I agree, except for the 3:4 aspect ratio...I'd keep the 16:9 because many presentations are moving towards widescreen as many monitors move in that direction. 6.1" would still fit in my pocket but provide a larger, more detailed image to work with than the 4.3" on my current phone. It'd be nice to see the color gamut improve some.
I'd also like to see phone functionality built in because I do not feel like having multiple wireless bills, or have the pain in trying to set up a wireless hot spot every time I want to use the internet on my tablet. A 6.1" phone probably would fit into my mitts (there is still a good amount of space left with my 4.3"), but I know my hands are larger than most, but there are always wireless headsets that you can connect with bluetooth...
Requires too much power. E-reader needs a good battery life and hi-res display is quite power hungry (more pixels = more power needed). This panel won't be cheap either, which is another crucial feature of an e-reader.
Depends how much battery life you need. Most people probably won't use it for more than a few hours a day, making it perfectly acceptable if it had only about 4-5 hours of battery life (which is completely reasonable even for that display if the internal hardware isn't too power hungry). At which point they just charge over night. It's also up to the person buying it if they are willing to pay a lot for such a high res display or not.
Resolution independence has largely failed to gain reaction from Apple and Microsoft. Instead, both have decided that resolution doubling is an easier option to code for (as rendering vector images takes up more GPU power than an image with 2x dimensions). Sure, you loose some flexibility in that images do t have near infinite detail, but it's a lot easier for designers to create images with 2x detail than to have to deal with trying to crate detailed vector images.
It's gained significant traction at microsoft, it hasn't gained much traction with application developers, as more developers move to WPF and with Win8's new presentation framework you'll start to see more applications properly support resolution independence.
Most of the OS' have caught up with this, it's web and application developers that need to start embracing it and moving to vector and away from bitmap.
Even Win8 won't have resolution independence. It's going to be closer to properly supporting multiple pixel densities. MS's recommendations are to create assets for standard (~100ppi), laptop (~130ppi), and high density (~180ppi) devices. Win8 will support resolution doubling, though it's a work in progress.
True resolution independence has more or less died a lonely death. Not that it's a bad idea (it's a great idea!), but the difficulties of implementing it have pushed both MS and Apple to resolution doubling. And it's not for a lack of trying, especially on Apple's part.
Those DPIs look to cover tablet, laptop, and quality desktop displays; but I'm surprised they didn't add 72DPI for the 22" 1366x768 type monitors bundled with cheap desktops.
I should have been clearer. Higher res assets plus scaling, or a bit of compositing, will give the effect of independence and display correctly across various resolutions without having to go pure vector. Plus you don't loose the hardware acceleration.
The main point being design the drawing to realize that a 1/4" may be a different number of pixels and account for it. And yes it is a LOT easier to just go 2x.
I didn't mean that it will become too small (indeed resolution independence). What I did mean, is that in my opinion there is a limit to what is useful with normal usage. Pictures such as in the article above could still be made if the resolutions even were 10 (or more) times higher (just zoom in more), but what's the relevance.
"Why do we need such resolutions? For looking at tablets/phones with a magnifying glass? "
We really don't on a 6 inch screen, way overkill, but if this trend brings us higher resolutions on laptop and desktop LCD's, then its a good thing. I would love to see 2560x1600 on a 15-17 inch laptop, or even a 20-24 inch desktop LCD.
Hell, if it could at least usher in an era where the starting point for laptops is at least ONE step up from the current 1366X768, its a good thing.
Not sure how they'll drive a 2560x1600 panel with smartphone caliber graphics. I have a 30" LCD that requires dual-link DVI just to run, and just a single framebuffer for such a resolution is 16MB. It's why most GPUs that support dual-link DVI have at least 1GB RAM, which is what many tablets/smartphones have for the whole system.
I suppose they could just have the smartphone/tablet SoC send a 1280x800 signal or whatever to the panel, and the panel could have internal scaling circuitry, but certainly I wouldn't want to try using Windows on a 500 dpi display.
Even Intel's IGPs support 2560x1600 (and even multiple displays!) so it's not like you need a high-end GPU to run 2560x1600. That resolution has existed for years anyway. I wonder how games would run at native resolution though, given that even today's high-end GPUs have troubles with 1600p.
