2.2 inch LCD Display featuring VGA Resolution

i4u writes "Casio announces a LCD display with the world's highest resolution. The 2.2 inch LCD display features VGA resolution. The Casio innovation has 368ppi (pixels per inch). The power consumption and size is the same as with current QVGA (320x240) displays. Meaning current mobile phone models could directly be upgraded with a VGA display. So we could very soon see Mobile phones with VGA resolution on 2.2 inch displays. Samsung had the World's highest resolution with 300ppi in early August. Casio took now the lead. More details in Casio Press-Release (Japanese)."

Comments

This just sounds a bit excessive

[PepsiProgrammer]

I just got one of the new zaurus Sl-6000 pda's that does 640x480 on a quite large (for a pda) screen and the pixels are already small enough to be indistinguisable from eachother. Putting that res in a screen that small seems pretty pointless.

Re:This just sounds a bit excessive

[GlassHeart]

Putting that res in a screen that small seems pretty pointless.

You have something against sharper text and graphics? We're talking about a 300 ppi display, which matches the resolution of first-generation laser printers. Text will be readable at as little as 6 points (nearly 25 pixels!), and a web page just might be displayed decently.

What's the downside?

Re:This just sounds a bit excessive

[Carnildo]

What's the downside?

You'll need a magnifying glass to read it?

Re:This just sounds a bit excessive

[yo303]

640 pixels ought to be enough for everybody.

Re:This just sounds a bit excessive

[Jeffrey Baker]

One last time you innumerate morons: resolution improved quality and does not affect size. Try printing the same page at 300, 600, and 1200dpi. Does it come out 4 times smaller on the 1200? Does it look better?

Re:This just sounds a bit excessive

[DAldredge]

Give up, it just ain't worth it. ;->

Re:This just sounds a bit excessive

[GlassHeart]

You'll need a magnifying glass to read it?

A point is generally defined as 1/72 of an inch, and does not vary with display resolution. Thus, on a 96 dpi screen, 6 pt text is defined by about 8 pixels. On a 300 dpi screen, the same text can use about 25 pixels to define the glyph. The text itself stays the same size.

As for icons and graphics, they can be redrawn to better suit the display size. Compared to the other expenses involved in building a cell phone, redrawing 100 icons is not really a very big one.

Re:This just sounds a bit excessive

[Jeffrey Baker]

I just grabbed a copy of the New York Times and there's plenty of 6pt type on it (photographers' credits and other places). At high resolution 6pt is readable.

Re:This just sounds a bit excessive

[GoRK]

BZZZT wrong.

Icon services in Mac OS/X up to 10.3 (Panther) support icons up to 128x128 pixels in size. The scaling algorithms are fast and dynamic, scaling between the large size icon and the smaller size icons as needed (this is why very small icon sizes still look good in OS X.

OS X 10.4 (Tiger) is supposed to include very robust support for DPI-independent rendering, greatly increasing the usability of high-resolution, high-ppi displays on the platform. As a result, the 128x128 icon limit seemed kind of small, so Tiger increases it to 256x256 pixels; however they are still raster images.

There are indeed advantages to using either approach for icons. Any robust vector format pretty much has to support embedded raster images anyway, thus a robust raster scaling algorithm in the renderer is necessary anyway. Leaving out all the vector stuff makes the code simpler, faster, and smaller with the only major disadvantage being that scaling icons beyond the 128x128 (256x256) is not going to result in really nice and crisp icons. The only time OS X overscales the icons is double clicking a launchable item, but the blurring effect is unnoticeable due to the alpha fade and quick animation.

Scalable UI

[TimmyDee]

I can see this being beneficial for pictures, video, and the like, but not UI elements. Phone OSes are going to need to build in scalable UIs and offer tools for their developers to do the same or we won't be able to use the things.

Application?

[jargoone]

Okay, the high pixel density is neat and all, but can anyone name an application that would need a small screen with such high resolution.

If they "slightly" expanded it, though, you'd have a ~22 inch LCD with 6400x4800. Finally, a use for those high-end video cards with tons of memory!

Re:Application?

[clevelandguru]

Virtual Reality Head Mounted Displays.

Re:Application?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I had forgotten, but LCD projectors actually use smaller panels.

XGA panels can be had in the 0.7" to 1.3" range. I'd direct you to projectorcentral.com, but it seems to be down now.

The problem here is that with a projector, each color has its own monochrome panel and is marged using a prism.

At what point is DPI irrelevant

[stratjakt]

That is, when does the average human eye stop distinguishing them as seperate points?

