- The first 8K 120Hz screen recently shown on display week -event
- Real use for 8K screens, however, still feels far out of reach
- Display manufacturers continue to build while the market remains convinced
At the recent Display Week 2025 event, Chinese company Boe showed the first ever 31.5-inch 8K screen capable of running at 120Hz.
CR3000 offers a contrast ratio of 8000: 1, a color play of 99% DCI-P3, and also supports 240Hz in 4K mode.
Boe, which is the largest panel manufacturer in the world and was also sponsor of the show, told 8K Association It expects to begin mass production later in 2025, although details of pricing and final product integration are still unknown.
Other 8K panels on show
Display week often serves as a glimpse of where display technology can be led instead of where it is at the moment. This pattern continued this year with a number of other 8K panels on the show.
TCL/CSOT brought an inkjet-printed OLED 8K TV panel, a project that was partly built from its acquisition of Joled, and SEL surprised participants with an 8.3-inch 8K LCD panel that offered over 1,000 PPI, making it the sharpest full-colored LCD shown to date.
In addition to that 8K 120Hz, BOE had a number of other products on the show. These included the latest version of its miniled UB Cell 4.0 ads Pro TVs aimed at challenging OLED with deeper contrast and better efficiency, and an 85-inch 4K panel with an RGB backlight system running in a filterless state that can one day reduce power consumption and complexity, especially in 8K applications.
It also had a 3D display prototype with eye tracking based on a 16K development. Although it is still early stage, the image quality and the parallax control impressed those who got to see it in action.
Still ahead of its time
Boe’s CR3000 panel arrives at a time when the wider market is still catching up with high update 4K games, so much less 8K.
While PC players have begun to see mainstream GPUs offer stable 4K60 gameplay, it pushes four times in resolution and double in Refresh some difficult questions. Opening and frame generation can be more a necessity than a feature if such a panel is to be used for games or creative work.
Although I can’t help but be impressed with Boe’s 8K 120Hz screen, it feels like it’s ahead of its time. The hardware to operate it effectively does not exist in scale, and most buyers are probably not ready for what would certainly be a high price product.
8K screens were expected to hit mainstream a few years ago, but it didn’t happen. This latest panel may be technically impressive, but I’m not convinced that the world is ready for it.
