The Acer SpatialLabs View ASV15-1B ($1,099.99) is easily the most expensive portable monitor we have reviewed, but for good reason. In addition to having some atypical elements such as a built-in battery and an SD card slot, the ASV15-1B can display images, videos, models, and games in three dimensions without 3D glasses. It works best with content (such as games) with a built-in 3D element to them, and finding the sweet spot for 3D viewing by centering yourself in front of the screen and remaining relatively still can be cumbersome. Still, the SpatialLabs View is worth consideration by gamers who have money to spare for trying out 3D.
Design: A New Dimension, Without the Glasses
The ASV15-1B's stereoscopic 3D display consists of a 15.6-inch in-plane switching (IPS) screen with a 4K UHD (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) resolution overlaid with a thin (and invisible to the viewer) lenticular lens. This lens serves to separate an image into left and right stereo frames for 3D viewing, but it has no effect on 2D content. The ASV15-1B has a special dual-camera system for eye-tracking to present its 3D visuals correctly.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)The ASV15-1B has a rather chunky base by portable monitor standards. It's affixed to the lower half of the monitor in back, and it houses the device's ports and electronics, including a built-in 56-watt-hour battery. Only a small percentage of portable monitors, the Ricoh Portable Monitor 150BW and Asus ZenScreen Touch (MB16AMT) among them, house their own rechargeable batteries. Hinged to the top of the base is the stand, a flat metal plate that folds outward, giving you fine control over the panel's tilt angle.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)Ports include HDMI, USB-C, and USB-A. You'll also find an SD card slot, a socket for the power adapter, and a two-way control switch with a central button.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)You need to use the power adapter to power and/or charge the ASV15-1B. Although the display's USB-C port supports DisplayPort over USB alternate mode, it does not support power delivery. Also, to view content in 3D, you will have to connect the monitor to a computer via both HDMI and USB, stringing two cables between the devices. (The display comes with one HDMI-to-HDMI and one USB-C-to-USB-C cable.)
Earlier this year, we reviewed a laptop, the Acer Predator Helios 300 Spatial Labs Edition, which also supports glasses-free 3D based on the same technology as the ASV15-1B. The reviewer found it to be overpriced, with dated hardware for a gaming machine and its 3D rendering of inconsistent quality. The SpatialLabs View is an entirely different product, and up against portable monitors rather than gaming laptops. So how did the ASV15-1B do? Read on.
Glasses-Free 3D: Finicky, Dizzying, But Also Magical
Acer lists the recommended system requirements for the ASV15-1B as a desktop or laptop with an Intel Core i7 (or higher) CPU. As for the GPU, Acer recommends an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 or higher when paired with a desktop, or an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti or higher when used with a laptop. The monitor seems to work fine with higher-end AMD CPUs as well; to test the ASV15-1B's 3D capabilities, I paired it with an Alienware m16 laptop that has an AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 GPU.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)Through the downloadable SpatialLabs Experience Center software, you can access four apps. SpatialLabs Go renders 2D content such as photos or movies in three dimensions. SpatialLabs Model Viewer lets you import and convert files from CAD and CGI 3D software and present them in full geometric 3D. SpatialLabs Player lets you play back the side-by-side videos on your computer in Stereoscopic 3D mode, with the ability to switch between 2D and 3D visualization. And SpatialLabs TrueGame lets you view a select group of games in three dimensions, in either the 3D+ or the latest 3D Ultra mode. (You do have to have one of these games preloaded on your system to do this.)
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)To avail yourself of the ASV15-1B's 3D capabilities, you first have to connect both an HDMI and a USB cable between monitor and computer, as mentioned above. To run any of the SpatialLabs apps, you will then want to go into Windows display settings and extend the displays, drag the content you want to display in 3D onto the ASV15-1B's screen, and maximize it. Then you launch the SpatialLabs Go app, click to render in 3D, and you should be on your way.
With the SpatialLabs Go app, I viewed our standard video test clips as well as images from our photo suite, in both cases rendering two-dimensional content into 3D. This is challenging under any circumstances, as a single photo print, for instance, is entirely in two dimensions, so at best you are giving the illusion of 3D. Sometimes this worked okay, but it was often troublesome. For instance, in a photo of a canyon with a pine tree in the foreground, the canyon had a subtle but pleasing 3D effect, but the pine tree showed excessive depth, seeming to extend away from the viewer in an unnatural way.
The monitor uses its dual cameras in the top bezel to track the user's eye movements to aid in the 3D effect. This works best when you look straight-on at the center of the screen—the effect can become degraded if you move your head and/or body around or view the screen at an angle, and it effectively limits viewing to a single user. Several times while I was viewing photos and film clips in 3D, co-workers looked over my shoulder, and they were unimpressed.
Although the 3D effect using SpatialLabs Go worked okay for some images and videos, I would not want to view photos or video clips this way for long periods. At times, I felt what was almost a mild vertigo.
I also used the SpatialLabs TrueGame app to view the one game in our Steam library, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, that is supported by the app's 3D Ultra mode. (We do have other games that are supported by the more basic 3D+ mode.) This experience was better than with converted 2D content that I had viewed using SpatialLabs Go. With Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the 3D effect was more natural and enjoyable, although the system again proved finicky and very sensitive to my position relative to the screen. Once again, my experience proved better than that of my colleagues who came by to gawk at this latest attempt at finding the glasses-free 3D holy grail but did not have the benefit of being seated right in front of the monitor.
2D Monitor Testing: Bright, With Great Contrast and Good Color Coverage
I measured the ASV15-1B's brightness, contrast, and color coverage using a Klein K10-A colorimeter and Portrait Displays Calman software. The ASV15-1B did very well in all of these metrics. Its tested luminance (brightness per unit area) of 373 nits (candelas per meter squared) fell just short of its 380-nit rating. Its contrast ratio came in at 1,557:1, considerably better than its 1,200:1 rating.
(Credit: Portrait Displays)Acer rates the ASV15-1B's sRGB color coverage at 100%. In our testing, it came a hair short of that, at 98% (see the chromaticity chart above). The sRGB color space is used for online art preparation and numerous other applications. Acer makes no coverage claims for Adobe RGB (the color space used in preparing color photos and illustrations for printing) or DCI-P3 (a color space created for use with digital video), but we test them as a matter of course. The ASV15-1B covered 89.3% of the Adobe RGB space and 96.8% of DCI-P3.
I also ran the ASV15-1B through our usual video and photo testing. In video, colors were rich and well saturated, and the monitor did well in handling detail in both bright and dark areas. Photos exhibited vivid, realistic-looking colors and showed good contrast, particularly in dark areas.
Verdict: Two Cheers and No Glasses for 3D
The ASV15-1B works perfectly well as a traditional portable monitor, thanks to its bright UHD screen with excellent contrast and near-complete sRGB color coverage. It even has some atypical features, such as a built-in battery and an SD card reader. Most important, it delivers on its headline feature: rendering 3D content without requiring you to to wear special glasses to view it. It does best with content designed with three-dimensional elements, such as the games that the SpatialLabs TrueGame app supports.
Ultimately, what makes this monitor stand out, and gives it such a hefty price tag, is glasses-free 3D. Imperfect as it is, the Acer SpatialLabs View ASV15-1B is a viable system for viewing three-dimensional content. If you already have a relatively recent gaming laptop and a little over a grand to spare, you can add another dimension to your viewing experience, and throw out those old 3D glasses while you're at it.
