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iPad 3 Confirmed To Have 2048x1536 Screen Resolution
bonch writes "After months of reporting on photos of iPad 3 screen parts, MacRumors finally obtained one for themselves and examined it under a microscope, confirming that the new screens will have twice the linear resolution of the iPad 2, with a whopping 2048x1536 pixel density. Hints of the new display's resolution were found in iBooks 2, which contains hi-DPI versions of its artwork. The iPad 3 is rumored to be launching in early March."
Before the flames rise and Slashdot begins to slash the dots, I'd like to thank Apple for helping break the "HD = 1950x1080" fixation the market has. Hopefully monitor tech will get some advances soon.
So the most commonly used format for digital cinema is 2048x1080 (4K is not widely used, yet). Notice that it is just a little bit wider than 1080p (128 pixels). So either cinematographers have had to scale down the outputs from their digital cameras/post production workstations to use "standard" HD displays (and suffer scaling artifacts), throw away the pixels on the side, or use very expensive professional equipment.
Could the iPad 3 display be used instead? If the iPad 3 has thunderbolt (now THAT would be interesting), could it be used as a (very) portable display?
I am such an Apple Fanboi you wouldn't believe but if Samsung came out with a tablet that, at the flip of a switch, coud be used as a portable, digital cinema ready display, I would buy it so fast it would make Steve Jobs spin. (hope that wasn't too morbid or disrespectful).
Do yourself a favour, and play with a Transformer or Transformer Prime at your local electronics store, compare the price tags, and then tell me others are struggling to compete on price for something "tolerable". True, Motorola haven't put out a good device that's lasted more than six months since the original Razr, Toshiba really cheaped out on screen quality, and Samsung aren't doing enough to really be different in appearance or utility (not in that they're copying but that there's no reason to get a Galaxy Tab compared to any other tablet), but Asus are easily wiping the floor with Apple in the tablet market right now.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
I test out betas of people's android software on my phone all the time. I didn't have to sign up for a silly developer account. I just went in to the settings and checked the box that said "run unsigned code" and it just worked. Good times.
moox. for a new generation.
> Why is 4:3 such a useful aspect ratio?
I don't know, but I agree with the question's implied premise (4:3's high utility).
It's a good question and I wish I knew the answer to it. I couldn't find any historical reference as to why 4:3 was originally chosen for televisions (the details behind the NTSC format are brilliant, but that's a separate topic).
I suspect it was less because it was "optimal", and more because it was an acceptable compromise between a desirable aspect ratio and technical limitations. Remember, back then, when they were using primitive CRTs, the closer to a perfect circle, the easier it was to manufacture, and most efficient rectangular shape was a square. But humans with their two eyes generally want something wider than it is tall (note movie aspect ratios, which were less constrained by technology). A 4:3 aspect ratio provides something which is close enough to a square to efficiently use the technology of the time, but wide enough to provide a somewhat comfortable shape for viewing.
With non-CRT tech, and modern manufacturing technique, there's a lot more freedom to choose a shape which is good for viewing, so it makes sense there's a lot of experimentation with aspect ratios these days.
Personally I love the "medium-wide" aspect ratios like 16:10 for my main hacking monitor; 4:3 feels constraining. Note that I tend to have multiple windows open (multiple editor windows, an editor and some terminal windows, etc) at the same time, and side-by-side windows are vastly preferable to vertically adjacent windows when the windows are tall (typically true of editor windows). A wide aspect ratio fits this usage pretty well. People whose main mode is the MS-style "one-app-window-always-maximized" may have different preferences.
In the case of the ipad, of course, the main style does seem to be "one app visible", and they strongly want a shape which is viable when used either vertically or horizontally. Given those factors, 4:3 does seem a reasonable choice.
We live, as we dream -- alone....
Now if you could jail brake it and install Android 4.0 I might consider it for the specs. I have to hand to Apple, they do look damn good.
If what you want is a high-res screen, wait a few months - ICS tablets are coming in 1920x1080. Granted, not as high as this baby, but high enough for all practical purposes - Apple really only needs that crazy DPI because they want to be able to 2x-upscale existing iPad apps (just as it was with iPhone 4).
Specifically, I'd wait out for the next Transformer from Asus - by most accounts, it'll be much like Prime, which is already thinner and lighter than iPad 2 while looking mostly similar, except with fixed Wi-Fi reception and 1080p screen.
It'll address that resolution, sure, but it won't display it. I own one such Trinitron. The aperture grille pitch is about 1 pixel wide at 1600x1200. To meet the Nyquist sampling condition, the electron beams must be defocused to at least half that. The resolution of a 1600x1200 LCD is effectively greater than that of a 1600x1200 CRT. Furthermore, the LCD can use subpixel rendering.
Test it yourself: generate images consisting of alternating lines at 1 pixel spacing, and display them at 1:1 scaling on your CRT.