Well, that didn’t take long. A week after the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) unveiled a new HDR certification program, Samsung today announced its CHG90 is the first monitor to carry the DisplayHDR 600 badge.
VESA’s new ratings are broken up into three levels—DisplayHDR 400 (baseline), 600 (midrange), and 1000 (high-end). To earn the DispayHDR 600 badge, a monitor must have a peak luminance of 600 nits, along with real-time contrast ratios with local dimming. It also requires 10-bit image processing.
“When granting DisplayHDR 600 certification to the CHG90, VESA cited the monitor’s use of HDR to elevate contrast ratio (3,000:1), color accuracy and overall presentation vibrancy as an industry standard-setter. The certification further validates the CHG90’s ability to provide the optimal gaming and entertainment viewing environment,” Samsung said.
This is just the first of what will probably be many more announcements to come. VESA’s goal is to facilitate the adoption of HDR throughout the PC market, with an initial focus on LCD panels. Even if a monitor maker feels this is something the industry doesn’t really need, companies love to splash badges on their products.
For Samsung, the DisplayHDR 600 is another selling point for a monitor that is already noteworthy for its IMAX-style design. The CHG90 is a 49-inch QLED display seems to stretch for forever, with a 3840×1080 resolution. It’s like having two 27-inch 1080p display combined into a single 49-inch panel with an 1800r curvature. It has a 32:9 aspect ratio, 144Hz refresh rate, and 1ms response time. Now it’s DisplayHDR 600 certified, too.
To be clear, nothing has changed about the CHG90, other than an added bullet point on the box. It’s still the same monitor—but a very large and fancy one to be sure.