The issue is that SoC devices don't have the memory bandwidth. A 16MB frame buffer needs to be read (never mind written to) 60 times a second. That's just shy of 1GB/sec of memory bandwidth right there. In reality the frame buffer is going to be compressed, but it's not a fixed compression ratio so there will be times where the memory bandwidth requirements are quite high.
I wish laptops went back to 4:3 screens. The form factors is just so much easier to use. A 15" 4:3 laptop is so much more portable and easier to handle than a 15" 16:9.
Why, you ask? How large is the space on your physical desk? Would you like to work on a desk that was 18inches wide and could only hold your phone and a small note book at one time?
The 1080P HD standard has had two major effects on computers - massively driven down prices of LCDs as panel production ramped up, and induced an almost complete halt in resolution growth. Unless you're willing to spend a lot of money on a larger display (27" +), you won't get better than 1920x1080 (even then, not significantly). It's very frustrating, because while 4K may not be that noticeable compared to 1080P while sitting 8 feet away from a 60" screen watching a movie, it IS useful for a lot of folks while sitting 2 feet away from a 24" screen.
I don't know why people are talking about tablets. If you graph Android phones, it's pretty clear that 6" phones are only a year or two away. This could be a perfect panel for them.
I wonder what kind of SOC you would need to drive that resolution? What are the limits of current gen Mali or PowerVR cores, even if you completely disregard 3D gaming?
2D rendering isn't that hard at these resolutions since your just drawing stuff to the screen and there isn't that much over draw. 3D rendering on the other hand will struggle at that resolution, however it's more likely developers will half the effective resolution to get better frame rates. That's why high res screens need to be really up there to work well with the system; if they aren't high enough, halting the resolution leaves you with something very ugly looking (for example 1600x900 screen on a 7" tablet sounds nice, but at 1/2 res for games to have a high fps, it's a pathetic 800x450 disaster).
6" wasn't the target, it was the incidental number. 500DPI was the primary target; and 2560x1600 is the highest resolution you can drive with conventional GPUs.
Actually, there is a clear possible use for that kind of screen, but it has nothing to do with phones. I know smartphones are all the talk right now, but try to imagine...
Small screen, super high resolution?
Easy answer: bring the screens closer to the eyes...
For example, I think it was Sony who recently released a headmount with two small lcd screen in it.
Nice for 3d gaming...
But it would be much better if it was full HD, for a movie experience like nothing you can have right now...
"since the iPhone 4 with retina display was launched, resolutions have played a major role in smartphone market"
That statement is so false and myopic it is disturbing. 1- Resolutions have played an important role since forever, for mobile phones as well as anything with a screen. Nobody waited for any iPhone for that 2- the iPhone display was, and is, not so much about resolution as about pixel density.
It's dispiriting to see journalists, who are supposed to be at least moderately aware of what goes on in markets, behave as run of the mill Apple fanboys.
I would really love to see this tablet display reach consumers. It might be impossible for the current generation smartphone or tablet SOIs to support this resolution for 3D rendering. But I am sure they have the graphics capabilities enough for 1) Viewing photos, videos 2) Reading e-books 3) Browsing internet It is not urgent for games to be rendered at this resolution. You can halve the resolution on width and height and still get a good visuality at 1280x800. But having high resolution in the fundamental aspects of mobile computing would really feel 'magical'. Plus it will ease it up on our eyes.
Also assuming Moore's Law, it should not be more than a couple of years before mobile GPUs can fully support this resolution for gaming.
This is probably falling on deaf ears, but you really can't calculate the PPI and then display it out to the 100th place. You're using a measure of screen size that isn't accurate, the best example of this is the iPhone's retina display which you list at an absurdly "accurate" 329.65 PPI, yet if you look on apple's own website they list 326 PPI, this is because they are using the correct screen size of 9cm, converting to inches, and then performing the calculation. If you perform the calculation with 3.5" you only have two significant digits, so your result should be 330 PPI (3.3 x 10^2), rounding to two signicant digits.
Yes... minutia, but this is a tech site, that's where minutia matters.
That said I am satisfied with a 1920x1080 display. Note because 16x9 is a superior format, but because for some strange reason the lcd computer monitors have settled on this ratio.
I want a 1920x1080 tablet in a small form factor for the fact it is the natural resolution of many computers and remote desktop seems to work quicker, easier and better looking if you are running the tablet at the same resolution as the computer.
