Slashdot Mirror


Oppo's New Phone Hits 538 PPI

itwbennett (1594911) writes "Oppo Electronics has taken off the wraps on its first LTE phone, and it packs more technology than most if not all laptops. The Find 7 is a 5.5" phone and is the first to support 2560 x 1440 resolution [538 PPI] (by comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S5 has 441 PPI). 'Another striking and unique feature of the phone is its 2.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor,' writes blogger Andy Patrizio. 'This is Qualcomm's first chip to feature its Gobi True 4G LTE World Mode, supporting LTE FDD, LTE TDD, WCDMA, CDMA1x, EV-DO, TD-SCDMA and GSM4. Translation: this phone will work on LTE all over the world.'"

34 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. approximately the resolution of an adult eye @ 1' by raymorris · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It seems current phones like the two mentioned in TFS are approximately the same resolution as our vision. For an adult human, 400-600 is about the limit of what we can detect.

    I guess screen resolution is now at the point cameras have been for a few years - any resolution higher than about 4 megapixels is wasted unless the photo is enlarged considerably. (Or one portion is enlarged aka "zoomed in").

  2. Stupid by gweihir · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is a stupid race for the higher number. Unfortunately they will find people that buy this thing because of this completely meaningless "feature". Unless people start carrying around large magnifiers, this will not even be visible in direct comparison.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:Stupid by Joce640k · · Score: 2

      $599 isn't expensive for a phone?

      --
      No sig today...
    2. Re:Stupid by meustrus · · Score: 2

      If you go from a 4" screen to an 8" screen, with the same number of pixels, your yield will *not* drop by a factor of four. A lower DPI screen is less likely to have defects. I'm not sure exactly how much it might drop though, or if the yield might even increase.

      --
      I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
  3. Battery life? by CoolGopher · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Okay, what about battery? Does it last a few weeks on a charge like a good old Nokia? If not, why not? Why this incessant focus on processing power? Having to charge my phone daily (or more frequently!) is where the pain is if you ask me.

    1. Re:Battery life? by bluec · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah plugging it in at night and unplugging it in the morning is a real pain huh? It doesn't last as long as an old Nokia because it consumes more power and battery capacity is restrained by physical density, size, and cost. C'mon, charging your phone once per day is hardly a pain and for the vast majority is a completely insignificant cost compared to the benefit of the increased functionality that a power hungry smartphone has over an old Nokia dumb phone. If you'd rather trade off all those features for only having to plug it in once a week then crack on and buy a dumb phone.

    2. Re:Battery life? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      if your life is so predictable that you reliably have the privilege of plugging it in every 15-20 hours I feel sad for you.

      Such as sleeping at night in a place where there is electricity? Yes, pity me.

    3. Re:Battery life? by DarwinSurvivor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What about trips to the cabin, hiking, hunting, fishing, camping with the scouts, etc?. As a scout leader I need my phone on during outings in case of emergency (either with us or from home) and having my phone only last 24 hours is simply not an option.

    4. Re:Battery life? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What about trips to the cabin, hiking, hunting, fishing, camping with the scouts, etc?. As a scout leader I need my phone on during outings in case of emergency (either with us or from home) and having my phone only last 24 hours is simply not an option.

      Then get a different phone. No one said that everyone needed to have the same phone. I need a phone for taking videos several times a week, and uploading them to other people. I also tether to it for my primary non-work internet connection. I don't have a cabin. I don't have scouts to go camping with. Some places hiking and fishing do not require multi-day trips beyond "the grid". I live in a major European capital city -- rent is high enough that I can't afford to be elsewhere very often. Does not mean that I need pity from thatkid_2002 or anybody else.

      But if you're trying to get rid of that cabin for free, just let me know.

  4. Give us better battery life by slacka · · Score: 2

    It is ridiculous to put a such a high resolution display on a tiny screen. I just recently upgraded from a 720 Nexus 4 to a 1080 Nexus 5. I have great vision and side-by-side, I can't tell the difference between the two screens for fine text or pictures. While this phone is a great value, the battery life is terrible and the games run no better than their predecessor. If I had a choice, I'd much rather have the N5 with my old N4's 720p screen.

