TCL is best known for making TVs, but the company is eyeing a slot among the best gaming monitors with its new OLED tech. During the Omdia Korea Display Conference, the company highlighted “comprehensive breakthroughs in image quality, power consumption, and lifespan” for OLED monitors and laptops utilizing its new inkjet-printed OLED displays, as reported by FlatPanelsHD.
Inkjet-printed OLED, or IJP OLED, sounds a little ridiculous, but it’s tech we’ve known about for close to a year. Current OLED production is problematic, according to OLED-Info, with deposits of the organic commands used for OLED displays introducing contaminants into the panel. This reduces the yield, but according to TCL, its new IJP OLED process can lead to not only higher yields, but also improvements in image quality.
“The technology also boasts lower power consumption, with materials efficiency doubled, a 50% reduction in light loss due to internal reflection, and a 1.5 times improvement in light output efficiency. Lifespan has also been significantly enhanced, with an aperture ratio three times larger and material lifespan improved tenfold,” reads TCL’s press release. “IJP OLED delivers cost competitiveness, with a 20% reduction in total cost.”
That all sounds like good news. We’ve heard about the low brightness of OLED monitors like the LG UltraGear OLED 27 and concerns about burn-in with displays like the Sony InZone M10S. It’s important to remember, however, that this tech isn’t available in a shipping product yet, and TCL’s rosy estimates likely won’t translate fully to a proper OLED monitor or laptop.
The company has some prototypes already, however. In particular, it has the TCL CSOT 14-inch 2.8K Hybrid OLED display, which you can see above. According to the company, it has a 2.8K resolution, 99% coverage of DCI-P3, and a refresh rate from 30Hz up to 120Hz. There are already half a dozen laptops a display like this could slot into, such as the Asus Zenbook S 14.
TCL says these are the applications it’s targeting with its new IJP OLED tech. It says “medium-sized display applications” will see it first, including in monitors, laptops, and other specialized products such as medical displays. Earlier this year, the company demoed a 65-inch rollable 8K TV sporting the same tech.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.