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Displays Cellphones Handhelds

LG Aims To Beat Apple's Retina Display 333

angry tapir writes "LG Display has introduced a 5-inch full HD LCD panel for smartphone displays — the highest resolution mobile panel to date. The widescreen panel is based on AH-IPS (Advanced High Performance In-Plane Switching) technology and has a 1920-by-1080 pixel resolution or 440 pixels per inch (ppi), according to LG. That compares well to Apple's Retina display, which has 264 ppi on the new iPad and 326 ppi on the iPhone 4S."
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LG Aims To Beat Apple's Retina Display

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  • Cool tech, but (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @05:47PM (#40149587)

    If the Apple Retina display is already beyond the point a human eye can resolve - what's more resolution going to get you?

    • Also, the LCD panels Apple' displays are made from are available to all other phone manufacturers as well. They don't seem interested in that, so why would they go for something that is likely a higher component cost?

      • Re:Cool tech, but (Score:5, Informative)

        by Spaseboy ( 185521 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @05:51PM (#40149645)

        Apple locks up component supplies by negotiating massive amounts, this has been known for years. The retina displays may be available to other manufacturers, but most likely not until 2015 or so

        • Pretty sure that even in 2012 other manufacturers are not interested by that display anymore. It is already beaten both in density and number of pixels.

          • by dzfoo ( 772245 )

            Really? What device is that?

            • Re:Cool tech, but (Score:5, Informative)

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @06:07PM (#40149815)

              HTC Rezound, 4.3" and 720p display which came out like 6 months ago, among others of course...or just go back to reading Apple news and how all their stuff is the bestest evers

              • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

                by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @07:00PM (#40150303)
                Comment removed based on user account deletion
                • mod this up, every screen seems to be "good enough" at this point, but when my battery lasts me maybe 6 hours max, that is what needs addressing
                  • Why does your battery last 6 hours max? That seems absurdly low. What kind of device are you using?
                    • its a modded droid 3, It lasted a bit longer prior to the modding but still
                    • Re:Cool tech, but (Score:4, Insightful)

                      by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2012 @01:01AM (#40152415) Homepage

                      My Android phone lasts a week with light use, 12 days if it's just in standby. I can drain it in a couple of hours if I turn everything on (eg. GPS navigation).

                      The worst culprit for draining the battery was the screen auto-rotate. You'd think they'd turn it off when it's in standby, but, nooooo....

                • Re:Cool tech, but (Score:4, Informative)

                  by jbolden ( 176878 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @11:03PM (#40151889) Homepage

                  There are phones with excellent battery life:

                  1 Motorola Droid Razr Maxx 19.78
                  2 Apple iPhone 4 (with 3G off) 14.55
                  3 Apple iPhone 3GS (with 3G off) 13.4
                  4 HTC Legend 12.75
                  5 RIM BlackBerry Curve 9360 12

                  • Re:Cool tech, but (Score:5, Insightful)

                    by Svartormr ( 692822 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @11:44PM (#40152119)
                    Until those battery lives are measured in days and not hours, there's still a lot of work to be done.
                    • by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2012 @08:39AM (#40154513)

                      Until those battery lives are measured in days and not hours, there's still a lot of work to be done.

                      1 Motorola Droid Razr Maxx 0.82 days
                      2 Apple iPhone 4 (with 3G off) 0.61 days
                      3 Apple iPhone 3GS (with 3G off) 0.56 days
                      4 HTC Legend 0.53 days
                      5 RIM BlackBerry Curve 9360 0.5 days

                      Better?

                    • If you think smartphones will ever last for days on a charge, you're delusional. Old dumbphones only lasted that long because they could only do 1/100th of what a smartphone can do.

                      If you DON'T think smartphones will eventually last days and weeks or longer on a single charge, then YOU'RE delusion.

                    • Yep you're not using it enough. That's the problem here. People are running background services, spending all day reading the news, screen brightness turned all the way up, playing 3D games, and then crying foul that their batteries won't last a week.

                      I get about a day and a half out of mine. It drops down to about 35% by the end of the day, loses a few % overnight when it's sitting there idle with nothing but the alarm clock consuming CPU cycles, and then the remaining 30% lasts a few hours of use the next

                • I am a moderate to heaver android cell phone user.