I can tell 300 DPI from 600 DPI on a printout, but above that it looks about the same to me.

Re:At what point is DPI irrelevant

[eander315]

This is a common mistake when considering the DPI of printers and monitors. They are not measured in the same way. I would try to explain it here, but the wikipedia entry does a better job than I could.

Re:At what point is DPI irrelevant

[WillAdams]

Actually, 300dpi is quite clunky for text, and a number of fonts _cannot_ be adequately represented by it (e.g., Optima or Eras --- Adobe even went to the effort of including two different outlines (one low-res, one high res) for early versions of these until hinting algorithms improved).

~360--400dpi is a watershed value and around there text, even with fairly subtle details starts to look right (Interestingly the NeXTLaserprinter could print in 300 or 400 dpi, and one can _really_ see the difference (says the guy who forgt to change the value once before running out resumes and had to reprint a set 'cause they looked bad).

600dpi is ``good enough'' for most things (and is approaching the ability of office paper to hold a dot faithfully)

At 1200 dpi, things are quite nice, but the human ability to create / render type actually approaches that of a 2540 dpi imagesetter --- see Fred Smeijers' book _Counterpunch_ for technical data and microphotography for details. F.W. Goudy often claimed to be able to distinguish by touch dimensions of ~one one-thousandth of an inch.

William

Re:At what point is DPI irrelevant

[El]

when does the average human eye stop distinguishing them as seperate points? It is not the size, it's the angle of view. 1 DPI is just fine if you are 100 yards away! My general rule of thumb is that point of diminishing returns far a display is around 4000x4000 pixels; at that point you cannot simultaneously see the whole screen and still make out individual pixels. Anything more than that only helps if you are only focusing on a small section of the screen. Needless to say, I'm still waiting for this to become economically feasible, but I think digital cameras and displays will eventually max out at 16 Megapixels for ordinary use.

Yoda?

[barcodez]

Casio took now the lead.

Yoda? Sentance, only you mangle such.

Re:Yoda?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sentence, only you could spell it not.

what i want...

[here4fun]

So we could very soon see 2.2 inch Mobile phones with VGA resolution. See the photo where a full Windows browser is shown on 2.2 inch.

While this is nice, what I really want is a better battery, better camera (can we get 2mp on a cell phone?), and more storage memory (how about a card slot?). I doubt anyone will run windows or play doom on their cell phone. But people might want to play mp3's, take pictures, or browse the web and check email.

Re:Dons a jeweler's lupe.

[utexaspunk]

a jeweler's lupe? is that like the mexican woman who works at the jeweler's store?

...oh, you mean a loupe... ...nevermind!

Re:VGA resolution and unreadable

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's you getting old. Remember how your grandpa was always complaining about something ? Now it's your turn.

Re:first post

[sTalking_Goat]

Finally I can watch porn on my wristwatch. Could make using the two hand stroke a bit tricky though...

So can we get something like this in a drive bay ?

[pangloss]

I would love a vga (or better!) capable screen that fits in a drive bay. If you've seen the lcd's for car stereos that slide out, you know what I mean. Or if you don't, imagine the rackmountable lcd displays that slide out and then go vertical but sized for a drive bay.

Would be great for the htpc that's normally only used with a projector. You don't always want to turn on the beamer if you're just playing music, but you do need to be able to use some sort of screen.

did you read the article at all?

[MarcoAtWork]

it says it has the same current draw as QVGA but this one is full VGA.

You can also find out for yourself by doing some simple math: if this is approximately 2.2 inches with a 4:3 ratio it means it's going to be approx. 1.76in wide and 1.32in tall, which means that it has an area of around 2.3 square inches, which means that (at 368ppi, 135424 pixels per square inch) it would have 311475 pixels, which confirms full-VGA resolution (640x480 = 307200) due to probable slight measurement differences (I don't think it's going to be *exactly* 368ppi).

Virtual Headsets?

[Dante]

I don't know about you, but the buga boo in the past with virtual headsets was
not being able to do true 640x480.

I'd love to see a head set doing true 640 x 480.

How about HMD's?

[mhackarbie]

Sounds like this would be perfect for making Head Mounted Displays, so we can finally get some decent low cost Virtual Reality and/or 3D display hardware. Any reason why that wouldn't work?

I know that the most sophisticated VR also requires complicated head position tracking hardware, which apparently is quite difficult to get right. Existing implementations often cause nausea and vertigo in some people.

However, a nice, crisp 3D display with mouse-driven movement of the scene should be a perfectly acceptable low-cost alternative. You would have to strap it on your head and you would look like some kind of wired-up bug freak, but what's wrong with that?

