SmallHD announced the 702 OLED, an upgrade to its popular 702 Bright field monitor, as well as a new 17″ reference grading monitor, the smallHD 1703-P3 with 10-bit color processing.
The SmallHD 702 OLED
The upgraded SmallHD 702 OLED is a wide color-gamut field monitor with an OLED panel for color accuracy. According to the manufacturer, it is “slightly more sophisticated” than the top 0f the line smallHD 702 Bright. That said, this 7.7-inch panel seems to be limited to a resolution of 1280×800 pixels, just like its more affordable companions, the SmallHD 702 Lite and SmallHD 701 Lite, while the original SmallHD 702 Bright features a 1920×1080 panel.
OLED certainly is appealing due to its rich and accurate color display, but $1,599 for a field monitor might be a stretch for most of us and seems like an attribute reserved for specific color critical applications. In terms of specs, the SmallHD 702 Bright has a higher resolution, larger viewing angle and more than twice the brightness.
SmallHD 702 OLED Specs:
- Panel Type: OLED
- Size Diagonal: 7.7
- Resolution: 1280×800
- Aspect Ratio: 16:10 Native
- Brightness: 300 nits (For comparison: the 702 Bright features 1000)
- Colour Gamut: Wide Color Gamut
- Colour Depth: 24 Bit (8bpc)
- Viewing Angle: 160°+
- Adjustable Backlight: Yes
- Temperature Adaptive Colour: Yes
The SmallHD 1703-P3
This is SmallHD’s “first reference grade monitor”. Though the 1703 line already existed, the new SmallHD 1703-P3 features true 10-bit color processing and delivers 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color space with a 1500:1 contrast ratio, 450 nits of brightness and a 179° viewing angle, which is a lot more contrast and brightness than the 700:1 , 300 nits of the original smallHD 1703.
This monitor offers true reference grade cinema color, covering 100% of the DCI-P3 color space, which makes it the perfect monitor for DIT’s on-set and for mastering in post,” says SmallHD co-founder Wes Philips.
Apparently, the 1703-P3 monitor comes pre-calibrated for DCI-P3 mastering. There’s one HDMI and two SDI inputs, as well as one HDMI and two SDI outputs, but apparently there are no composite connections.
It seems to me like this monitor is directly competing monitors like the Flanders Scientific DM170, which has similar specs and price point at just under $4,000.
This is not a cheap monitor and is certainly targeted at professional colorists who will appreciate the many useful features and high quality it comes with. It is remarkable to see what this company has achieved, having only a few years ago sold their first DP1 field monitor which I still use own.
For more information on both monitors, go to SmallHD.com.
