New SmallHD Ultra Bright Monitors - 503 & 703

[Chris Niswonger]

Been looking at a monitor solution for awhile now and I think this would be an amazing option. 2200/2500 nits for 503/703, hella rugged case designs, and lemo power!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogPOJtzAzxw

They are expensive but have some early adopter discounts:
https://www.smallhd.com/community/ultrabright

Thoughts?

C.

 

[AndreasOberg]

Yikes, my first thought was I wonder how much power that will draw. 2200 nits should be useful in very sunny situations I can imagine.
I just got the 702 Bright but have tried it outside yet, here in UK its pretty gloomy so I'm sure it would be more than enough for now.
/Andreas

 

[Tristan Houghton]

Looks EPIC!!!

 

[Olivier Gresse]

Interresting even if I find it very expensive!

My questions :

- Does this monitor heat up as much as the 502?
- Will there be a sidefinder version or a VF version?

 

[Chris Steel]

I got my grubby mits on this yesterday at BVE (about five minutes after newsshooter were there). They're also releasing a 703 version and a new 702 oled; coming out at the same sort of time but they weren't at the show.

The 503 felt solid, all metal frame with gorilla glass over the screen
Buttons felt solid, thumb knob is greatly improved over the 502 and 702. Doesn't feel like it's about to break every time you touch it.
It certainly was bright but it's hard to say how it would cope with harsh sunlight. It has a studio brightness mode which locks it at 100nits.
For me, this is a great monitor for on camera needs and as a quick reference for the DOP as it has exposure tools and LUTS (just like the 502). Not sure I would use it as a focus monitor alone on a stand with sun shade though, leave that to the 703 and slightly larger monitors.

It's bigger and heavier than the 502 but then it's full metal and has a big heat sink on the back. I cant really speak to sharpness or colour accuracy as it was plugged into playback and I couldn't attach it to a nearby camera

 

[Lee Saxon]

Yikes. That's about $2000 more than I want to spend on a monitor.

I get it, SmallHD has 356 customers. They're buying panels in batches of 11. There's nothing they can do about it.

But somebody like Sony who's already buying 80 trillion hi-dpi panels per year for $0.10 each to make smartphones needs to take a few of them and stick them in a box with an HDMI connector and sell it for $250.