Acer has just unveiled two portable stereoscopic 3D displays targeting gamers, wealthy geeks and creative professionals. So yes it’s very innovative but the following details will probably dampen the enthusiasm of some. The Acer SpatialLabs View and SpatialLabs View Pro are standalone 15.6-inch 4K IPS displays (3,840 x 2,160 at 60 Hz) capable of stereoscopic 3D images without glasses. Both have response times of less than 30 ms (ouch), a 1200: 1 contrast ratio, 323 nits of brightness and cover 100% of the Adobe RGB color gamut.
Interesting and ambitious technology but still immature for “real” gaming
The rest of the technical details will continue to support our disappointment. These screens, as surprising and innovative as they are, are not really intended (for the moment) for gaming. Indeed, to connect, you’ll have a single HDMI 2.0 connection, a USB 3.0 connector and a 56 Wh lithium-ion battery ( since it’s a portable screen ). In fact, the only difference between the two is that the Pro model supports VESA wall mounting.
The other negative is that for 3D to work, the displays rely on proprietary software like TrueGame. It is this software that activates the 3D visuals in video games. It has a library of compatible games. If the desired title is compatible, the application will automatically launch the game and load all the necessary files from the preconfigured 3D profile. More than 50 games will be supported at launch, including Forza Horizon 5, God of War, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Tiny Tina’s Wonderland.
In reality, we’d love to be able to test one of these little wonders (whose first price will be over 1000€) however it seems that Acer is targeting the wrong target. The technology seems really promising but the format (portable), the size and the characteristics have nothing to do with gaming…Why did they want to present it like this and not “restrict” its field of action to creators? It is indeed a simple marketing mistake, from our point of view, but it should not make us forget a technology that we hope to talk about soon.