I want to replace my 3.5 year old 24" 1920x1200 monitor with something high res. But at this point it seems silly to buy a 27"/30" screen for 600-1100€ when the next round of tablets has that resolution and costs about as much as my screen.
Don't get me wrong, this development in general is great, but I want it to translate to more areas.
Just like the Samsung display you tout as "unreleased", this one is also "unreleased". They are "exhibiting" at trade shows, according to their own press release. AKA: This is a research project.
For a phone/tablet, if you anti-alias the font, it will look as good without having to resort to such ridiculously high ppi. The places where high a ppi is useful is on head-mounted displays, virtual viewfinders on cameras, and LCD projector panels.
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JMS3072 - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
I actually wouldn't mind a 6" tablet at all, provided that it was in a 3:4 aspect ratio. I love my Nook Touch and think it'd be a great size.asuglax - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
I agree, except for the 3:4 aspect ratio...I'd keep the 16:9 because many presentations are moving towards widescreen as many monitors move in that direction. 6.1" would still fit in my pocket but provide a larger, more detailed image to work with than the 4.3" on my current phone. It'd be nice to see the color gamut improve some.I'd also like to see phone functionality built in because I do not feel like having multiple wireless bills, or have the pain in trying to set up a wireless hot spot every time I want to use the internet on my tablet. A 6.1" phone probably would fit into my mitts (there is still a good amount of space left with my 4.3"), but I know my hands are larger than most, but there are always wireless headsets that you can connect with bluetooth...
davepermen - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
Besides Tablet, this would be great on some e-reader device.Kristian Vättö - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
Requires too much power. E-reader needs a good battery life and hi-res display is quite power hungry (more pixels = more power needed). This panel won't be cheap either, which is another crucial feature of an e-reader.inighthawki - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
Depends how much battery life you need. Most people probably won't use it for more than a few hours a day, making it perfectly acceptable if it had only about 4-5 hours of battery life (which is completely reasonable even for that display if the internal hardware isn't too power hungry). At which point they just charge over night. It's also up to the person buying it if they are willing to pay a lot for such a high res display or not.elian123 - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
Why do we need such resolutions? For looking at tablets/phones with a magnifying glass?retnuh - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
*cough* Resolution independence *cough*dagamer34 - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
Resolution independence has largely failed to gain reaction from Apple and Microsoft. Instead, both have decided that resolution doubling is an easier option to code for (as rendering vector images takes up more GPU power than an image with 2x dimensions). Sure, you loose some flexibility in that images do t have near infinite detail, but it's a lot easier for designers to create images with 2x detail than to have to deal with trying to crate detailed vector images.GuinnessKMF - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
It's gained significant traction at microsoft, it hasn't gained much traction with application developers, as more developers move to WPF and with Win8's new presentation framework you'll start to see more applications properly support resolution independence.Most of the OS' have caught up with this, it's web and application developers that need to start embracing it and moving to vector and away from bitmap.
Ryan Smith - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
Even Win8 won't have resolution independence. It's going to be closer to properly supporting multiple pixel densities. MS's recommendations are to create assets for standard (~100ppi), laptop (~130ppi), and high density (~180ppi) devices. Win8 will support resolution doubling, though it's a work in progress.True resolution independence has more or less died a lonely death. Not that it's a bad idea (it's a great idea!), but the difficulties of implementing it have pushed both MS and Apple to resolution doubling. And it's not for a lack of trying, especially on Apple's part.
DanNeely - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
Those DPIs look to cover tablet, laptop, and quality desktop displays; but I'm surprised they didn't add 72DPI for the 22" 1366x768 type monitors bundled with cheap desktops.retnuh - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
I should have been clearer. Higher res assets plus scaling, or a bit of compositing, will give the effect of independence and display correctly across various resolutions without having to go pure vector. Plus you don't loose the hardware acceleration.The main point being design the drawing to realize that a 1/4" may be a different number of pixels and account for it. And yes it is a LOT easier to just go 2x.
