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6 Plus Screen Is Scaled Down?

ghsDUDE

ghsDUDE

macrumors 68030
Original poster
May 25, 2010
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So I'm reading an article by ArsTechnica and they said the iPhone 6 Plus screen is scaled down.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/09/hands-on-with-the-iphone-6-and-6-plus-apples-first-crack-at-big-phones/

https://mobile.twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/509438167280549888

What exactly does this mean? They noticed it was "laggy" so I wanted to ask of anyone here knows.
 
Yes, it's true. Consider, the iPhone Plus has nearly as many pixels as the iPad Air. The iPad has a custom processor with wider memory bandwidth to help with graphics, and still, things like Siri stutter when opening.

Some of the GUI visuals, especially the see-though glass effects, are particularly graphics intensive.

I think the additional graphics processing strain will decrease performance on the iPhone Plus at times, though it may be able to ramp up clock speeds more with the CPU/GPU because it probably has lighter thermal requirements and it has more battery to work with.
 
ghsNick said:
So I'm reading an article by ArsTechnica and they said the iPhone 6 Plus screen is scaled down.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/0...-and-6-plus-apples-first-crack-at-big-phones/

https://mobile.twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/509438167280549888

What exactly does this mean? They noticed it was "laggy" so I wanted to ask of anyone here knows.
Click to expand...
They write that whatever is shown on the screen was initially larger. Everything is being rendered to a larger resolution than necessary, and then downscaled. And where do you read about lag?
 
ghsNick said:
So I'm reading an article by ArsTechnica and they said the iPhone 6 Plus screen is scaled down.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/0...-and-6-plus-apples-first-crack-at-big-phones/

https://mobile.twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/509438167280549888

What exactly does this mean? They noticed it was "laggy" so I wanted to ask of anyone here knows.
Click to expand...

It is 'laggy' compared to the 4.7".

The 5.5 has to render 2.7million pixels and scale that back to 2million. The 4.7" only has to render 1 million, and does no scaling.

The 4.7" will always be zippier than the 5.5". The 4.7" will run at higher frame rates, and will almost certainly load all apps faster, as it uses 2x rentina graphics, where as the 5.5" uses 3x mode (so all graphic files will be 2.7x bigger and use 2.7x as much memory).

I don't think the lag has anything to do with scaling. The scaling is probably done in the silicon by the graphics hardware. The 4.7" also uses scaling: it can scale old apps upwards to use up the whole screen.
 
Apparently iOS8 is unprepared for these larger displays. Google Forbes, they explain this huge shortcoming.

I'm sure Apple will resolve it but not using my money, time and frustration of early bugs in the system. I'm buying the iPhone 6S next year, which tradition proves will be well sorted out and ready to use.
 
Dang, this is concerning now.

I was dead set on the 6 Plus but if it doesn't dun as smooth as the 6 I'm not sure if I want the "better" screen.
 
It should be fine. It's running a smaller resolution than the iPad Air with a GPU that's 50% more powerful than the 5S. (And the Air and 5S share the same SoC.)

Just wait and try in-store.
 
MythicFrost said:
It should be fine. It's running a smaller resolution than the iPad Air with a GPU that's 50% more powerful than the 5S. (And the Air and 5S share the same SoC.)

Just wait and try in-store.
Click to expand...

Actually the Air has a different SOC than the 5S that was designed to improve graphics performance. Its design is more akin to the A5X and A6X.

Not sure about Apple's 50% graphics improvement claim, though that would be quite nice. Not sure what chip from Imagination is in there.
 
mikethebigo said:
Actually the Air has a different SOC than the 5S that was designed to improve graphics performance. Its design is more akin to the A5X and A6X.

Not sure about Apple's 50% graphics improvement claim, though that would be quite nice. Not sure what chip from Imagination is in there.
Click to expand...

No it doesn't. The A7 in the air is the same as the iPhone 5S.
 
Guys, this has been done now for years on the iPhone 4. All the 3x graphics really means is that designers must build their assets at 3x the normal resolution to appear as perfect retina images.

For instance, a 100x100 image will appear 100x100, but it will have anti-aliasing. Building the asset at 300x300 will render the asset as a perfect retina image, but still appear to display at 100x100.

It's similar with the Macbook Pro retina. The screen resolution appears to still be 1344x900 or whatever the standard resolution is, but the actual resolution is 2688x1800 or double the normal size and they up the pixels per inch.

The effects is tighter graphics, rendering more pixels, but to the user, nothing appears to have changed except for a crisper, clearer image.

It's really nothing to worry about. You guys are acting like there will be non-stop anti-aliasing and stuff.
 
mikelegacy said:
Guys, this has been done now for years on the iPhone 4. All the 3x graphics really means is that designers must build their assets at 3x the normal resolution to appear as perfect retina images.

For instance, a 100x100 image will appear 100x100, but it will have anti-aliasing. Building the asset at 300x300 will render the asset as a perfect retina image, but still appear to display at 100x100.

