Where are the Wraparound Gaming Monitors?'

Question

Early in 2008 there was talk and lots of pictures of a new direction in wide screen monitors, ones that are almost 3 feet long and have a curve; i.e. "wrap around". Listing resolutions starting at 2880 x 900. A Jan 2008 wired story showing it.

On a Sept 5 Kotaku post from the PAX convention there is a shot of 1 of these screens in action.

So is the fact that they are rear-projection a step backwards in display quality compared to what we have available now in LCDs?

I for one would greatly enjoy having a native taskbar (win 7) or dock (OS X) span naturally along a very wide resolution.

Answer 1

I have not seen these for years! For my company, I made inquiries about these as I really wanted to sell them.

I had a meeting with the company involved in their manufacture but it became clear that they would never meet people's expectations.

The gap was visible—it may look good in pictures, but in reality, it was a tiny gap (about 5mm) between the screens.

The quality… well, with people talking more and more about high definition and lower refresh rates, this technology simply cannot keep up.

Most importantly, price! The wholesale import cost of a 22" 1920x1200 5ms screen was around £350+ (at the time), this screen was over £2,000 each!

Now screens have gone down and I can get the above 22" for around £100. I have also lost all contact with the company involved—not sure if they are even around… I need to dig up details.

Whilst I would probably have sold less than 1% of what Dell could, they were really playing hard ball and were unwilling to shift on price; I am surprised Dell couldn't negotiate but I am guessing that is all that was holding them back.

Would you really want to pay £2500+ (with profit) for this, when you can get 3x high definition monitors? That was the reason I decided not to go ahead. The press it would've got me would've lasted for… maybe a couple of months if I was lucky, but the cost of them is far too much and I doubt I would have shifted many.

Answer 2

Wait until AMOLED hits mainstream, then you'll get "wraparound" AND quality :)

source (and probably a better place to ask this quiz :)

Answer 3

That's a picture from the side. You can see how huge the back is. It isn't so much wrap around as it is curved. This is probably why you aren't seeing them. People see from the front and drool and people see from the side and move on.