  5. Memo to phone designers by thatkid_2002 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If a manufacturer proposed an average (dual core - last year's model is fine, 1GB RAM, 800x480 screen) phone that was affordable (no, really, $500 isn't affordable) with a big ass battery I would be like SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

    I don't understand all these designers who are pushing devices *waaaay* past the capabilities of the batteries. Smart watches (other than the Pebble, they did it right!) are doing exactly this and it is making their product a complete joke.

    1. Re:Memo to phone designers by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      So why not just buy last year's phone that fits that criteria? Something like a Galaxy Note perhaps, since they have massive batteries.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re: Memo to phone designers by MoonBuggy · · Score: 2

      Get yourself a Moto G - the battery is good (although not astonishing: 1-2 days, rather than "oh shit, running out at 6pm"), the build quality and specs are excellent for normal usage (web, general communication), and they're dirt cheap compared to the competition.

  6. Re: approximately the resolution of an adult eye @ by whisper_jeff · · Score: 5, Informative

    For an adult human, 400-600 is about the limit of what we can detect.

    No.

    For most average human adults, the limit is about 300 dpi.

    Speaking as a graphic designer with over two decades of experience, there is a reason that graphic designers have always targeted a print resolution of 300 dpi for colour images.

    How 400-600 entered the conversation is beyond me. The percentage of people who can visually tell the difference between a 300 dpi output and anything higher than that is very, very small. The number of people who can spot the difference at 400+ is not even a consideration for discussion. I'm sure there are some who can but don't even vaguely think that they in any way represent the norm.

    Any manufacturer who targets a screen resolution above about 350 or so is just targeting big numbers for the marketing benefit - the average user will never be able to tell the difference.

  7. Re: approximately the resolution of an adult eye @ by cbhacking · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sometimes people use their phones closer than 1' from their eyes, especially when trying to see detail (i.e. the times when high resolution helps). With that said, I really don't see any use for 538PPI. That thing has the resolution of my 27" monitor! Yeah, I'd like the monitor's resolution to be higher, I guess, but it's not needed. Meanwhile, that's 4x the resolution of my still-somewhat-large (4.8") phone. Now, I *would* like the phone's resolution to be a bit higher (it's just over 300PPI, but text vanishes into jumbled pixels before it gets too small to read) but most of the time I don't need it and probably wouldn't notice... aside from the higher power draw and worse framerates in games.

    --
    There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
  8. Re:Poor Engineering Trade-off by CastrTroy · · Score: 2

    Yep. My next phone is going to be the simplest phone I can get with tethering. If I want a mobile computer, I'll use my tablet or laptop. I want a phone I don't have to worry about, and that has a battery that lasts more than 16 hours.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  9. Re: approximately the resolution of an adult eye @ by msobkow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It is the pixel angle that makes the difference. 300DPI at two feet away is not the same as 300DPI at six inches. Whether you can see the difference in resolutions has a great deal to do with how you use a device, and how far away you hold it. Print media typically expects to be viewed at arm's length -- about 18 inches. I see many, many people holding their cell phones far closer than that.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
  10. Re: approximately the resolution of an adult eye @ by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I must be some of those lucky super-humans then because I can clearly see a difference between my old Galaxy S3 (305 PPI) and Nexus 5 (445 PPI). I wear glasses and think I need to go get a new prescription soon, BTW.

    Your experience as a graphic designer has mislead you. What you say might be true for print, but not for LCD/AMOLED screens. That's why ePaper displays often have relatively low PPIs but still look like paper - they have real ink blobs in them. It's to do with the slightly fuzzy edges of the spots in print, the slight bleed into the paper etc. smoothing the printed image out. Screens have hard edges to every pixel.

