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Watch 3D Images Leap Out of this Asus Laptop Screen

Asus joins Acer for laptops with glasses-free 3D, but hitches its wagon to OLED instead of IPS.

Lori Grunin Senior Editor / Advice
I've been reviewing hardware and software, devising testing methodology and handed out buying advice for what seems like forever; I'm currently absorbed by computers and gaming hardware, but previously spent many years concentrating on cameras. I've also volunteered with a cat rescue for over 15 years doing adoptions, designing marketing materials, managing volunteers and, of course, photographing cats.
Expertise Photography, PCs and laptops, gaming and gaming accessories
Lori Grunin
2 min read
The StudioBook Pro 16 3D OLED sitting on a wood table and a blue background showing a dinosaur on the screen
Josh Goldman/CNET

A couple of years ago, Acer added a laptop with a Spatial Labs glasses-free 3D screen in its Concept D mobile workstation line, and has since been quietly chugging away with the tech. The company subsequently incorporated the tech into gaming laptops.

At CES on Wednesday, Asus announced its own 3D panel for a couple of creator-focused laptops. But Asus's difference is OLED. It says OLED's high contrast and fast pixel response time promise less crosstalk and ghosting -- in other words, visibly crisper 3D rendering -- than with the IPS panels used by Acer. It's designed to work with all common 3D formats, though the experience may vary depending upon content.

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The panel itself is the 3.2K 120Hz model Asus has been using in some of its current models, but the 3D is generated via a layer of lenticular lenses bonded to it -- to refract the emitted light to different eyes -- and Acer combines it with eye tracking to figure out how to orient the object.

An exploded view of the screen layers necessary to display in 3D
Asus/screenshot by Lori Grunin/CNET

In the early model that we got a chance to see, the eye tracking didn't work quite as smoothly as it needs to, taking too long to lock, but Asus doesn't expect to release either of the models that will have it -- the ProArt Studiobook 16 3D OLED or the Vivobook Pro 16X 3D OLED -- until at least the second quarter of 2023. The company did tell us that the screen adds to the cost of the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED by about $500. Asus is also working on the ability to track multiple viewers.