B3an - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
For better image quality and sharper images that rival print. Just because the res is higher dont mean things on screen have to be smaller. Derp.elian123 - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
I didn't mean that it will become too small (indeed resolution independence). What I did mean, is that in my opinion there is a limit to what is useful with normal usage. Pictures such as in the article above could still be made if the resolutions even were 10 (or more) times higher (just zoom in more), but what's the relevance.retrospooty - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
"Why do we need such resolutions? For looking at tablets/phones with a magnifying glass? "We really don't on a 6 inch screen, way overkill, but if this trend brings us higher resolutions on laptop and desktop LCD's, then its a good thing. I would love to see 2560x1600 on a 15-17 inch laptop, or even a 20-24 inch desktop LCD.
Hell, if it could at least usher in an era where the starting point for laptops is at least ONE step up from the current 1366X768, its a good thing.
JarredWalton - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
Not sure how they'll drive a 2560x1600 panel with smartphone caliber graphics. I have a 30" LCD that requires dual-link DVI just to run, and just a single framebuffer for such a resolution is 16MB. It's why most GPUs that support dual-link DVI have at least 1GB RAM, which is what many tablets/smartphones have for the whole system.I suppose they could just have the smartphone/tablet SoC send a 1280x800 signal or whatever to the panel, and the panel could have internal scaling circuitry, but certainly I wouldn't want to try using Windows on a 500 dpi display.
Kristian Vättö - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
Even Intel's IGPs support 2560x1600 (and even multiple displays!) so it's not like you need a high-end GPU to run 2560x1600. That resolution has existed for years anyway. I wonder how games would run at native resolution though, given that even today's high-end GPUs have troubles with 1600p.Ryan Smith - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
The issue is that SoC devices don't have the memory bandwidth. A 16MB frame buffer needs to be read (never mind written to) 60 times a second. That's just shy of 1GB/sec of memory bandwidth right there. In reality the frame buffer is going to be compressed, but it's not a fixed compression ratio so there will be times where the memory bandwidth requirements are quite high.Ben90 - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
I wish laptops went back to 4:3 screens. The form factors is just so much easier to use. A 15" 4:3 laptop is so much more portable and easier to handle than a 15" 16:9.PfHR - Friday, November 4, 2011 - link
Why, you ask? How large is the space on your physical desk? Would you like to work on a desk that was 18inches wide and could only hold your phone and a small note book at one time?People for Higher Resolution, unite! http://www.facebook.com/pages/People-for-Higher-Re...
GeorgeH - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
And yet they still won't make a 24" (or less) monitor greater than 1920 - which is barely more than 90PPI. :\JasonInofuentes - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
+1mcturkey - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
The 1080P HD standard has had two major effects on computers - massively driven down prices of LCDs as panel production ramped up, and induced an almost complete halt in resolution growth. Unless you're willing to spend a lot of money on a larger display (27" +), you won't get better than 1920x1080 (even then, not significantly). It's very frustrating, because while 4K may not be that noticeable compared to 1080P while sitting 8 feet away from a 60" screen watching a movie, it IS useful for a lot of folks while sitting 2 feet away from a 24" screen.DanNeely - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
1920x1080 @ 4.4"1920x1200 @ 4.5"
1440x960 @ 3.5"
BrooksT - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
I don't know why people are talking about tablets. If you graph Android phones, it's pretty clear that 6" phones are only a year or two away. This could be a perfect panel for them.uhuznaa - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
Yepp, and in five years Android phone will have 9" displays... and five USB ports!Seriously, I don't see any sane reason to go beyond 300 DPI or a bit more. Ever more pixel are ever harder on the GPU and the ROI just isn't there.
SanX - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
they have to be ideally at 450ppi. why? just two words "perseived ppi"MartinT - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
I wonder what kind of SOC you would need to drive that resolution? What are the limits of current gen Mali or PowerVR cores, even if you completely disregard 3D gaming?dagamer34 - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
2D rendering isn't that hard at these resolutions since your just drawing stuff to the screen and there isn't that much over draw. 3D rendering on the other hand will struggle at that resolution, however it's more likely developers will half the effective resolution to get better frame rates. That's why high res screens need to be really up there to work well with the system; if they aren't high enough, halting the resolution leaves you with something very ugly looking (for example 1600x900 screen on a 7" tablet sounds nice, but at 1/2 res for games to have a high fps, it's a pathetic 800x450 disaster).french toast - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
tegra 3 has that capability, i know that much.Julepalme - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
I could see a potential use on highend nextgen digital video cameras as a small viewfinder/monitor.other than that 6" seems a like a bit of an odd number.
