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IBM Selling 20" 2048x1536 LCD
starman97 writes "IBM will show a new 20.8 inch LCD active matrix display
that boasts 2048x1536 pixels at Comdex this fall in Las Vegas
" One word: Yum. A slightly related question: what is the maximum size for a portable computer screen? I would say 20" is a bit out there, but there are 15 and 16 inch laptop screens. Larger LCDs with larger production volumes will mean someone is gonna test the waters sooner or later.
Oh great... now I gotta listen to all the techs next door talk about how much bigger THEIR screen is than everybody else's. It's like penis envy for geeks. Is it any suprise they're both measured down to the 1/10th of an inch? =)
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Woaaah, look at all those colors at such a high resolution.... wait wait.. LCD? OH, I thought it was LSD. My bad.
-PovRayMan
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Check out my blackbox styles
*cough* Am I the only one that thinks those two sentences are psycho-sexually loaded? If you don't care how big it is.... 15-16" is fine...
Hmm.. I think I'd better stop reading the UF listserv... I'm gettin' all these funny thoughts in my head.... NURSE - I need my pills.. I having ONE OF THOSE DAMNED FITS AGAIN! =)
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Apple's Cinema display is "only" 1,600 by 1,024 pixels (~1.6 M pixels). IBM's is 2,048 by 1,536 pixels (~3.1 M pixels). Also, IBM's display has a different aspect ratio. 20 inches in 4:3 gets about what you get with 22 in whatever Apple's ratio is. I don't know the ratio so I haven't done the math. 207 sq inches for IBM though. I think Apple's display is pretty damn cool, but IBM's is next generation by comparison.
hmmm.. I'm not sure what good a picture would do. I mean, are you going to look at it and think "Wow. that image looks much clearer there than it does on the monitor I have now."
It stands to reason that any common multiple would be fairly decent. 2048*1536 /2 = 1024*768, that's fine. /3 =~640*480. 800*600 is near /2.5
However, you also might want to consider that most people have about 19 or 17" monitor, and probably don't go above 1024x768 (majority probably doesn't even do that), so this is almost twice the density. It'll be a lot sharper, but the pixels should be so small I doubt you'd be able to tell. I guess it remains to be seen.
1080i? Give me 720p. Ever try to use an interlaced computer monitor? It isn't pretty. TV survives because of coherence -- but coherence means you don't have the detail the higher resolution is supposed to give you.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
At a pixel resolution of 123 Pixels/Inch I dont think you'd notice if the video card dithered properly. Not to mention, you wont get color fringing on vertical lines like you do on a trinitron.
.26mm phosphor pitch, that works out to 97 Pixels/inch
IBM is also working on a 200PPI LCD, that's getting close to laserprinter quality.
My 21inch Mitsubishi has a Sony tube with
My screen is 16 inches horizontally, 1600 pixels.
(20 inches diagonal usable screen)
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
I love LCD as much as the next geek, and there are applications that almost require LCD displays (such as labs where RF interference is a problem). But, as most laptop owners can tell you, every once in a while a pixel can go bad on you, and no matter how small the pixel is, it's noticble and annoying as hell. Now, when a traditional CRT bust an element, most of the time whatever it is (power supply, synch circuit, etc) can be replaced relatively easily. But burn a pixel out on an LCD screen, there's no real way of replacing it except for scrapping the whole damn display.
If I'm investing *that* much money on a display, it has to have a good enough warranty on it such that I can sleep soundly at night without worrying one or two annoying pixels that's always red.
-=- SiKnight
What is the point of getting any bigger? I agree with the idea of 15-17 being satisfactory. Don't they realize that the larger u get the worse the LCD is? If you were to go off on a tangent, u would kno that plasma screens for theaters are not used often because of 2 reasons. Sheer expense, and the lack of color. The bigger you get the more "black tone" there is. It is hard to heat all that crystal. The expense comes from the filterization and disposal. I mean, there are literally millions of pixels in them things!, and to make sure that not one is bad is hard. All the bad ones need to be properly disposed of. Now, im not saying that we should resort to 3 lens projectors as our laptop screen's. Although it would be phat to just have a 100 inch screen projected anywhere, HDTV quality with phat picture. But a limit needs to be drawn somewhere..., perhaps people will realize that its too expensive, and not that great yet at those sizes.