                  I'm 9 month use into the factory supplied battery (1550 mAh) on my android phone (HTC sensation) and in the last week realized it was seriously failing, getting about ~2hours of moderate use before
                  Last week I switched over a cheap ebay one that I got several months ago as an emergency spare, that is supposed to be the same capacity, but I know is a cheap knock off and only ~1200 mAh. This one was now lasting longer.

                  Today I am on a new, good brand name,
        • Re:Cool tech, but (Score:5, Insightful)

          by oxdas ( 2447598 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @06:45PM (#40150169)

          Nearly all the current retina displays are made by Samsung (with a small percentage made by Sharp). Do you really believe that Samsung (which shipped nearly 25% more smartphones than Apple last quarter) could not simply switch to the display they sell to Apple if they so chose? Samsung has chosen to go with their AMOLED displays because they offer more contrast and lower power consumption than the "retina display." AMOLED displays currently can not be produced at the pixel density desired by Apple, however, so Samsung is using more conventional technology on the display they sell to Apple.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @05:50PM (#40149627)
      Sorry I couldn't read your comment, can you increase the font size.
      • by ae1294 ( 1547521 )

        Sorry I couldn't read your comment, can you increase the font size.

        Not right now man. I am busy re-watching all my old porn vids looking for things I missed the first time around due to poor resolution from my PC. Now if someone could just fix the colour matching problem I could delete all this old flapping material and download some more. I wonder if fixmypc.com can help?

    • by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @05:50PM (#40149629) Homepage Journal

      If the Apple Retina display is already beyond the point a human eye can resolve - what's more resolution going to get you?

      Bigger numbers. Also, it is beyond the resolution that the human eye can resolve at a typical usage distance. That doesn't necessarily mean that you can't see the difference if you're holding it wrong.

      • Then by holding it closer than a foot to your face (i.e., holding it wrong) you'll see a better picture? I don't hate the idea...
        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by epyT-R ( 613989 )

          I've seen these 'retina' displays.. they're nice I suppose, but I can still make out pixels at a normal viewing distance.. maybe their test group was full of blind people.

          • by jo_ham ( 604554 )

            The definition includes a qualifier on the sight of the person using it, although it does not mean that everyone will be in that range - people with better vision than the typically 20-20 will likely be able to make out pixels. For you folk, just move it further away :p

            • It also includes (or it should include) a qualifier on viewing distance. The other qualifier that's not often mentioned is brightness. All else equal, brighter display = better acuity, up to a point of course.
        • by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @09:08PM (#40151313)

          You need one of those magnifying glasses from Brazil that you put in front of the screen.

      • that makes sense than! as long as we hold the phone the way apple wants us to..you know, not covering the antenna.. everything is fine! see, apple knows whats best for us, we just need to learn to listen!
    • by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @05:51PM (#40149655) Homepage

      If the Apple Retina display is already beyond the point a human eye can resolve - what's more resolution going to get you?

      Single-pixel tracking GIFs that are only visible under a scanning electron microscope.

      • Hmmm..... can browsers be programmed to reject single-pizel sized images?

        • Would you reject them before or after they're downloaded such that you can determine they're only a single pixel?

          That aside, a lot of web designers would use single pixel transparent gifs scaled to different sizes to effect changes in the layout such as shifting things over or down so many pixels. While this practice isn't ideal, blocking single pixel images would break this as well.

          • That actually was the funny I was looking for.
          • by sdnoob ( 917382 )

            a lot of web designers would use single pixel transparent gifs scaled to different sizes to effect changes in the layout

            WTF? this isn't 1998.

            IMHO any gif that has 1x1 dimensions right in the html code can be blocked by an adblocker.

        • Hmmm..... can browsers be programmed to reject single-pizel sized images?

          No, but with Adblock Plus combined with one or more of the lists, and a good hosts file (look out for apk!), and maybe RequestPolicy, you can eliminate the need to do that. It also helps to use RefControl to defeat HTTP Referrer tracking and Redirect Remover to frustrate that method. Then you also avoid lots of garbage that goes beyond tracking images. For my own /etc/hosts file, I concatenated several popular ones (Google for them) and then uniq'ed the result. It's 1.5MB of bullshit-blocking goodness.