DanNeely - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
6" wasn't the target, it was the incidental number. 500DPI was the primary target; and 2560x1600 is the highest resolution you can drive with conventional GPUs.r3loaded - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
now why the bloody hell don't we have 20-24 inch desktop monitors with at least this resolution?SanX - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
conspiracy of manufacturersOzymandias-PJ - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
Actually, there is a clear possible use for that kind of screen, but it has nothing to do with phones. I know smartphones are all the talk right now, but try to imagine...Small screen, super high resolution?
Easy answer: bring the screens closer to the eyes...
For example, I think it was Sony who recently released a headmount with two small lcd screen in it.
Nice for 3d gaming...
But it would be much better if it was full HD, for a movie experience like nothing you can have right now...
Version two of that headgear would be awesome...
greylica - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
In the near future, we may see glasses with Augmented Reality using such resolutions and up.StormyParis - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
"since the iPhone 4 with retina display was launched, resolutions have played a major role in smartphone market"That statement is so false and myopic it is disturbing.
1- Resolutions have played an important role since forever, for mobile phones as well as anything with a screen. Nobody waited for any iPhone for that
2- the iPhone display was, and is, not so much about resolution as about pixel density.
It's dispiriting to see journalists, who are supposed to be at least moderately aware of what goes on in markets, behave as run of the mill Apple fanboys.
QuantumOps - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
I would really love to see this tablet display reach consumers. It might be impossible for the current generation smartphone or tablet SOIs to support this resolution for 3D rendering. But I am sure they have the graphics capabilities enough for1) Viewing photos, videos
2) Reading e-books
3) Browsing internet
It is not urgent for games to be rendered at this resolution. You can halve the resolution on width and height and still get a good visuality at 1280x800. But having high resolution in the fundamental aspects of mobile computing would really feel 'magical'. Plus it will ease it up on our eyes.
Also assuming Moore's Law, it should not be more than a couple of years before mobile GPUs can fully support this resolution for gaming.
mckirkus - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
"the only product that makes sense would be a small tablet"Think high end car dashboards.
GuinnessKMF - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
This is probably falling on deaf ears, but you really can't calculate the PPI and then display it out to the 100th place. You're using a measure of screen size that isn't accurate, the best example of this is the iPhone's retina display which you list at an absurdly "accurate" 329.65 PPI, yet if you look on apple's own website they list 326 PPI, this is because they are using the correct screen size of 9cm, converting to inches, and then performing the calculation. If you perform the calculation with 3.5" you only have two significant digits, so your result should be 330 PPI (3.3 x 10^2), rounding to two signicant digits.Yes... minutia, but this is a tech site, that's where minutia matters.
SanX - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
329.345675456786532 is actually a sign of moroneryRoland00Address - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
That said I am satisfied with a 1920x1080 display. Note because 16x9 is a superior format, but because for some strange reason the lcd computer monitors have settled on this ratio.I want a 1920x1080 tablet in a small form factor for the fact it is the natural resolution of many computers and remote desktop seems to work quicker, easier and better looking if you are running the tablet at the same resolution as the computer.
Death666Angel - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
I want to replace my 3.5 year old 24" 1920x1200 monitor with something high res. But at this point it seems silly to buy a 27"/30" screen for 600-1100€ when the next round of tablets has that resolution and costs about as much as my screen.Don't get me wrong, this development in general is great, but I want it to translate to more areas.
BoyBawang - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
Anything above 300PPI will make PPI the new Megapixel Myth!SanX - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
learn what is perceived ppiSoulkeeper - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
Now give us a 2560x1600 24" desktop displaySanX - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
Desktop must be not less then 30" at 3840x2400CharonPDX - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
Just like the Samsung display you tout as "unreleased", this one is also "unreleased". They are "exhibiting" at trade shows, according to their own press release. AKA: This is a research project.Solandri - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
For a phone/tablet, if you anti-alias the font, it will look as good without having to resort to such ridiculously high ppi. The places where high a ppi is useful is on head-mounted displays, virtual viewfinders on cameras, and LCD projector panels.SanX - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 - link
Toshiba please make 1080p or 1200p 450ppi ppi 4.7-5.3" screens.