PICTURE: iPhone 4's Retina -VS- 3GS

[gianly1985]

Hardly. There was a WinMo phone with similar print quality PPI back in 2007, and an LG phone back in 2008 with even higher PPI than the iPhone 4.

1) they were not IPS but certainly cheap TNs. Very different price and outcome.

2) they were not built with the "zero gap between the glass and LCD so stuff looks like popping out" tecnique

This display, whatever you may call it (Retina Display or just a gorgeous IPS display), raises the bar in the mobile device display field. And the industry will have to try to catch up.

In addition, many other phones are "retinal" if held just a few more inches away from your face. (And even that's not required if your eyes aren't perfect.)

True. It's not like people really notice pixels on modern phones during real world activities. But the overall result maybe will be affected....especially for fonts.....

The point is, the original iPhone's resolution was very low compared to a lot of other phones. As many of us have noted here before, it was very noticeable going from a WVGA phone back to an iPhone.

BTW, did you know that most of the WVGA displays nowadays (namely, amoled and super-amoled made by SMD) use a Pentile matrix with 33% less subpixel than a PROPER WVGA resolution? They're supposed to be 33% less "sharp" than a real WVGA, it's like they're interlaced (and this causes a series of issues sometime). So the 960 x 640 iphone screen will certainly put to shame those "false" WVGA displays. (the "false" applies to SMD amoleds, not LCDs like Evo 4G or Droid)

In depth:
http://blog.javia.org/nexus-one-display-and-subpixel-pattern/
http://www.displaymate.com/Nexus_One_ShootOut.htm
http://www.displayblog.com/2010/01/20/nexus-one-pentile-matrix-oled-display/

 

[Arran]

Stunning.

Hard to believe that's what you get by splitting each 3G pixel into four. Just four.

Thanks OP for posting the pics.

 

[ljx718]

Technically it will be 4 times better. Nobody is arguing with that. The question is whether you actually will be able to see this difference. I think we will see some difference and it might be a noticeable one but blowing up the photo image clearly exaggerates the differences.

More interesting question though is whether there will be any difference in quality between iPhone 4 screen and that of, say, Droid which also has IPS panel and much higher resolution than iPhone 3GS.

droid has ips?

 

[lilo777]

droid has ips?

Yes, it does. I saw it in several articles. Here is one example: "The iPhone 4 display should be comparable to the outstanding IPS LCD in the Motorola Droid, which I tested and compared to the Nexus One OLED, which was trounced by the Droid."

 

[Arran]

... Here is one example...

Thanks for that link. There's a nice hi-def video of an iPhone 4 hands-on demo there. Quite informative.

 

[ljx718]

Yes, it does. I saw it in several articles. Here is one example: "The iPhone 4 display should be comparable to the outstanding IPS LCD in the Motorola Droid, which I tested and compared to the Nexus One OLED, which was trounced by the Droid."

im sorry, but in all ive read about the droid, there has never been any mention of it being an ips screen. that is the only article that says that it does. i tried searching google, but no one says that its an ips. even moto's site doesnt anything anything about it being ips

 

[born4sky]

Its niiiiceee

 

[afireintonto]

Damn. I cannot wait to hold this screen in my hands!

 

[ajones46]

Now the iPhone has finally gotten an upgrade, and it'll be great when many apps are rewritten for it with larger image files, etc. (This should also help when using iPhone apps on the iPad, which currently look quite pixelated when magnified.)

Never thought of that. I hope youre right.

 

[Bakakage]

Anyone seen any more pictures or video of a journalist comparing the iphone 4 with an iphone 3gs with os4?

 

[afireintonto]

Never thought of that. I hope youre right.

He's right. When you run the *new* iPhone apps on the iPad they wont have to scale at all, so they will look fantastic!

 

[ajones46]

He's right. When you run the *new* iPhone apps on the iPad they wont have to scale at all, so they will look fantastic!

Awesomeness. Win-win for everyone.

 

[allonym]

Here take this

Credits: Mobilecrunch - I just edited so it's side by side.


Original image: http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_0230.jpg

As long as there's no jiggery-pokery, that's bloody impressive. I'm getting on a bit now and uncorrected my close vision isn't so hot, but with my reading glasses on I can clearly see pixels on the 3GS screen at normal viewing distance. I'm really looking forward to the new display

 

[iPadPublisher]

What an effective way to showcase the difference. Human-eye-beating or not, it's clearly a solid improvement model-over-model. Thanks!

