Seiki Announces Trio of 60Hz 4K Monitors

By on at • @mggjim

At a time, not so long ago, when the most affordable 4K monitors cost $3,500, California-based (but Chinese-owned) Seiki made headlines with the release of a then-unheard of $1,400 50-inch 4K television. The company followed that up last June with the launch of a 39-inch 4K TV for just $699. Although marketed as televisions, many gamers and computing enthusiasts were drawn to the products with the hopes of using them as ultra-cheap 4K monitors.

Those early televisions were sensational due to their price, but unfortunately weren’t too great when it came to features and picture quality. Today, many mainstream manufacturers like Asus, Dell, and Samsung have launched their own 4K products in the $600 to $1,000 price range, making those early Seiki products practically obsolete.

Rather than sit idly by, Seiki announced last week that it hopes to once again disrupt the 4K market, this time with dedicated 4K monitors. The company is gearing up to launch three 4K displays that boast some impressive features:

  • 28-inch 28U4SEP-G02
  • 32-inch 32U4SEP-G02
  • 40-inch 40U4SEP-G02

All three will feature the standard 4K UHD resolution of 3,840-by–2,160, 12-bit color processing, a wide array of ports (HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.3, MHL 3.0, DVI, and VGA), picture-in-picture mode capable of supporting four non-scaled 1080p streams, a USB 3.0 hub, and a VESA-compliant mount.

Most importantly, these displays will all support 60Hz output, which is crucial for gaming and any motion-based media tasks. This contrasts with the first generation Seiki TVs, which were capped at 30Hz.

Pricing has yet to be announced, and we’ll have to get our hands on one of the displays to see if its real-world quality and performance lives up to its impressive specs. Expect these displays to hit the market at the very end of this year or the first quarter of 2015.

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  • Maurice Samuels

    My Seiki 55in has a Awesome Picture( Blu Ray Movies) with the Seiki U vision Cable! Poor picture quality?? To say poor picture quality is bias.

    • http://www.tekrevue.com/ TekRevue

      I’m glad you received a unit that you’re happy with, but in evaluating multiple Seiki displays, we noticed uneven backlighting, poor color accuracy (especially in the blues, even after calibration), and poor black levels. But many people dismissed these shortcomings due to the price.

  • Maurice Samuels

    I suggest taking another look with the U vision cable its a big difference.

  • MichaelSB

    DisplayPort 1.3 does not exist yet, nothing indicates it will happen any time soon. Seiki could have captured the market of 4k monitors if they included DisplayPort 1.2 and 60Hz support on their 39″ model. But they didn’t, and today there are Samsung and Asus with $700 products.
    Now to ‘disrupt the market’ they will have to offer similar monitors for $300-$400.

  • TrevorAGreen

    I sense a bait a switch. The 4k monitor line is a great announcement, but I think it is the wrong play. All they need to do is update the current lineup with all of the new specs. 60 hz, display port.. etc… Not introduce a smaller and likely more expensive lineup of “pro” monitors. Which is fine, but not the expectations they have setup. They have setup low cost (large) 4k as their in to the market. So either the prices of the monitors need to scale just like the tv’s and everything they have announce needs to be under $500 or they are just going to be another face in a crowd of price points that are too high for the average buyer. Maybe they are done being the price leader and figure the name is out there now and they can start creating expensive products. I sure hope not. I bought the samsung 28inch 4k, but I would have rather have had a 50-55 inch tv with 60hz 4k and display port. So while the monitors sound like good options that will still leave the market with no larger screens with 4k and displayport.

    At my office we have order 3 of the tv’s for monitors and they are awesome at the large size. The distinction between monitors and tv’s needs to go away and all tv’s need display port and hdmi 2.0. People might think it is weird to sit close to a 55 inch screen as a monitor. It is absolutely not weird, it is awesome.