Comdex Fall, Las Vegas: Sony shows 2-feet super-wide screen of dreams

Las Vegas Comdex visitors in need of more monitor real estate saw their screen of dreams here this week when Sony demonstrated its "2-feet Trinitron". The monitor lets two A4 pages be shown full-size side-by-side at resolutions up to 1920x1200.

Also known by the more prosaic GDM-W900 name, the 24-inch super-wide display with 16:10 aspect ratio offers a 30 per cent greater work area than Sony's orthodox 20-inch monitor, according to the firm. The breakthrough is made possible thanks to a new tungsten-infused cathode that provides a 23 per cent brighter beam. The unit is aimed at professional colour, visualisation and engineering environments. It will be bundled with Light Source's Colortron calibration software.

Pricing will be about $5,000 when the Macintosh or PC device gets its US release on January 2, 1997. A UK release is expected to follow in the first quarter of next year.

Mike Fox, product marketing manager for advanced displays at Sony Information Technologies of America, said the introduction of the wide-screen monitor represented a change of tack from the traditionally cautious Sony. "It's really a paradigm shift. We've traditionally been engineering driven but we're moving to a product-centric process."