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LG Aims To Beat Apple's Retina Display

Posted by Soulskill on from the busy-times-for-pixel-collectors dept.

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."

18 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. Cool tech, but by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

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    1. Re:Cool tech, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    2. Re:Cool tech, but by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

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    3. Re:Cool tech, but by Spaseboy · · Score: 5, Informative

      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

      --
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    4. Re:Cool tech, but by PCM2 · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

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    5. Re:Cool tech, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      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

    6. Re:Cool tech, but by xevioso · · Score: 5, Funny

      This makes no sense. Silly foreigners have no idea how to tell a fat joke. The fat joke you just told has nothing to do with how fat a person is, and is merely a thinly veiled attempt at racism.

      A proper fat joke would be something along the lines of "You are so fat, I swerved to avoid you while I was driving, but I ran out of gas."

    7. Re:Cool tech, but by Fluffeh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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!

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    8. Re:Cool tech, but by oxdas · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    9. Re:Cool tech, but by mdmkolbe · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    10. Re:Cool tech, but by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here's an idea, rather than letting the manufacturers get away with making the dick waving contest be about screen resolution, why not force them to fix the fucking smartphone battery life problem?

      --
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    11. Re:Cool tech, but by mug+funky · · Score: 5, Funny

      a name like that doesn't bode well for it's autocorrect capabilities.

    12. Re:Cool tech, but by oxdas · · Score: 5, Informative

      Apple paid them less than $8 billion in total revenue last year (less than $6 billion by some accounts). This was in their low margin components business as well. Samsung Electronics division made more than $140 billion in revenue and more than 70% of their profits came from their own phones and tablets. The takeaway here is that Apple accounts for less than 6% of Samsung's Electronics revenue and less than that of their profits.

      Samsung Mobile Display is still a integral part of Samsung. It is 100% owned by Samsung Electronics and Samsung SDI. Samsung uses a complex circular ownership structure so the company at the top of the pyramid, Samsung Everland, can retain control of the entire company despite only owning a small piece. Either directly, or through Samsung Everland, Lee Gun Hee owns the majority stake in Samsung Life (and other subsidiaries), which in turn own the majority stake in Samsung Electronics (with other Samsung companies owning pieces as well). The company is firmly in the control of Lee Gun Hee and this family. I suggest you read up on the "jaebol" system in order to understand Samsung better. That is not to say that Samsung Mobile Display (or its parent Samsung Electronics) cannot push their own direction, but ultimately all these pieces must answer to same people.

      I agree with your argument about sunk costs, but I can't seem to find anything to back up the claim that Samsung receives "massive subsidies" from Apple. In addition, because Samsung is not using the same technology in Apple's displays, it weakens the argument that Apple's volumes drastically decrease Samsung's costs in their own products.

    13. Re:Cool tech, but by organgtool · · Score: 5, Funny

      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?

  2. Apple's display? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apple doesn't make their own displays.

  3. finally the war i wanted. by musikit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  4. What about laptops? by torkus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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  5. Cycles per degree by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.