It's similar with the Macbook Pro retina. The screen resolution appears to still be 1344x900 or whatever the standard resolution is, but the actual resolution is 2688x1800 or double the normal size and they up the pixels per inch.

The effects is tighter graphics, rendering more pixels, but to the user, nothing appears to have changed except for a crisper, clearer image.

It's really nothing to worry about. You guys are acting like there will be non-stop anti-aliasing and stuff.
Click to expand...

No one is complaining that the screen won't be sharp enough lol. People are complaining because the 100$ more expensive iPhone 6 Plus could have worse performance than the regular iPhone 6.
 
mikethebigo said:
Yes it does.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A7

There are two models, APL0698 and APL 5698. 5698 has higher clock speed and different memory layout, and is exclusive in the iPad Air.
Click to expand...

OK so it does.

However the faster chip in the iPad air is 0.1GHz faster and shares no similarities with the A5X and A6X apart from the metal heat spreader.

The A5X and A6X chips had a quad-core graphics processor and were very different to the A5 and A6. From the link you posted it doesn't mention any major differences between the two A7s. Certainly nothing leading to the massive graphics boost of the A5X and A6X over their parent processors.

Anandtech's review of the Air showed that the iPhone 5S and iPad Air have essentially the same performance. Some tests the Air won, some the iPhone 5S.

So yes, there is a different chip in the Air but it's certainly not akin to the X versions of the older chips.
 
Chundles said:
OK so it does.

However the faster chip in the iPad air is 0.1GHz faster and shares no similarities with the A5X and A6X apart from the metal heat spreader.

The A5X and A6X chips had a quad-core graphics processor and were very different to the A5 and A6. From the link you posted it doesn't mention any major differences between the two A7s. Certainly nothing leading to the massive graphics boost of the A5X and A6X over their parent processors.

Anandtech's review of the Air showed that the iPhone 5S and iPad Air have essentially the same performance. Some tests the Air won, some the iPhone 5S.

So yes, there is a different chip in the Air but it's certainly not akin to the X versions of the older chips.
Click to expand...

Correct, it's not fully like X architecture, but certain parts of the layout are different leading to higher clock speeds and overall better performance, though the difference is not very big at all. Both versions of the A7 are very powerful.

So the A8 is supposed to be faster, and is supposed to integrate Metal, and there are plenty of reasons to be hopeful.

But I think what we're saying is - the iPad Air already shows lag at some points, and the iPhone 6+ is actually rendering a higher resolution image than the 9.7 inch iPad, and it has the extra overhead of then downscaling this image which the iPad didn't have to do.

That information is somewhat concerning to me.
 
mikelegacy said:
Fair enough. I could definitely see that.
Click to expand...

It certainly is annoying. You can get the smaller iPhone 6, but have worse battery live and a worse camera (no OIS), for 100$ less... OR bigger iPhone 6 Plus, with bigger and slightly sharper screen, noticeably better battery life, but crappier performance (especially if they keep 1gb of RAM). :mad:

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mikethebigo said:
Correct, it's not fully like X architecture, but certain parts of the layout are different leading to higher clock speeds and overall better performance, though the difference is not very big at all. Both versions of the A7 are very powerful.

So the A8 is supposed to be faster, and is supposed to integrate Metal, and there are plenty of reasons to be hopeful.

But I think what we're saying is - the iPad Air already shows lag at some points, and the iPhone 6+ is actually rendering a higher resolution image than the 9.7 inch iPad, and it has the extra overhead of then downscaling this image which the iPad didn't have to do.

That information is somewhat concerning to me.
Click to expand...

Agree with everything, but iPad Air still has a slightly higher pixel count, but it's not a huge difference.

iPad Air= 2048x1536 = 3145728 pixels
iPhone 6 Plus = 2208×1242 = 2742336 pixels
 
TommyA6 said:
It certainly is annoying. You can get the smaller iPhone 6, but have worse battery live and a worse camera (no OIS), for 100$ less... OR bigger iPhone 6 Plus, with bigger and slightly sharper screen, noticeably better battery life, but crappier performance (especially if they keep 1gb of RAM). :mad:

----------



Agree with everything, but iPad Air still has a slightly higher pixel count, but it's not a huge difference.

iPad Air= 2048x1536 = 3145728 pixels
iPhone 6 Plus = 2208×1242 = 2742336 pixels
Click to expand...

Ah yes I didn't figure in that the iPhone is narrower, so 2.7 MPx vs 3.1 MPx. But then the extra downscaling is involved... but then Apple said this GPU is 50% faster. Lol, so really we'll have no idea until there are some reviews or further hands on videos.
 
myforwik said:
The 4.7" will run at higher frame rates, and will almost certainly load all apps faster, as it uses 2x rentina graphics, where as the 5.5" uses 3x mode (so all graphic files will be 2.7x bigger and use 2.7x as much memory).
Click to expand...

Ever heard of image data compression? Image files are not going to be 2.7 times bigger on the 6 than on the 6+. Not even close. :)
There is also no evidence that having to internally render and down sample the images is going to affect the end user as for the OS' general experience.
 
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