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Acer SpatialLabs View 15.6-inch Glasses-Free 3D Portable Monitor Review

The Acer SpatialLabs View is a 15.6-inch portable monitor that displays 3D images without needing glasses.

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The history of 3D video shows the industry's and enthusiasts' real effort to elevate it beyond gimmick status. Modern formats like Imax and frame-packed Blu-ray can create a convincing 3D image that immerses the viewer. I’ll never forget the first time I saw Avatar in a premium Imax theater. It was and still is a formative experience. I didn’t mind wearing the glasses then, but the idea of glasses-free 3D is always attractive.

(Image credit: Acer)

The Acer SpatialLabs View is more than a few steps in the right direction. Not only can it mimic the look of a 3D TV for video and games, but the 3D Ultra feature also goes way beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, only nine games currently support it, but it is undeniably one of the coolest things in the gaming world.

As a gaming monitor, the View is not something you’ll want for fast-motion titles like Doom Eternal. Leave those to the fast refresh Adaptive-Sync models. The View tops out at a fixed 60 Hz. But in 2D, adventure games are a lot of fun thanks to the 4K screen with 282ppi pixel density, excellent contrast and very saturated & accurate color. 3D reduces that resolution to FHD, but that truly doesn’t matter. The suspension of disbelief is something you must experience to appreciate.

As a workday display, it is one of the best portables I’ve reviewed, thanks to accurate Adobe RGB color and greater contrast than nearly any IPS panel out there. Plenty of brightness means you can use it just about anywhere. And a five-hour battery life means it’s qualified for a spot in the road warrior’s tech bag.

The Acer SpatialLabs View is a special display and at this writing, is unique. It’s a premium purchase at $1,099, but that number is relative since nothing else can do what it does. If you’re a fan of 3D imagery, the View is a monitor you should keep in mind.

MORE: Best Portable Monitors

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Christian Eberle
Christian Eberle
Contributing Editor

Christian Eberle is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He's a veteran reviewer of A/V equipment, specializing in monitors. Christian began his obsession with tech when he built his first PC in 1991, a 286 running DOS 3.0 at a blazing 12MHz. In 2006, he undertook training from the Imaging Science Foundation in video calibration and testing and thus started a passion for precise imaging that persists to this day. He is also a professional musician with a degree from the New England Conservatory as a classical bassoonist which he used to good effect as a performer with the West Point Army Band from 1987 to 2013. He enjoys watching movies and listening to high-end audio in his custom-built home theater and can be seen riding trails near his home on a race-ready ICE VTX recumbent trike. Christian enjoys the endless summer in Florida where he lives with his wife and Chihuahua and plays with orchestras around the state.

20 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bit_user
    Interesting, but I prefer the technology behind Looking Glass' light-field displays.
    https://lookingglassfactory.com/
    They don't depend on eye-tracking and work with any number of viewers.
    Reply
  • dalauder
    As far as I can tell, 3D interest depends on how much people expect real life in 3D. My brother and my wife have a dominant eye and typically see in 2D, so they aren't impressed by 3D content ever. The fact that a good half of people could care less, really hurts adoption.

    However, availability of 3D displays that don't require much setup, or any classes, will help A LOT. That way the non-tech savvy folks can get into it. My parents have a 3D TV that I like a lot, but they can't manage to keep their glasses charged or sync'd with their TV consistently enough to be bothered with it.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    dalauder said:
    The fact that a good half of people could care less, really hurts adoption.
    I consider myself something of a 3D enthusiast, in that I bought CrystalEyes LCD glasses for my PC, back in 1995, and bought a 3D plasma TV that I still sometimes use to watch 3D movies (I have a few dozen 3D blurays and trade them with another guy at work who collects them even more than I do). When there's a movie I want to see in a theater, I pretty much only watch in laser 3D (either I-Max or Dolby Vision). I even have a half dozen or more PS3 games that support 3D TVs.

    With all that being said, if I get engrossed in the movie, I find that I tend to forget I'm watching 3D and sometimes have to remind myself to pay attention to the eye candy. You just get used to it, I guess. From what I hear, a similar effect isn't uncommon among regular VR users.

    I think holographic displays have limited applications. Mostly either like 3D modeling, CAD, or GIS displays, where there's a practical benefit to seeing depth. For the general public, they're good for grabbing people's attention as they walk by some kind of kiosk or window display.

    I guess they'd make some pretty neat arcade games, though I'm not sure how much the arcade market even is, any more. Speaking of which, does anyone remember that 1991 Sega arcade game Time Traveler, with the dish reflector that made a planar image appear to be suspended in free space?