    • by Tynin ( 634655 )
      The only thing I can think of is that if it has an alternate output (HDMI) that it would save some resources to only output at the one resolution for everything... but even that seems to be at best, a poor implementation. Otherwise, it seems like it might be a marketing tool to show people with extra cash to waste that this product is even better than "insert alt. brand with lesser resolution". Because in market speak, bigger numbers are always better.
    • Re:Cool tech, but (Score:5, Informative)

      by SQL Error ( 16383 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @05:59PM (#40149719)

      If the Apple Retina display is already beyond the point a human eye can resolve - what's more resolution going to get you?

      You want the pixels to be smaller than the eye can resolve so that you can stop futzing around with anti-aliasing. That's why decent printers are 1200 dpi or more.

      • Re:Cool tech, but (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @07:15PM (#40150443)

        BS Inkjet printers, which by definition can never be decent printers, have resolutions that high because they have to create dither patterns to make most colors. A good dye sublimation printer produces images which are substantially better, and dye sub printers are generally 300 dpi. The best photographic-process printers might be capable of slightly higher resolution (perhaps 600 dpi), but most of those also produce 300 dpi. It is considered photographic quality for the purposes of human perception. Actual photographic processes produce film image resolutions that can't really be matched by printers at all, and standard prints generally produce images that match the level of detail around 300 dpi.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by ganjadude ( 952775 )
        why is it that when its an apple product, people say things along the lines of "really?? I mean apple already has this, we dont need anything more!"

        when will the "apple can do no wrong" idea disapareaR??
      • Re:Cool tech, but (Score:5, Informative)

        by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @09:24PM (#40151419) Homepage

        That's why decent printers are 1200 dpi or more.

        Actually, printers are 1200 dpi because they need to dither. You can print a perfect photo at 150 - 300 dpi if you don't dither. (Like dye-sub printers do).

      • The pixels already are smaller than the eye can resolve at typical viewing distances. That's why it's called a retina display in the first place.

        Also, that is not why printers are 1200 dpi or more. They're that high because of issues with color dithering. Plenty of other people already responded to you on this point.

        Finally, if you want a valid reason for why extra pixel density matters, look no further than Vernier acuity [wikipedia.org]. People can distinguish curves and alignment differences in lines beyond the point wh

    • Maybe 1920x1080 eliminates the hassle of downconverting HD video to some lower value?

      326 pixels per inch for this screen versus "For a human eye with excellent acuity, the maximum theoretical resolution is 50 Cycles per degree" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye#cite_note-30). Whatever that means.

      (eh) I'll just keep using my e-ink kindle. Looks like paper with dots smaller then I can see.

      • Cycles per degree (Score:5, Informative)

        by tepples ( 727027 ) <tepples.gmail@com> on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @07:17PM (#40150455) Homepage Journal

        A "degree" is a unit of angle equal to 1/360 of a circle; an arc one degree long is about 1/57.3 of the distance from the eye. If a display is held 12 inches from the eyes, one degree is about 0.21 inch. This means the angular density of a 326 dpi display is 68 pixels per degree.

        A "cycle" is a white pixel next to a black pixel, and thus a run of 50 cycles is 100 pixels. That's a bit more than 68, but then 100 pixels assumes "excellent acuity" at "maximum theoretical" conditions.

        • A "degree" is a unit of angle equal to 1/360 of a circle; an arc one degree long is about 1/57.3 of the distance from the eye. If a display is held 12 inches from the eyes, one degree is about 0.21 inch. This means the angular density of a 326 dpi display is 68 pixels per degree.

          Dammit, I didn't know there was gonna be math on this discussion.

          Is this going to be graded on a curve?

          • by tepples ( 727027 )

            Is this going to be graded on a curve?

            Yes, but it's an easy curve, and at the distances and angles we're talking about, the curvature is so low that it's close to a straight line (tan x ~= x). It's just unit conversion, something everyone learns in the first year of (for example) chemistry class anyway.

    • by mark-t ( 151149 )
      It hasn't, though. It still needs to improve by a factor or about 5 or so.
    • Re:Cool tech, but (Score:5, Informative)

      by sootman ( 158191 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @06:23PM (#40149973) Homepage Journal

      You beat me to it. What we need is a chart like this [carltonbale.com] but for handhelds. Then, print it out, wrap it around a 2x4, and smack OEM presidents in the head with it until they quit making tiny screens better and start shipping a goddamn laptop screen at something better than 1366x768.