 

[corriewf]

For me personally, I hardly notice the pixels on my 3GS. Yeah they are there if I look, but they have never ruined my iPhone experience. For me the text has always been too small on the iPhone. I can't hardly read things and if I zoom in, I have to go side scrolling. Jmo.

 

[kdarling]

1) they were not IPS but certainly cheap TNs. Very different price and outcome.

Actually, LG's higher PPI phone was almost certainly an IPS display since it was a phone with DMB TV tuner. Perhaps someone at Apple even saw it.

IPS isn't something new. Apple LCD monitors use it, for example. LG has used it since 1997 in their TV panels.

LG is an IPS leader, and that's likely why they're making the iPhone 4 LCD.

True. It's not like people really notice pixels on modern phones during real world activities. But the overall result maybe will be affected....especially for fonts.....

Agreed. Everyone can tell you that fonts are fantastic on higher PPI screens.

BTW, did you know that most of the WVGA displays nowadays (namely, amoled and super-amoled made by SMD) use a Pentile matrix with 33% less subpixel than a PROPER WVGA resolution?

One of my jobs is specifying displays for ruggedized handhelds. We use cool (and very expensive) stuff like military grade heated displays which work way below freezing.

My experience is that the Pentile arrangement doesn't look as sharp when you put your nose up against it. (Me being near-sighted.) Once you move to normal viewing distance, however... well, see below:

My guess is that Apple carefully chose the word "retinal" for a couple of marketing reasons:

• First, Toshiba had already used the term "print quality" years before for their own phone with 313 PPI.
  
• Second, unlike other displays, Pentiles really are designed with the eye physiology in mind. They take advantage of the way the eye sees colors and luminance. Just as the eye cannot see individual pixels at a certain distance ("retinal"), the eye also sees the same virtual display at that distance with Pentile. So Apple had to come up with a name making it sound as if their display also had some physiological advantage.

In other words, at distance X, both displays look the same as far as sharpness, and differ in color representation alone. So forget pixel arrangement and PPI, because the eye isn't pixel based and it's not the real comparison here.

For example, IPS LCDs have good color accuracy and excellent viewing angle. However, they tend to have purplish looking blacks. They also can have slower response times, leading to movement shadows in games.

Yet to the normal customer, the most important feature won't be PPI or even color reproduction or response time. It'll be more practical things like sunlight visibility, at which LCDs currently surpass LEDs.

We'll have to wait for a good review once the iPhone 4 is available.

 

[jclardy]

I like how the default 4.0 background image is still 320x480 even on the iPhone 4.

Is it that hard to put 640x960 resolution versions of the wallpapers in the iPhone 4 firmware? I know they exist, because the iPad has a 1024x1024 version of that exact wallpaper.

Yeah I noticed that too...first I saw the icons and thought it was pretty sweet, then I saw the bubble on the left. Hopefully the final release has full resolution wallpapers...

 

[greygray]

Impressive!

 

[kdarling]

He's right. When you run the *new* iPhone apps on the iPad they wont have to scale at all, so they will look fantastic!

Yeah, I haven't seen any articles mentioning this yet. It's one of my jobs to think of how displays affect software and vice versa.

Scaling artifacts seen when using current iPhone apps, are my only major disappointment with the iPad.

Therefore iOS 4 apps built for 960x640 will be very welcome... as long as they're not also dependent on having 300+ PPI

 

[Billy Boo Bob]

WOW!! I'm so glad I have *young* eyes that can appreciate how high quality that display is. My mom has to have reading glasses to even use her iPod Touch lol... So I can brag all I want about my hi-rez iPhone 4 and she won't be able to tell one damn bit of difference haha

I disagree. Like your Mom, I have to wear reading glasses to use an iPhone/iPodTouch, but with the reading glasses, things are very clear, and even magnified just a touch. I will most certainly be able to tell the difference between the two. On a current touch device I can see the grid of pixels. And with the display coming into good focus I'm sure any tiny text (such as an unzoomed web page) will make a world of difference.

 

[Pushkar]

Looks stunning, but how do videos look on there, does it improve the quality or would it be the same?

 

[hefeglass]

Actually, LG's higher PPI phone was almost certainly an IPS display since it was a phone with DMB TV tuner. Perhaps someone at Apple even saw it.