I sure as heck could use it in my molecular modelling work.

mhack

Re:How about HMD's?

[VitaminB52]

I know that the most sophisticated VR also requires complicated head position tracking hardware, which apparently is quite difficult to get right. Existing implementations often cause nausea and vertigo in some people.

However, a nice, crisp 3D display with mouse-driven movement of the scene should be a perfectly acceptable low-cost alternative.

IIRC, the nausea and vertigo were caused by the time lag between head movement and the corresponding changes in the displayed images, not by the image not being 'crisp'.

B.t.w., the LCD is one of the most expensive parts in modern cellular phones - I doubt if a headmounted gear with two LCD's would be 'cheap'.

Article by Yoda

[LoadWB]

"A camera, does this phone have? Yes! Movie messaging I can send to Jedi friends! Kick Dukoo's ass they can watch. Yes!"

At last...

[Aardpig]

...wanking will make you go blind. That is, if you do it while surfing for pr0n on one of these displays.

Wrong!

[exhilaration]

I doubt anyone will run windows or play doom on their cell phone...

Doom for Symbian Phones - runs on most recent Nokia phones.

Yes, but...

[haggar]

when will those graphing calculators be upgraded with displays capable of more than 86x48 resolution (B&W, at that)? I have the impression that HP, Casio and TI are stuck in a time-gap with their graphing calcs.

Mirrorshades

[Doc Ruby]

VGA stereo sunglasses!

Legacy applications and application??

[tezza]

I wanted a C64 emulator for the Palm m505. However, the screen resolution was not enough to match that of the C64 [320*200 in MCI mode].

So there was no point in anyone trying, as to hack the screen drawing code is not viable, as so much depended on the syncing and timing in the C64 days.

So conceivably, that old DOS mode 'pokes and peeks the VGA buffer itself' type code could now hope to be ported to this sort of screen.

I'm struggling and struggling to think of one app that would not have been superceded by something superior. But should one exist, it could not without it's hardcoded minimum resolution.

Keep this going, I could run Lionheart under UAE on an NGage VII.

people who hate 368 ppi

[Anonymous Coward]

First, a story: i went to the store with a woman who hates high-res displays and was telling me that no one likes them. suddenly, she pulled off the road, complaining that the setting sun was in her eyes. i didn't say anything, but her windshield was so filthy that you could hardly see out of it anyway. the low-angle sun just made it slightly more opaque.

Next, my opinion: many of the posts in this thread seem to come from people like that---they apparently can't see shit, so they can't imagine why anyone else would. i would love to have a 2.2in vga display, not so much to run programs written for a desktop screen (doh) but more to make things look less blocky.

Finally, my prescription: try an experiment. hold a book up next to your computer screen, a book whose typefaces don't seem too small to you. Notice that when you compare them side by side, the book is likely to have smaller type than the computer screen. Since the characters are more sharply drawn (higher resolution) you can actually see them better even if they are smaller.

Re:VGA resolution and unreadable

[tktk]

Is it just me getting old, or are young people designing things for their age group only without considering those who are older?

You're getting old. When was the last time you saw any consumer electronics with specific features for the older generations?

There was a line in Dougals Adam's Salmon of Doubt that I'll have to paraphrase since I don't have the book with me. It was basically this...

Anything invented while you're under 18 is taken from granted.

Anything invented while you're between 18-30 is new and exciting.

Anything invented while you're over 30 is scary and unnatural.

I forgot my point...so I'll leave it to you to make the connection.

A display with 4x the resolution

[morcheeba]

Check out this display -- it's LCD, frag-friendly 360Hz refresh, 1/3 VGA, 24 bit color, and with a pixel size of 12 x 16.2um, it works out to 1500-2000 pixel/inch.

Of course, the trick is that this display is really small -- since it's built on a silicon wafer, expanding it to 2.2" would raise the price incredibly (defect rate isn't linear with size). So, it makes a wonderful camcorder/digital camera viewfinder, and its bigger cousins work in HD projectors, but not really practical for a phone display.

One of the coolest things about this is that it is a black and white display lit sequentially with red, gren, and blue leds. The display sets switches each pixel to the appropriate brightness of whatever color is lighting it. This means no "screen door" effect -- see an example here, so the display is much clearer.

Switching time is about 150 microseconds - good large-size monitors are still in the range of 20000 microseconds!

Re:details and a question

[lnxpilot]

The number for contrast has no dimension.
It is the light intensity ratio between the brightest white and the darkest black the display can reproduce.
It should have been be written as 450:1