Asus has at long last announced the imminent availability of its new flagship professional monitor for creatives, the ProArt Display PA32UCXR.
The display was first exhibited last April at NAB 2023, before appearing at Computex 2023 in May and IBC 2023 in September. The company was originally targeting a Q3 2023 launch, but it failed to stick to that schedule and never said why.
Now though, the wait is almost over with Asus confirming that the ProArt Display PA32UCXR will go on sale later this month, though it still hasn’t announced any pricing info or a precise availability date. The monitor is, however, now listed on the company’s website along with its full specifications.
It’s an intriguing offering, with the ProArt Display PA32UCXR boasting an impressive 2304 local dimming zones within its Mini-LED display. It also uses a generous number of control ICs to independently manage each of those dimming zones in order to minimise on-screen flicker during transitions, while ensuring it maintains high levels of brightness. As such, the Asus ProArt Display PA32UCXR is said to provide outstanding brightness uniformity with more efficient heat dissipation and improved HDR performance.
In contrast, most Mini-LED displays use fewer control ICs as a way of reducing costs, employing centralised control of the local dimming zones that relies on data scanning. This approach requires brighter images to achieve optimal performance, and often results in screen flickering and irregular brightness, as well as a shorter lifespan.
The Asus ProArt Display PA32UCXR can hit a peak brightness of 1,600 nits and an impressive 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness, providing incredible contrast, the company said.
In terms of colour reproduction, it boasts 99% Adobe RGB, 97% DCI-P3, 100% sRGB, 100% Rec. 709 and 87% Rec. 2020 coverage, making it a seemingly excellent choice for post-production processing. With its true 10-bit IPS panel, it can reproduce more than 1.07 billion colours, ensuring creatives have a vast colour spectrum at their fingertips.
Asus revealed that each display is factory pre-calibrated and has undergone extensive testing using its advanced greyscale tracking technology to guarantee smooth colour gradations, superior colour accuracy and better uniformity. Each grayscale level is also carefully measured and set to ensure compliance with the DICOM standard for medical use.
Other capabilities include a built-in motorised colourimeter complete with an innovative self-calibration feature. It’s compatible with any operating system and does not require the use of third-party calibration software, Asus said. The calibration process can be initiated at any time, or scheduled during off-hours via the OSD settings.
With the Asus ProArt Calibration software, users can save multiple colour parameter profiles on the display’s internal scaler IC chip, ensuring it can pick up multiple tasks on different devices or applications without needing to constantly adjust the monitor settings.
Of course, the Asus ProArt Display PA32UCXR supports multiple HDR formats including Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG. It also boasts Picture-by-Picture and Picture-in-Picture functions. The former makes it possible to display content from up to four different input sources at once, while the latter allows the user to place content from a second source into a smaller window within the display, for comparison tasks.
Other features include an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts the display’s brightness according to the conditions in the room, while a proximity sensor can put the monitor into standby when it doesn’t detect anyone using it. There’s also a wraparound hood that helps to reduce reflections, so the monitor can be used on-location in various environmental conditions. Meanwhile, the ergonomic stand allows for swivel, tilt, pivot and height adjustments to ensure the optimal viewing position for each user.
Finally, Asus said that buyers in select regions will also be given a free, three-month subscription to Adobe’s Creative Cloud, Substance 3D and Acrobat services.
As mentioned, Asus hasn’t yet mentioned any official release date or pricing, but with any luck we’ll find out these details at the CES 2024 show in Las Vegas next week.
