Blog

Nov 17, 2023

Asus ProArt Cinema PQ07 135

By Monica Chin, a senior reviewer covering laptops and other gadgets. Monica

By Monica Chin, a senior reviewer covering laptops and other gadgets. Monica was a writer for Tom's Guide and Business Insider before joining The Verge in 2020.

So, look. I understand that Apple just put out some fancy ski goggles, and now everybody and their mother is proclaiming the end of the physical screen as we know it. But like that one guy at the back of your college seminar, I would like to offer a quick counterpoint. It's called MicroLED. Specifically, I would like to discuss the Asus ProArt Cinema PQ07, a gadget that I spent far too long staring at in Asus’ show floor booth at Computex 2023.

What is the ProArt Cinema PQ07, you may ask? Thank you for asking. It's a 135-inch MicroLED display. MicroLED is not to be confused with Mini LED — wherein LEDs are arranged into local dimming zones — which is very common on modern televisions. MicroLEDs, by contrast, try to beat OLED at its own game. They are microscopic in size, and each pixel is formed from a cluster of them. The result is a panel with significantly better brightness and contrast than you see from even the fanciest OLED screens today. (There's also, crucially, less risk of burn-in.)

This is a technology Samsung has shown off before in a sort of show-off-y capacity (remember that gigantic Wall thing?), and both Samsung and Sony have released a few luxury MicroLED displays that are God knows how expensive. Apple has said it plans to build MicroLED into its Apple Watch watchfaces, but that's still a few years out. Outside of those cases, the technology has seen pretty limited rollout. The PQ07 is the first MicroLED display that Asus has attempted, and this was my first time seeing it in person.

The best way I can describe this technology is that it makes the surrounding area look insufferably dull. When I first walked past the demo unit on the show floor, it was displaying a picture of a grassy field at night with a tree in the middle and a sharp multicolor sky. The colors are bright, deep, and vibrant, in a way that these meager photos I took here couldn't even hope to do justice. The blacks were intense, and the reds and yellows seemed to pop out of the screen.

From there, I watched it display a number of different dynamic outdoor scenes, and there were no discernible pixels. I could not tear my eyes away. When I did, the Computex show floor just looked sad. And it's making me hope that, by some miracle, we see MicroLED become more accessible and more widely available in the coming years. Because playing games on this thing would be next level. It makes reality look better than it actually is. And if gaming is an escape, MicroLED could be the ultimate tool.

In terms of boring specs, the PQ07 is a 4K HDR panel. It has 0.7815 pixel pitch, 2,000 nits of peak brightness, and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and it covers 95 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut. It looks and seems like it should be a television, but it does not have TV functionality, as far as I know, so I guess it's technically a display.

What would you actually use this for? Eh, I’m sure there are things. Like, Asus listed some stuff when I asked at the booth. Virtual production, broadcasting, flight simulator, livestreaming, conference, public signage, and home cinema is what I have written down. You know, all that stuff I need to do in my house all the time.

Asus has not announced pricing yet, of course. Maybe it’ll be $14. Then, I’ll be able to buy one for each wall of my living room. Fingers crossed.

/ Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we've tested sent to your inbox daily.