      • Re:Cool tech, but (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @06:59PM (#40150291)

        Is this where I brag about my U820 (5.6" netbook screen, 1280x800) and my self-upgraded Thinkpad T51 (15" laptop screen, 2048x1536) and my T221 (22" desktop screen, 3840x2400)?

        No, no, this is where I say... How in hell can you blame them for selling WHAT EVERYONE BUYS; every time they offer an ultrafine display (like the three I listed), it makes very few sales, because ALMOST NOBODY will actually pay a premium for better displays. Unless and until Apple, or someone equally awesome at marketing, tells them they need it.

    • Re:Cool tech, but (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Fluffeh ( 1273756 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @06:23PM (#40149975)

      If the Apple Retina display is already beyond the point a human eye can resolve - what's more resolution going to get you?

      The Apple display is "Beyond what the human eye can resolve" while holding it at a certain distance. That means if you hold it closer, you will start to see the pixels. This makes the LG display able to be held closer to the eyes while still not being able to see the pixels. Does it mean much for the average user who always holds their phone at a distance of two feet from their eyes? Nope, but it is still bragging rights.
       
      /Rant/
      Now if only the folks that make monitors started playing this game, I would finally be able to get a monitor that has a higher resolution than my phone. Seriously, what's with the huge drop in screen resolution on both laptops (unless you buy the $5k model) and run-of-the-mill desktop screens? 1366x768? The nineties called, (Yes, I did warn them about the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan) they want their resolution back!

      • by jo_ham ( 604554 )

        You might just be in luck with the 2012 refresh of the Macbook Pro/Macbook Air - all signs are pointing to them switching to resolution independence in OS X on high dpi displays.

        DISCLAIMER: yes, yes, Apple are not the first, not revolutionary or innovative, never roller skate in a buffalo herd, never punch a nun after midnight etc etc.

    • by epyT-R ( 613989 )

      Because that's just marketing rhetoric. There are lots of factors that determine how much detail your eyes make out.

    • Re:Cool tech, but (Score:5, Informative)

      by mdmkolbe ( 944892 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @06:50PM (#40150205)

      If the Apple Retina display is already beyond the point a human eye can resolve

      Sort answer: It isn't beyond the point a human eye can resolve if by that we mean the resolution beyond which there is no perceptable improvement.

      Long answer: Apple's display has pixels that are 1 minute of arc in size when the screen is held 18 inches from the eye. Apple's marketing would like you to believe that 1 minute of arc is is the limit of the human eye, but that isn't quite true.

      First, the pixels are rectangular and the 1 minute of arc was only on the sort side of the rectangle (at least when they first came out, they may have improved the specs).

      Second, if you hold the screen closer than 18 inches (which I think most people do), the pixels are larger than 1 minute of arc.

      Third and most importantly, the 1 minute of arc number is determined by how small the parts of a capital letter "E" can be for a person with 20/20 vision to determine what letter it is. (The entire "E" is 5 minutes of arc tall.) For other tasks (e.g. determining if two lines are parallel or where the point of a thin wedge ends), humans can detect features 10 or more (100?) times smaller than 1 minute of arc. Aliasing is easily detectable at 1 minute of arc given the right conditions.

    • "If the Apple Retina display is already beyond the point a human eye can resolve - what's more resolution going to get you?"
      You just need these [sears.com] 2.5x near-focus binocular spectacles. Stylish, too.

    • what's more resolution going to get you?

      Don't underestimate the sheeple's desire for bigger numbers. Just check out dpreview.com

    • Let me be the "apple hater" for a moment though

      Why would the article say that "this screen stacks up well" when the truth is it is 2 fold stronger, regardless of if the human eye can handle it? This screen doesnt "stack up well" it is an amazingly better and I dont see why the writer of this headline would have said it the way he did
  • Apple's display? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @05:48PM (#40149607)

    Apple doesn't make their own displays.

  • by musikit ( 716987 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @05:49PM (#40149625)

    pixel density. it will be heaven to have clean graphics and now that portables get higher resolutions then desktops, people will start asking why. only thing i ask is more antiglare displays.

  • AMOLED screens are where the future is. Samsung saw this, and invested £££/$$$ into it many years ago, and are now in a position to reap the benefits of it.