    The human eye does not work the way a lot of people seem to think it does. 300 DPI is not some kind of ultimate limit, and printer manufacturers know this which is why they usually interpolate up to at least 600 DPI and most people can tell that it looks better for small text.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  11. Complaining about this phone? by wjcofkc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am kind of surprised to see that the majority of posts are railing against this phone, mostly over the display resolution being so high. I'm thinking most people never made it past the summary. On top of what the summary lists, it has 3 gigabytes of ram, 32 gigabytes of internal storage, micro SD that can handle 128 gigabyte cards, 5 megapixel front facing camera, 50 (sorta) megapixel rear camera, 3000mAh removable battery. Rapid charging technology - going from 0 to 75% charge on a 3000mAh battery is pretty sweet.

    At a $599 retail price point? That's pretty remarkable. The only thing the article does not discuss in the graphics chip set but I'm willing to bet it's nothing to sneeze at.

    --
    Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
  12. Re: approximately the resolution of an adult eye @ by Luckyo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That is false. You are thinking old people, who with time lose ability to hear higher frequency sounds. Average adults can often hear higher frequencies, and young people can hear even higher ones.

    I still remember a case of walking around a certain field in the countryside with an old relative and he was complaining about the fact that there used to be a lot of grasshoppers in this place and now the environmental pollution killed them all since it's all quiet. At the same time, grasshopper noises where everywhere. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it's just his age and his reduced ability to hear higher frequency sounds.

  13. Re: approximately the resolution of an adult eye @ by Joce640k · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Speaking as a graphic designer with over two decades of experience

    Anybody who starts a phrase with "Speaking as a...." usually has no clue.

    The difference between 300dpi and 600dpi dithered images on monochrome laser printers is easy to see.

    there is a reason that graphic designers have always targeted a print resolution of 300 dpi for colour images.

    Maybe the problem is with your printers and/or the medium you print on.

    --
    No sig today...
  14. Re: approximately the resolution of an adult eye @ by msobkow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That is, of course, why 1200 DPI printers look no better than 300 DPI printers.

    If you're BLIND, that is.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
  15. Re:wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Your message is very hard to read and understand. It omits uppercase letters, has strange gibberish like "53.40/90h - 14/17 khz", and uses "khz" instead of the proper unit "kHz".

  16. Good, But... by Zero_DgZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Now slap a friggin' hardware keyboard on it and we'll talk. What's the point of yet another stupid buttonless bar phone? It's got a lot of pixels and a big fat processor so it has miserable battery life and absolutely zero usability improvement. It's like putting a solid gold screen door on a submarine, then. Put a Wacom style digitizer on the thing like the Galaxy Note while you're at it, please, so we can accurately poke at hilariously tiny controls and icons on the screen. I don't care if doing so makes the damn phone .0005" thicker or whatever.

    Am I the only one who's noticed that our culture has seemingly started to revolve around SMS and Twitter yet somehow at the exact same time everybody started dropping keyboards off of phones? What's the deal with that?

    I think it's a conspiracy. (Okay, okay, so the only 'conspiracy' is copycattingthe buttonless design popularized with -- but not invented by -- the iPhone. But still.)

    Show some cojones! Have the courage to do something different for a change. I'd love a phone with a billion and three pixels available on the display, but I'd also like a phone that I can actually type on, select things, draw on it, etc. with all those pixels. If all you're doing is tapping and sliding and swiping and poking ineffectually at a million-pixel-wide but only physically 2-inches-across virtual keyboard the damn thing may as well be 320x240.

  17. Re: approximately the resolution of an adult eye by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 2, Informative

    Doesn't really matter to the argument that because of ink absorption causing blurring, and the fact that most people using phones are doing so at 1/3-1/4 the distance of looking at printed images, that your comparison of PPI on phone screens and image DPI that will be used in high LPI printers really isn't equivalent or analogous at all.

    --
    while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
  18. Re: approximately the resolution of an adult eye @ by bregmata · · Score: 2

    I hear Monster Cable is coming out with a line of gold-plated bifocals that allow the discriminating visualphile to be able to take full adcantage of the quality offered by 400 to 600 DPI.

  19. Most smartphones can last as long as an old Nokia by AC-x · · Score: 2

    Most smartphones can last as long as an old Nokia, just turn mobile data / wifi off and don't use much screen time. Seriously without it constantly downloading emails in the background they last for ever.