Personally, I like a larger screen, because I like high-resolution but have bad eyesight. Small monitors mean I have to either limit my screen size or squint at my monitor. But I would also hate to lug around some huge laptop wherever I go. That's the problem with large screens on laptops, the whole laptop has to get bigger, too. Sure, that gives you room for more stuff (drives, a normal keyboard, etc.), but if that were enough reason, we'd have larger laptops already.
/. has a large readership, I like to think (and I consider this a compliment) that /.ers do not represent the general populous, so even if we settled on a general solution, that wouldn't necessarily mean anything. I think the only way we'll ever really know what a reasonable size is will be to see what the market supports.
But I digress. The point at which I was actually driving is just that it's a matter of taste. As a developer, I stare at the screen all day, and size is important (insert crude joke here). I also don't feel the need to carry my workstation around with me, so laptops are more of a burden than a benefit. As far as portable computing goes, I'm satisfied with my Palm III. But I work with people whose jobs depend on using laptops, and I have little doubt their opinions differ from mine. Since there are so many different uses of portable machines, how can you ask for just one answer for how big they (or their screens) can be? You have as many answers as there are reasons for using a laptop. And even though
I've used a Gateway LCD and I wanna ask LCD fans
Why????
There must be a market out there for people who use laptops all day and can't deal with the higher resolution and refresh rates of a CRT.
They do look quite futuristic and fetching though...
"Wow, look at that! You must be from the future."
"No, my gullible friend, I'm just rich."
Check out this EETimes article.
The displays are completely viewable at any angle and at any light level (even with big halogen lamps shining right on it).
Not likely if they use digital signals. Then it's a straight signal to the transistors in the pixels. No transmission here.
I've been carrying a laptop of one type or another for over 15 years. As a 6 foot, 275 pound, fairly active person, size and weight is of little matter to me. In fact, the larger size would allow for a larger keyboard, a full-size numeric keypad, and so on.
A 20" screen would mean a laptop somewhere around 16"x12" or so, about the size of two letter size pages. I would be more than happy to carry such a computer in order to have room for more sessions on the screen at the same time, or to have /. loaded next something I get paid for. 8^)
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
The only reasonable way to go portable with a big screen is to use eye-ware level LCDs. As reported on Slashdot a few months ago, Sony is making headway in this area. These things result in about 30 inch screens. And while they need further development, it seems to me to be the only reasonable course.
Secondarily we can then evolve on to stereo-scopic 3D. Some gamers and scientists are already doing this. There is no reason we all can't get a better GUI for the mundane stuff too.
There are other benefits too. Like no one looking over your shoulder at the airport reading you E-mail or passwords.
The LCD does look a lot cripser and sharper. Perhaps that has something to do with it.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
When I was editing my dissertation, I actually hauled in my 486 laptop to use it's 640x480 display instead of the 19" monitor onmy K6. It made a *huge* difference inhow my eyes felt at the end of the day . . .
I have a 1994 era Sony that's just shy of 40 inches--my late father in law bought it to watch football.
It has a 700 line screen. Yes, 700. But the broadcast is only 525, of which 400-450 are usable. So it interpolates & extrapolatesto create the extra lines. Most things look ok, but diagonal lines and small text arehorrid.
And for some inexplicable reason,it hasno expansion slotto use it asa monitor or hdtv . . .
I was comparing this announcement side-by-side to the Apple Cinema Display earlier, and it seems the main difference is in pixel density (2048x1536 for the IBM vs. 1600x1024 for the Apple display, on, give or take an inch, the same surface area).
In my short history with laptops, I've had multiple bad pixels on measly 12.1" LCDs with maximum resolutions of 800x600. Based on some really primitive early-morning logic, it seems the pixels are just going to pop twice as fast on the IBM display.
Have the manufacturing processes changed at all in the past two years to allow them to cram 9 million transistors in this thing? (Besides the removal of the "spacer balls"?) (Heh)