    Although Super LCD 2 panels look really nice too (HTC One X. I'd say it beats the "retina" display in iPhone4/S)

  • by torkus ( 1133985 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @05:52PM (#40149661)

    Seriously, phones and tablets are getting ~1080P screens but most of the laptops on the market are stuck with the crappy 1366x768 even though they're MUCH larger and it would make a visible and FUNCTIONAL difference.

    • by adisakp ( 705706 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @06:34PM (#40150067) Journal

      Seriously, phones and tablets are getting ~1080P screens but most of the laptops on the market are stuck with the crappy 1366x768 even though they're MUCH larger and it would make a visible and FUNCTIONAL difference.

      I'd like to see larger resolutions on desktop LCD Panels as well. You used to be able to get 1600X1200 21" 4:3 monitors everywhere. Now nearly all consumer grade LCD's are 1920X1080 / 16:9. For coders that's a bad thing to lose 120 vertical pixels (it's probably 6-10 lines less code you can see).

      An iPad can do on 2048x1536 on 1 9.7" display. It's sad when you get 50% more pixels in the short dimension on a tablet with a screen 1/2 as big.

      • A lot of it is the manufacturing. A larger screen means a bigger physical production line, which means defects are more costly.

        A smaller screen means the production line size shrinks (as well the throughput increases). Or, more likely, the line size stays the same, but it gets more efficient (because defects tend to be random and localized, so the smaller the screen, the more you can cut "around" the defective part).

      • by Smauler ( 915644 )

        There are quite a few high definition Korean monitors available cheap now. This page [swiftworld.net] has a decent round up. They all seem to be running the same LG panel, an IPS at 2560*1440. The prices start at about £200, or $300, which doesn't include any tax, and those at that price only have 1 hdmi, and don't include scalers (which makes them great for gaming, because of the lower screen lag).

    • Forget laptops. Why are the only panels I can get for my desktop 1080p? Well that is unless I wish to spend well north of $1000 to add 640 more to the horizontal and 520 to the vertical. Or sailing towards $10,000 and beyond for a nice 10MP medical diagnostic display.
  • On the other hand, Samsung makes the hype labeled Retina Display.
  • The new LG display is a prime example of technology marketing by the numbers. Japanese hi-fi manufacturers popularized this approach in the 70s and 80s. They hyping the numbers in their products' specifications, implying, but not actually demonstrating, superior performance. Historically, this has worked very well for consumer electronics sales. People ate it up then and still do. This is just more of the same from LG. Having a pixel density of 440 PPI is totally meaningless in terms of real world experienc

  • ~ 5" diagonal, in a 16:9 aspect ratio means the visible display area will be about 2.45" (62.5mm) wide x 4.36" (110.7mm) high. Add a 1/4" (6.3mm) border/bezel on the left and right sides and you have a phone at least 2.95" (75mm) wide. That's just too big for comfort for most people. Add a speaker on one end of the display, and some buttons on the other end, and it's going to be at least 5" (127mm) high, which is also pushing the limits for convenience.

    And as others mentioned, 440ppi is well beyond the angu

    • Add a speaker on one end of the display, and some buttons on the other end, and it's going to be at least 5" (127mm) high, which is also pushing the limits for convenience.

      Tell that to the millions who bought the Samsung Galaxy Note [androinica.com]. And while that resolution may be a bit much for printed text, written text or images may come out much more accurately.

    • 12" is a perfectly natural distance to hold a small device. Perhaps holding a device closer than 12" is awkward, but most people can focus closer than that. I'm over 40 and can focus both eyes from 9" to infinity. (Younger people could do better. At 10 I could focus at 1.5"-infinity.) I can also make out 1-pixel movements at 97ppi from 6 feet away. At 12 inches, that's the equivalent of over 580ppi. At 9 inches it's nearly 780ppi. The 440ppi of this device is not overkill.

      And 3"x5" is not too big at all. I

  • by Anonymous Coward

    The HTC Rezound's 1280x720 4.3" display is 342 ppi, so technically it is a "retina" display already on an Android phone. :-)

  • Vernier acuity (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Just because you can't resolve a single pixel doesn't mean you can't detect jaggies.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernier_scale#Vernier_acuity

  • by Grayhand ( 2610049 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @10:42PM (#40151803)
    Apple's response was to announce the new iPhone 5 would include speakers that produce sounds only a dog can hear.

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