many) budget-oriented 2160p high refresh rate monitors coming in the near future. Should help to drive down prices on the more premium options.

 

[ZoneDymo]

why would the HDMI freesync range be better/further/more then the Displayport?

 

[Valantar]

why would the HDMI freesync range be better/further/more then the Displayport?

That's a very good question. One would assume they're handled by the same hardware, no?

 

[Chrispy_]

"With PS5 Support"

Uh, anything with an HDMI input has PS5 support.
Meanwhile the PS5 cannot output at 4K 150Hz.

I think their marketing department needs to start again.

 

[ZoneDymo]

"With PS5 Support"

Uh, anything with an HDMI input has PS5 support.
Meanwhile the PS5 cannot output at 4K 150Hz.

I think their marketing department needs to start again.

While I get what you are saying, this is actually just hte marketing department doing a good job.
Look around, the vast majority of people dont know what a screen today is just a screen, they dont think about buying a monitor to hook up a playstation, they would be looking at a television.

That message of being "PS5 optimised/compatible/ready/etc" is just for those who didnt know something like that was even possible, so they hope to be drilling a market that otherwise would not exist.

Im suprised not a lot more monitor manufactuers advertise this fact

 

[Valantar]

"With PS5 Support"

Uh, anything with an HDMI input has PS5 support.
Meanwhile the PS5 cannot output at 4K 150Hz.

I think their marketing department needs to start again.

What they're trying to convey is 2160p120 support from HDMI 2.1 consoles. So while anything with a HDMI port works with the PS5, only a 2160p120 or higher display with HDMI 2.1 can make full use of its capabilities. "Support" is a poor choice of words, but ... meh.

 

[bug]

"With PS5 Support"

Uh, anything with an HDMI input has PS5 support.
Meanwhile the PS5 cannot output at 4K 150Hz.

I think their marketing department needs to start again.

I was gonna say.
We have all these VESA standards, precisely so we we know we can plug a monitor into anything and it will work. If there's a problem running PS5 (or anything else) with a run-of-the-mill monitor, return the PS5, not the monitor.

 

[Valantar]

I was gonna say.
We have all these VESA standards, precisely so we we know we can plug a monitor into anything and it will work. If there's a problem running PS5 (or anything else) with a run-of-the-mill monitor, return the PS5, not the monitor.

HDMI isn't related to VESA, it's owned by the HDMI Forum.

 

[Deleted member 185088]

So far the VX2882-4KP only seems to be on sale in Japan and there it retails for a fairly steep US$830. We're expecting that price to be more competitive in other markets.

I don't know which market you are referring to, the prices in Japan and France for example are quite similar.
Plus like in the EU prices tend to include tax, unlike the fake prices in the US where no tax is included.

 

[Valantar]

I don't know which market you are referring to, the prices in Japan and France for example are quite similar.
Plus like in the EU prices tend to include tax, unlike the fake prices in the US where no tax is included.

The issue is that the tech world generally operates on US MSRPs, which typically (but not always) convert along currency lines to EUR with VAT on top for EU pricing. The problem arises when the initial prices are converted from a non-US currency without accounting for taxes. Japan seems to have a 10% sales tax on electronics, which means that $830 price is more like $750 pre-tax. Still expensive for what it is, but then there's also the early adopter tax - there's no indication of whether this is an MSRP or just some early high price from retailers. We'll have a more representative picture once this hits more retailers.

 

[bug]

HDMI isn't related to VESA, it's owned by the HDMI Forum.

Good observation. Accustomed to VESA handling most things monitor-related (e.g. DDC, EDID), I forgot HDMI is not their turf.

 

[Deleted member 185088]

The issue is that the tech world generally operates on US MSRPs, which typically (but not always) convert along currency lines to EUR with VAT on to for EU pricing. The problem arises when the initial prices are converted from a non-US currency without accounting for taxes. Japan seems to have a 10% sales tax on electronics, which means that $830 price is more like $750 pre-tax. Still expensive for what it is, but then there's also the early adopter tax - there's no indication of whether this is an MSRP or just some early high price from retailers. We'll have a more representative picture once this hits more retailers.

Exactly, the assumption in the news that prices should be lower elsewhere is wrong, the prices are similar in most big markets.

 

[chrcoluk]

$800 for 6 bit panel? wow.

Monitor market really is broken.

 

[TheUn4seen]

Would be nica as a cheap, secondary screen. If it was cheap, which it's not. Probably the reason why the marketing department felt the need to throw a PS5 name in there. Overall, very "meh".

 

[TheLostSwede]

For those concerned about the price, it goes for NZ$1,399 in New Zealand obviously, which is about US$980...

Exactly, the assumption in the news that prices should be lower elsewhere is wrong, the prices are similar in most big markets.

The assumption was that the price would be lower than in Japan, as electronics (and many other things) are, for whatever reason, expensive in Japan.
Feel free to compare prices on Amazon Japan to other countries and you'll see that it's not a cheap place to get a lot of things.

 

[bug]

$800 for 6 bit panel? wow.

Monitor market really is broken.

6bit+FRC hasn't been distinguishable from native 8bit for years. It's enough (if rare these days) for a SDR monitor.

