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iPhone 4's "Retina Display" Claims Challenged

Posted by timothy on from the obviously-you-need-an-i-retina dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "Of the many things that buyers might need to know about the new iPhone, Raymond Soneira — president of DisplayMate Technolgies — added one more to the list. Soneira challenged Apple's claims that Apple's new iPhone contains a so-called 'retina display.' According to Soneira, the resolution of the retina is in angular measure, 50 cycles per degree, where a cycle is a line pair, which is two pixels, so the angular resolution of the eye is 0.6 arc minutes per pixel. So, if you hold an iPhone at the typical 12 inches from your eyes, that works out to 477 pixels per inch. At 8 inches it's 716 ppi. You have to hold iPhone 4 out about 18 inches before it falls to 318 ppi. So the iPhone has significantly lower resolution than the retina."

3 of 476 comments (clear)

  1. Slight Misfire above.... by craznar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It isn't meant to have the same resolution as the retina, it is meant to have sufficient resolution at reading distance, just that pixels are not detectable by the retina. Also remember, the colour resolution of the eye is far poorer than the b&w resolution of the eye, and the aim here is about colour. So I think the original statement by Steve is squishy enough to hold up to this scrutiny.

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    1. Re:Slight Misfire above.... by shellbeach · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It isn't meant to have the same resolution as the retina, it is meant to have sufficient resolution at reading distance, just that pixels are not detectable by the retina.

      Uh, detectable resolution is the topic of the article. And the point being, unless you read your iPhone held 18 inches away from your face, your eyes can detect more detail than the iPhone screen has -- hence being able to see pixels. The colour argument is a little spurious, incidentally, since fine gradations of colour look fine on even much lower resolution screens -- it's the regions of high contast, i.e. black and white, that irritate with current screens.

      Mind you, 18 inches is about the right reading distance for me when reading books on my ipod touch, and it's still an awesome screen resolution irrespective of whether I can see the pixels ...

  2. Re:Reality Distortion by BasilBrush · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No, no, no! Mr. Soneira has it all wrong!

    It is of course just as possible that he has it wrong as that Apple has. But it's going to be easy enough to test when the new phone is out. Draw a graphic of alternate black and white lines. If it looks grey, that's higher than retina resolution. If it looks like alternate lines, that's lower. See what distance from the eye one perception changes to the other.

    I'd be surprised if someone at Apple didn't try out this simple experiment. I'd be doubly surprised if the display manufacturer's didn't.

    We shall see for ourselves who "has it all wrong!"