IPS isn't something new. Apple LCD monitors use it, for example. LG has used it since 1997 in their TV panels.

LG is an IPS leader, and that's likely why they're making the iPhone 4 LCD.



Agreed. Everyone can tell you that fonts are fantastic on higher PPI screens.



One of my jobs is specifying displays for ruggedized handhelds. We use cool (and very expensive) stuff like military grade heated displays which work way below freezing.

My experience is that the Pentile arrangement doesn't look as sharp when you put your nose up against it. (Me being near-sighted.) Once you move to normal viewing distance, however... well, see below:

My guess is that Apple carefully chose the word "retinal" for a couple of marketing reasons:

• First, Toshiba had already used the term "print quality" years before for their own phone with 313 PPI.
  
• Second, unlike other displays, Pentiles really are designed with the eye physiology in mind. They take advantage of the way the eye sees colors and luminance. Just as the eye cannot see individual pixels at a certain distance ("retinal"), the eye also sees the same virtual display at that distance with Pentile. So Apple had to come up with a name making it sound as if their display also had some physiological advantage.

In other words, at distance X, both displays look the same as far as sharpness, and differ in color representation alone. So forget pixel arrangement and PPI, because the eye isn't pixel based and it's not the real comparison here.

For example, IPS LCDs have good color accuracy and excellent viewing angle. However, they tend to have purplish looking blacks. They also can have slower response times, leading to movement shadows in games.

Yet to the normal customer, the most important feature won't be PPI or even color reproduction or response time. It'll be more practical things like sunlight visibility, at which LCDs currently surpass LEDs.

We'll have to wait for a good review once the iPhone 4 is available.

droid display is NOT ips...I have one rigt here...I know it is TN. Also, the toshiba phone isn't ips either. You are completely making stuff Up..


Also...ips tech was not able to achieve this kind of density until early last year,
In working with a company called "hydis" and prime view international, LG was able to pull off displays that up until now were only prototyped.

Ite funny to see someone try to downplay the lcd in the new iPhone 4....no matter what you claim, no other phone maker has come close to a display like this...this is definitely going to give the other companies something to strive for.

The pentile sub pixel layout is horrendous...makes the text and images on my n1 look like crap..I can't even consider your half excuse for this cheap money saving tech viable, and please post up a link to this phone with higher pixel density than the new iPhone...only one display out there beats it...and it's at 546dpi from casio.

This screen is being made in such huge numbers that It is impossible for lg to provide others with this screen...
If you notice...the 480x320 LCD usedin the current iPhones has not been used in any product that competes with apple. They get such large numbers that they have complete control over the production and buying.


Go buy a droid or a toshiba phone from a few years back if you feel that they have already accomplished this feat with the screen..!

 

[kdarling]

droid display is NOT ips...I have one rigt here...I know it is TN. Also, the toshiba phone isn't ips either. You are completely making stuff Up..

The "making up" part is ironic, since I didn't say any of those things.

Ite funny to see someone try to downplay the lcd in the new iPhone 4

People are not downplaying the display. It's the best thing about the iPhone 4, and it's long overdue.

At the same time, it's incorrect to claim that it's some kind of miracle breakthrough in resolution or that it's the only "retinal" display or anything along those lines.

Its extra resolution is also going to be fairly meaningless to users until third party apps are rewritten, new wallpapers are created, and movies are recoded. The major exception is that built-in apps such as Safari should see immediate benefits.

People talk about Android OS fragmentation, and yet iOS apps are divided into original iPhone, iPad, and now apparently iPhone 4 versions.

If you notice...the 480x320 LCD usedin the current iPhones has not been used in any product that competes with apple.

I'm not sure what your point is. That no one else buys the exact same original iPhone LCD? Why would they?

Other smartphones have been using at least 800x480. Even some Blackberrys have higher resolution than that with 480x360.

 

[FSMBP]

I like how the default 4.0 background image is still 320x480 even on the iPhone 4.

Is it that hard to put 640x960 resolution versions of the wallpapers in the iPhone 4 firmware? I know they exist, because the iPad has a 1024x1024 version of that exact wallpaper.

iPhone 4 probably has a special firmware of iOS 4 which includes the hi-res wallpapers/icons.

But I think it would just make sense to make one version with the high-res and the old iPhones would just use those (not like it would make a difference in quality).

 

[elephunkman]

Now that's what I call an all-out android killer.