  20. I care about voice latency and audio quality, not by mnemotronic · · Score: 2

    While a screen with decent resolution is nice, I really need (not want -- NEED) a phone with good vocal quality and zero latency on the voice side. Show me a phone, encoding scheme, network and carrier with _that_ and I'll sign a life membership. I have googled my pants off for "cell phone voice latency" test results with no meaningful hits. The conspiracy-theorist part of me says the cell phone mfgrs & carriers all know how horrible they are when compared to landline so they've agreed to not test or not alert the consumer to this measurement.

    --
    The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
  21. Re: approximately the resolution of an adult eye by mrscorpio · · Score: 2

    48khz (up to 24khz effective) has been around at least as long as DAT. 24-bit 96khz has been around at least as long as DVD's. Then you have the SA-CD format, which is only 1-bit depth but in the mhz range, and now 192khz audio is starting to reach consumer-level devices and even 384 in studios I believe. Working with music, I can't imagine needing something better than 24-bit, because already my limitation is with the microphone, recording equipment, and playback speakers. I haven't tried 192khz+ yet but it's hard for me to think it would be even a 1% effective improvement over 96khz.

  22. preproduction, sample rate vs frequency by raymorris · · Score: 2

    It's interesting the question said "producing" and the things you mentioned are preproduction.

    Also, a 48 kHz sample rate cannot try to APPROXIMATE a tone higher than 22kHz. At 22kHz, it's a square wave. That's nowhere NEAR accurately reproducing a 22kHz tone. A sample rate of 48 will represent a 12kHz tone with some accuracy. Look at the wave form to see what I mean.

  23. Re: approximately the resolution of an adult eye @ by grumbel · · Score: 2

    While 538PPI might be a bit overkill on a classical phone, those same screens are also used in the latest round of virtual reality headsets and they have still a long way to go before they get anywhere near human vision limits. And to go even further, Nvidia has demoed some microlens lightfield glasses a while a go and those need even more resolution then a classical headset display and who knows, if resolution keeps growing, having a lightfield display in your phone might actually start to become viable (meaning you could have a real 3D with proper focus, could hold your phone close to your face to use it as VR glasses and other funky sci-fi stuff).

  24. Re:I care about voice latency and audio quality, n by Miamicanes · · Score: 2

    Zero latency is impossible due to both the speed of sound in air and the speed of light (which indirectly governs the speed of information-conveyance by electrons over a wire. For the sake of being pedantic, the actual electrons travel along the wire at a relatively slow speed).

    Imperceptible latency is impossible with anything besides analog modulation schemes like FM, or uncompressed PCM. By the very definition of stream and block compression, you have to buffer SOMETHING.

    That doesn't mean there's no room for improvement... but what you're asking for basically at odds with data compression.

    It's the same reason why hearing aids are still overwhelmingly analog devices. Digital technologies -- especially cheap ones -- introduce unacceptable latency.

  25. Trying this. The digital file IS sample and hold. by raymorris · · Score: 2

    At playback, capacitance and physical momentum will round off the corners of a square wave pretty much randomly, while filters can guess that it might be a pure, single tone - a sinusoidal wave (or make some other guess). The recording, the digital file IS sample-and-hold. There is one value per sample.

    Starting with the set of squared waves in the recording, then guessing which of many sounds is represented by that sample, will produce _A_ sound. Guessing A sound is not reproducing the original sound. Here's a simple way you can prove it to yourself:

    Generate a 23kHz tone. Save as a 48k file.

    Generate another 23kHz tone and mix it with another 23kHz offset by 1/92k seconds. Save as a 48k file.

    Note that you can visually SEE the difference in the two waveforms.

    Check the md5 of the two files. Note that the recordings are identical, though you can see that the sounds were not identical. Sense the recordings are bit-for-bit identical, they will of course play back identically. Filters can be used to round off the edges or otherwise modify the sound, but the two identical files will give results, though they are supposed to represent different sounds.

    I'm sure you can think of all kinds of theories to argue why you don't think the files will be identical. Or you can just tryit and see that they are in fact identical.