LG Intros 2560x1440 Quad HD Smartphone Screen
Do you even need a Quad HD smartphone screen?
LG Display said on Wednesday that it has developed the world's first QUAD HD AH-IPS LCD panel for smartphones. AH-IPS is short for Advanced High Performance In-Plane Switching, and was introduced by LG Display in 2011. The screen tech provides improved color accuracy, increased resolution and ppi, and greater light transmission for lower power consumption.
"The ultra high resolution technology employed by AH-IPS adds a greater number of pixels than the PPI that can be recognized by the human eye at a typical distance," the company said over two years ago when it introduced a 3.5 inch AH-IPS panel. "This makes it more difficult for the naked eye to distinguish each individual pixel, thus making the image sharper."
According to LG Display, the new QUAD HD version measures a decent 5.5 inches and sports a hefty 2560 x 1440 resolution and 538 pixels per inch. It's the highest resolution and ppi in a smartphone to date, providing four times more pixels than an HD screen at 1280 x 720. The screen will even allow smartphone owners to view web pages as they were intended for the desktop PC, the company said.
"LG Display, which pioneered the high resolution mobile market with introduction of the world's first Full HD smartphone panel in 2012, again opens new possibilities with the successful application of QHD technology," said Dr. Byeong-koo Kim, Vice President and Head of LG Display's IT and Mobile Development Group. "With this breakthrough, LG Display will continue to raise new standards for mobile resolution and lead the mobile display market."
The screen measures only 1.21 mm thin, and 1.2 mm at its bezel when measured in LCD modules. That makes LG Display's panel the world's slimmest and narrowest to date, the company suggests, and 12 percent thinner than LG's 5.2 inch Full HD panel released back in July. The panel is based on Low Temperature Poly-Silicon (LTPS) substrate, and has a brightness of 430 nit, improved transmittance and a larger aperture opening size.
LG Display said that LTPS-based smartphone displays are expected to record 765 million units in shipments next year.
Unfortunately, what LG Display doesn't disclose is what kind of power this high-resolution panel will require. Sharp's IGZO tech manages to increase the resolution by simply displaying the screen as a static image until the user interacts with the device, thus reducing the SoC and battery strain. Pushing all these QHD pixels using LG Display's new panel on a smartphone could eat up more battery than a similar phone using a lower resolution.
Still, as GigaOM points out, why would anyone want to view a full PC version of a Web page within a 5.5 inch screen anyway? Perhaps desktop Web pages should stay on the desktop sporting 13 inch screens above, and let the smartphones and tablets make do with the mobile-optimized versions designed for small screens. Thus, the new 5.5 inch QUAD HD panel seems more like a "because we can" product to taunt competitors more than a "because consumers need it" product.
Are display and phone manufacturers getting out of hand pushing form factors towards tablet-like sizes?
Why. 30 inches at 2560 x 1600 is where its at.
who wants to view a stupid mobile web page designed for 300x200 pixels? I HATE MOBILE PAGES, including tomshardware mobile, but there are far worse. Some don't even offer a redirect. I bought a smart-phone to view web pages that don't look like my motorola v3xx.
Aside from that, 1440 seems a bit overkill, needs a good video gpu to handle content.
And 4k on a 24 inch monitor would be great for photography work.
Look at it this way, 10 years a go, a 24inch CRT weighted 60 lbs and cost about $2500.
Not being able to envision or accept that someone might want something you have no use for is a sign of a narrow-mindedness.
At 30 years old, I can not hold my S4's 1080p screen close enough that I can see pixels. My eyes just cant focus closer than four inches.
4K displays may have some benefit for large computer monitors. However, they are pointless on phones, TVs, ect.
Why. 30 inches at 2560 x 1600 is where its at.
While I prefer the 16:10 format of the 2560x1600 display, the pixel density of the 2560x1440 27" is significantly better than the 30" 2560x1600. For me, the 27" is the minimum size screen that a 16:9 is acceptable for use as a monitor, and since the pixel density is so much better, it is what I have chosen.
The fact that I can buy 2 decent 2560x1440 monitors for almost the same cost as 1 2560x1600 also factors in to my decision.
Speak in the first person to be more accurate
I don't have a cell phone (yet) and don't use any device with such a small screen. However, I've read a Tomshardware editor say he couldn't see the pixels of a 30" 2560x1600 display. That just floored me, because I can see the pixels on a 27" 2560x1440 display, which has a better pixel density. Now, we aren't talking 300 PPI as opposed to 500 PPI here, but we are talking over 108 PPI for the 2560x1440 27", and I can certainly see the pixels on this screen (and my vision is far from perfect). Whether I could see them with a PPI of 150, I don't really know, but I bet I would still want a higher density than that. 500 PPI? I'll just have to see it to judge it properly.
Useful or not, it IS progress in technology, and that's good. One thing I can think of - LG might actually be able to create a screen of this size and resolution that has dead or stuck pixels at 500 PPI that simply can't be noticed, that turns out to be cheaper to make than a screen with far less resolution needing every pixel to display perfectly. But it harms no one, and the market will certainly determine its value - not many people will actually buy a phone if the screen causes the battery life to plummet unacceptably.
Even if it is turns out to be just an exercise in manufacturing technology, implying that no one does or should care is simply wrong. We aren't all carbon copies of you, and I, for one, care.
Unbelievable. The entire industry LCD industry could careless about everything but the phone industry. Just admit it that if it isn't phone related you don't care before you say something stupid about how unreasonable higher than 1080p resolutions are on < 30" monitors.