With the growing interest in RGB LED TVs, it was really only a matter of time until someone introduced the technology into monitors, and that has now happened, with Chinese brand HKC unveiling the world’s first display of its kind.
The company has just announced the new HKC M10 Ultra monitor, which is the first LCD monitor that features RGB LED and zone dimming tech. Like all RGB LED TVs, it comes with the promise of richer and more accurate colours that surpass what’s possible with Mini-LED and even QD-OLED. This is made possible by the M10’s unique combination of individual red, green and blue LEDs that serve as pixels, replacing the traditional white backlight and filter combination.
HKC did not disclose the specific LCD panel type that’s used, but said the 4K 32-inch M10 Ultra covers 98% of the BT.2020 colour gamut and 100% of the DCI-P3 spectrum and has a 165Hz native refresh rate that can be scaled up to 330Hz at 1080p resolution. Brightness reaches a maximum of 1,600 nits in a small window and 1,000 nits in fullscreen mode. In addition, it features approximately 1,600 local dimming zones and 4,788 RGB LED light control zones, effectively multiplying the zone count by three. This is possible because each of the RGB sub-LEDs can be controlled independently of one another, the company explained.
We should note that this still falls way short of the pixel-level control found in 4K resolution OLED monitors, which provide the equivalent of around 8.3 million zones – but it’s still a dramatic improvement over Mini-LED monitors.
According to HKC, the M10 Ultra is capable of being used in both gaming and professional use cases that require HDR workflows, and is around 20% more power-efficient than most Mini-LED monitors.
In terms of connectivity, users will find two HDMI 2.1 ports, a pair of DisplayPort 2.1 connections and USB Type-C slots with 98-watts power delivery.
The world’s first RGB LED monitor will launch in China first, but the company has not said when it will be released, nor how much it will cost. So it’s more than possible that it won’t actually be the first of its kind to hit the market, for it seems certain that many other brands will follow in its footsteps.