But yeah, Viewsonic went from coveted high-end monitors to just another player clumsily trying to make a dent into the cheaper monitor market.

 

[trsttte]

Wow this was strange. At first it was cool to see no nonsense design, 2 hdmi 2.1, 2 DP1.4 and even a USB-C, very cool on the input side.

Than 300nits, 6bit and 800$!? Are they insane? Hard pass

 

[Chrispy_]

I had a 6-bit panel in 2005, because it was the only way to get a panel fast enough to perform at 60Hz. Within a year, I had already sold it on and replaced it with a slower 8-bit panel because even by dire 2005 LCD standards, 6-bit was a pretty tough pill to swallow to get sub-17ms response times.

Displayninja.com shows a (not exhaustive) list of about 30 4K monitors that are approx 30", 8-bit, 144Hz or higher from Acer, AOC (and AGON), Asus, Gigabyte, LG, Nixeus, Philips, Viewsonic, Viotek, and most of them have sub-$1000 MSRPs. It's not a crowded market, but there's a ton of choice. $900 might well be the median MSRP for a 4K144 monitor but in reality the market is heavily discounted with many models available at reductions of 30% or more. That's usually a sign that the MSRP is too high, buyers don't see the value, and they sit on shelves and in warehouses depreciating.

When there's a good range of faster, better, 1440p ultrawides for less and regular 16:9 1440p monitors for a fraction of the cost, it's not hard to see why high-refresh 4K isn't selling. It needs to be half the price they're asking for wider adoption and it's why plenty of stores have healthy stocks of unsold 4K120+ monitors despite the deep discounts.

When something's bad value even after a discount, it's just priced wrong for the market, period.

 

[Valantar]

I had a 6-bit panel in 2005, because it was the only way to get a panel fast enough to perform at 60Hz. Within a year, I had already sold it on and replaced it with a slower 8-bit panel because even by dire 2005 LCD standards, 6-bit was a pretty tough pill to swallow to get sub-17ms response times.

Displayninja.com shows a (not exhaustive) list of about 30 4K monitors that are approx 30", 8-bit, 144Hz or higher from Acer, AOC (and AGON), Asus, Gigabyte, LG, Nixeus, Philips, Viewsonic, Viotek, and most of them have sub-$1000 MSRPs. It's not a crowded market, but there's a ton of choice. $900 might well be the median MSRP for a 4K144 monitor but in reality the market is heavily discounted with many models available at reductions of 30% or more. That's usually a sign that the MSRP is too high, buyers don't see the value, and they sit on shelves and in warehouses depreciating.

When there's a good range of faster, better, 1440p ultrawides for less and regular 16:9 1440p monitors for a fraction of the cost, it's not hard to see why high-refresh 4K isn't selling. It needs to be half the price they're asking for wider adoption and it's why plenty of stores have healthy stocks of unsold 4K120+ monitors despite the deep discounts.

When something's bad value even after a discount, it's just priced wrong for the market, period.

The problem is that most (if not all) of those monitors below $1000 lack HDMI 2.1, which makes them functionally obsolete in a significant way even today. If you never use a console or other HDMI-only device that can output 120Hz, then it won't matter, but that's a pretty hard line to draw for a product you're likely to keep for well above 5 years.

 

[Chrispy_]

The problem is that most (if not all) of those monitors below $1000 lack HDMI 2.1, which makes them functionally obsolete in a significant way even today. If you never use a console or other HDMI-only device that can output 120Hz, then it won't matter, but that's a pretty hard line to draw for a product you're likely to keep for well above 5 years.

Gotchya.
Next question - are there any instances where a PS5 can deliver more than 60fps at 4K?
1080p120 over HDMI is well within the realms of $300 monitors (8-bit panels, I'd like to add!)

 

[Valantar]

Gotchya.
Next question - are there any instances where a PS5 can deliver more than 60fps at 4K?
1080p120 over HDMI is well within the realms of $300 monitors (8-bit panels, I'd like to add!)

Most use some form of dynamic resolution scaling to reach/maintain 120fps, some run at 1080p, and a few at native 2160p. But you can't dynamically change your output resolution unless you want your screen blacking out every couple of seconds, so the output resolution then must fit a standard resolution. Given that the PS5 doesn't support 1440p, that means 2160p or 1080p output. Some of the games on that list run at 1080p120 and would likely work on a HDMI 2.0 display at that frame rate, but many of them render somewhere in between, like Doom Eternal. I have no idea if the PS5 supporst supersampled downscaling to a 1080p output resolution, but I wouldn't bet on it, which means you'd lose visual fidelity when stepping down to a lower output resolution. Plus, who knows where a mid-generation console refresh will land in terms of performance?

 

[Deleted member 185088]

The assumption was that the price would be lower than in Japan, as electronics (and many other things) are, for whatever reason, expensive in Japan.
Feel free to compare prices on Amazon Japan to other countries and you'll see that it's not a cheap place to get a lot of things.

It depends what you compare, France and Japan have similar prices for example, consoles prices are similar to those in the US, the same with TVs.
Compared to the US/France (by extention some other EU markets) the prices are similar, but maybe compared to Taiwan it could make sense.