Are We At the Limit of Screen Resolution Improvements?

itwbennett writes "A pair of decisions by Motorola and Ubuntu to settle for 'good enough' when it comes to screen resolution for the Ubuntu Edge and the Moto X raises the question: Have we reached the limit of resolution improvements that people with average vision can actually notice?" Phone vs. laptop vs. big wall-mounted monitor seems an important distinction; the 10-foot view really is different.

Comments

already passing it

[tverbeek]

We're already past the level where I can benefit from higher resolution on phones. I'm over 40 and already have reading glasses, but I'd need to get special phone-only glasses to see any more detail or smaller type.

Not until Anti-Aliasing isn't a thing

[earlzdotnet]

We've reached this point with some devices, but a screen isn't a high enough resolution until Anti-Aliasing isn't needed in any form.

Re:Not until Anti-Aliasing isn't a thing

[Seumas]

I'm really excited for 4k monitors, but it's going to be awhile before really high quality ones that are great for work (color accuracy and reproduction, no weird problems exhausting your eyes like a lot of gaming-specific monitors) as well as great for gaming (responsive, negligible lag/input-delay/ghosting) are available. Even longer before they are around $3,0000 (which is about the price at which I'd pull the trigger on at least one of them).

Hopefully, by the time those exist, GPUs will exist that can fully utilize a 4k display on a single GPU.

As for home theaters? I don't think we'll see much 4k content in a very long time. I bought my first 50" 1080p HDTV in 2001 but it seems like most of the population is only now finally moving to HDTV in 2013 (and most of those are still the people who say things like "I don't know why we need HDTV -- standard television is as good as it needs to get and I can't tell any different!". There will be a huge chicken and egg problem for the next decade. Plus, since most of the content will start to be delivered over the network, there will have to be significant improvements in speeds and data caps in this country. We can't even count on true 1080p digital distribution, yet.

Consoles will not make use of 4k this generation, so that is out of the question for the next decade, too. Yeah, the PS4 and XBOX ONE both support 4k, but I doubt that's going to be true 4k. It'll be upscaled. I just don't see how these dinky little consoles with only a few gigs of memory available will be able to push enough bits around for native 4k.

Re:Not until Anti-Aliasing isn't a thing

[Chris Mattern]

A sharp edge contains infinitely high frequencies, so even a very high resolution display will produce aliasing,

But once it's aliasing invisible to the human eye, anti-aliasing becomes pointless.

no

[iggymanz]

I have rather poor vision, having to use different lens for reading, computer, distance...and I can still see the difference between 1080i and 4K monitors, a person with 20/20 should be able to benefit from even higher resolution (and I suspect even higher contrast ratios).

We know from testing a significant part of the female population would notice higher bit color space too.

Re:No

[wangmaster]

The average smartphone has a 720p screen with a pixel density well above 200 now. In the context of this discussion, why can't an average panel that is generally within 12-24"s of your face (desktop or laptop) not have the same requirements?

Sure, there exists laptops today that do. But those laptops don't provide you with alot of choice (both are walled gardens, yeah yeah yeah, I know you can install other things on them etc etc etc, but that's not the point here).

That said, I know this is coming. We're seeing more and more high resolution ultrabooks/laptops. So when I say come back and talk to me again, it's very likely by the end of the year :).

Re:No

[Andrio]

Phones? Yes (There's not much benefit going past 1280 * 800 )

Tablets? Getting there (Nexus 7 at 1080p, Nexus 10 at 2560 * 1600)

Monitors? NO! Let me put it like this. Most monitors sit somewhere between the previously mentioned phone and tablet resolutions, despite being 2-5 times the size.

Re:Digital Movie Projection... and "Average People

[bill_mcgonigle]

Basic stats fail.

I can't believe there are five posts on here that declare 'average' to be 'mean' and then go on to criticize the GP's lack of statistical knowledge.

I think the very first thing on the very first day of my first statistics class was a discussion of mean, median, and mode, and how all three are referred to as 'average' in common parlance, depending on context.

Projectors need as much resolution as you have wal

[Quantus347]

I have a friend that is a huge fan of a projector for his primary display. When you take even high end resolution and project it out to 12 feet across, there is no such thing as too much resolution.