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    Anyway, the major downsides of lightfield displays are that there's a bigger tradeoff vs. resolution, and they take a good deal of rendering horsepower, since you're essentially rendering the same scene from like 45 or 90 different angles. The pixel count is still whatever the display's native resolution, so we're talking about lots of geometry processing moreso than raster performance.

    That's where this Acer display comes out ahead. It has a much smaller resolution tradeoff, and lesser geometry burden.
    Reply
  • Kamen Rider Blade
    bit_user said:
    Interesting, but I prefer the technology behind Looking Glass' light-field displays.
    https://lookingglassfactory.com/
    They don't depend on eye-tracking and work with any number of viewers.
    Light Field doesn't seem to be competing with 3D display's.

    They're more on their own track of novelty Displays that's trying to create volumetric Holograms IRL.

    Similar to what Star Wars & Star Trek has been wanting to do for many years.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Kamen Rider Blade said:
    Light Field doesn't seem to be competing with 3D display's.

    They're more on their own track of novelty Displays that's trying to create volumetric Holograms IRL.

    Similar to what Star Wars & Star Trek has been wanting to do for many years.
    The way a lightfield display works is that you have to look at the display. Objects can appear to be in front or behind the plane of the display, but the frustum is clipped by the display itself.

    In other words, if you step too far to the left or right, you'll see the image cut off by the edge of the display. It's not as if they're projected into free space.

    Even that Sega arcade game only created the illusion of a display pane in free space. You still had to look into the parabolic reflector, even if you didn't realize you were.
    Reply
  • Kamen Rider Blade
    bit_user said:
    The way a lightfield display works is that you have to look at the display. Objects can appear to be in front or behind the plane of the display, but the frustum is clipped by the display itself.

    In other words, if you step too far to the left or right, you'll see the image cut off by the edge of the display. It's not as if they're projected into free space.

    Even that Sega arcade game only created the illusion of a display pane in free space. You still had to look into the parabolic reflector, even if you didn't realize you were.
    I saw the "Tested" video articles on LightField and how it slowly came to be.

    But I don't see them trying to compete directly against 3D Monitors.

    It feels like they're kind of going off in their own direction.

    The fact that they're not projecting into "Free Space" at the moment is a limitation of the tech.

    Everybody is trying to create the floating 3D hologram that Star Wars & Star Trek show us in their shows.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Kamen Rider Blade said:
    The fact that they're not projecting into "Free Space" at the moment is a limitation of the tech.

    Everybody is trying to create the floating 3D hologram that Star Wars & Star Trek show us in their shows
    As far as I'm aware, the only displays that appear to form fully 3D images in free space (i.e. with nothing behind them) are actually spinning a 1D or 2D display fast enough that you don't really notice it.
    Reply
  • dalauder
    Kamen Rider Blade said:
    I saw the "Tested" video articles on LightField and how it slowly came to be.

    But I don't see them trying to compete directly against 3D Monitors.

    It feels like they're kind of going off in their own direction.

    The fact that they're not projecting into "Free Space" at the moment is a limitation of the tech.

    Everybody is trying to create the floating 3D hologram that Star Wars & Star Trek show us in their shows.
    They love to show those in science fiction (commonplace in the Marvel Universe too), but I don't think anyone has a decent idea to actually make one. For some Star Wars holograms, 2D projections on a medium work fine--like the R2-D2 type holograms that are low quality. Fantasmic at Disneyland basically looks the same and that might be achievable.

    The Light Field and 3D monitors both cost $1000 or so and provide glasses-free 3D. So they could compete. But I guess they don't because this Acer comes with all the software to make it usable as a computer monitor.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    dalauder said:
    The Light Field and 3D monitors both cost $1000 or so and provide glasses-free 3D.
    The Looking Glass Portrait is $400, but it's rather small and their larger displays are way more expensive.

    What other Lightfield monitors are there?

    dalauder said:
    So they could compete. But I guess they don't because this Acer comes with all the software to make it usable as a computer monitor.
    Looking Glass embeds a Raspberry Pi in theirs, which can play back prerecorded 3D movies in standalone mode. Or, you can connect and use it like a regular monitor.
    Reply
  • dalauder
    bit_user said:
    The Looking Glass Portrait is $400, but it's rather small and their larger displays are way more expensive.

    What other Lightfield monitors are there?
    Oh, I explicitly meant those Lightfield ones that you mentioned (Looking Glass). There's no direct price comparison, but their small display price suggests that the price is similar for both technologies, within 50% of each other at least.

    I should look up some Looking Glass reviews. I like that the Acer one from this review was gaming-ready (well, 60 fps). I suppose I'd own both, if I just won the lottery.
    Reply