Acer is continuing its admirable pattern of updates to its portfolio of niche products featuring glasses-free 3D displays. For CES 2024, that means a standalone 27-inch Predator gaming monitor and a 15-inch Aspire laptop — the lowest down the laptop food chain that Acer has brought its 3D tech to.
For Acer’s SpatialLabs technology, there’s a lenticular layer bonded to the screen to split a single image into two stereoscopic ones, which, in conjunction with eye tracking, lets you see 3D depth without using 3D glasses. Acer’s various software pieces take all that and massage games or creative software for an optimal experience. (Read my thoughts about it based on the Predator Helios 300 SpatialLabs Edition I tested.)
Acer is gamely bringing the technology to gaming monitors with its Predator SpatialLabs View 27, a 27-inch 2D/3D-switchable 4K monitor that builds on the SpatialLabs View Pro 27 launched last year. In addition to Acer’s TrueGame software, which lets you tweak the 3D effect, the monitor comes with Immerse Audio, which uses the eye-tracking sensors to enable head tracking that in turn enables beam-forming sound, to simulate surround sound. How well that works remains to be determined, given that the monitor only has a pair of 2.5-watt speakers.
Watch this: Hands On: Acer’s 3D Stereoscopic Screen
3D stereoscopic seems like more of a technical challenge for a standalone monitor than a laptop, though. The visual effect is very sensitive to distance, height and viewing angle, and there’s a lot more potential variety in positioning for a monitor than a laptop, which means your mileage may vary significantly compared to the laptop experience.
Creatives (the market for the older View Pro 27) may be more used to rigid placement requirements because perceptual color accuracy is sensitive to viewing angle, and the 3D display would generally be a secondary, rather than primary display, so you’re not stuck in a small range of head positions for long periods the way you are when gaming.
Though it works as a 2D monitor as well as a 3D one, if you’re primarily interested in 2D, the specs sound fairly lackluster given the intended $1,999 price. They include a 160Hz refresh rate, peak brightness of 400 nits (in other words, no HDR) and support for FreeSync and G-Sync Compatible adaptive refresh technologies.
It’s slated to ship by the end of June.
Aspire 3D 15 SpatialLabs Edition.
Acer is also expanding its 3D laptops downstream to the Aspire line. New for 2024, the 15-inch Aspire 3D 15 SpatialLabs Edition (A3D15-71GM) is intended for creators on a midrange budget — it’ll start at $1,400 when it ships in February. It’ll come equipped with SpatialLabs Experience Center Pro, which includes Model Viewer (real-time import and conversion of CGI and CAD formats), an OpenXR runtime (for using AR/VR with relevant applications) and plugins for developers using Unreal Engine and Unity.
The 15.6-inch display has 4K resolution and covers 100% of the Adobe RGB gamut, which is an odd fit. Creators who want 3D are more likely to use P3 rather than the Adobe RGB color space, which is used for screen-to-print color matching. You’ll be able to configure the system with up to a Core i7-13620H, GeForce RTX 4050, 32GB DDR5 RAM and 2TB storage. It’s expected to ship in February.
