Toshiba Introduces New 6.1-Inch Display at 498 PPI

[mrfoof82]

if the human retina can't see more than +-300 pixels per inch, why put 600 on 1 inch? You would think that the difference wouldn't matter. I would think that it's more important to make bigger retina display's (retina iMac, iPad?)?

Although you can't really make out the individual pixels, overall, there is still a subtle but small benefit that can be realized with very detailed imagery. Character-based languages (like that picture) can absolutely benefit by the increased resolution, although it's approaching diminishing returns.

Print is a good case. It's impossible to find a laser printer than prints at less than 600dpi (my 2000-era LaserJet 1200 does), and many offer 1200dpi modes. Why? Because there is a (small) difference -- never mind how they compare to now seemingly archaic 300dpi prints.

 

[chrmjenkins]

It's a demonstration of physical capability. You have to remember that Toshiba isn't necessarily the end supplier either. If their buyers want it for their products, that's their decision. If they're the only ones producing that PPI, kind of makes them a shoe-in.

 

[zoomp]

That's a misconception. You know, print media uses 220 lpi (around 300dpi) resolution for images. This is well known. That's because the actual print is a combination of 4 colors in a pattern that confuses the human eye perception and gives you a "sharp" image. That's good enough for pictures.

What is not really known is that all the lines and type on print media is printed at a much higher resolution, at 1200 dpi. (at least, it used to be when I worked as a designer 10 years ago ). So all the lines and everything that is as written in a postscript file (all bezier lines) is printed waaaay higher than 300 dpi.

So yeah... types, lines etc would be much better read in a 1200 dpi screen.

 

[0098386]

When I first bought my iPod touch I was taken back by how nice the display looked.

But after a year of use I notice games that don't have AA, and sometimes (under regular usage conditions) I can spot the black grid between pixels. If they can eliminate that then, good! I guess.

And come on now. There are lots of things we don't need that sit in our iMacs, iToys etc.

 

[iMattcotv]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

This is not needed & is asthetically & universally incorrect.

In comparison, its like having 40 cameras on a single phone.

Numbers are cool, but at this point theyre just trying to collect bragging rights.

This technology, while interestingly unique, will not only be expensive to produce but also at the rate of CPU, memory & battery tech are developing, such a screen will not even be applicable in mobile devices.

 

[Funkymonk]

Apple releases product with screen having a ppi of 320+ even though more than 300 is apparently useless because the human eye can't distinguish the difference

"oh my god this is amazing, I love it"

Toshiba introduces screen with ~500 ppi

"wtf is the point?! they are so stupid!!"



lmao

 

[divinox]

Apple releases product with screen having a ppi of 320+ even though more than 300 is apparently useless because the human eye can't distinguish the difference

"oh my god this is amazing, I love it"

Toshiba introduces screen with ~500 ppi

"wtf is the point?! they are so stupid!!"



lmao

until Apple releases iPhone X with 600 dpi, and everyone goes

"oh my god this is amazing, I love it (no one else pushes tech. like Apple)".

same old story...

 

[iMattcotv]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Though your point is valid now, in the future it will most likely not be.

Apple knows when to push certain tech into the hands of the consumer.

600 PPI might not be needed now, but a few years of the PPI of 320 will get us accustomed.

This is just my theory, & i dont mean 600 PPI, id say an applicable number in the future would be 400.

 

[TheMirrorsTruth]

if the human retina can't see more than +-300 pixels per inch, why put 600 on 1 inch? You would think that the difference wouldn't matter. I would think that it's more important to make bigger retina display's (retina iMac, iPad?)?

These displays for are for the highly lucrative birds of prey market.

 

[blackhand1001]

True. Android phone makers are not known for standing by their products long-term!

(And note that the pixel count of the current Galaxy Nexus is identical to the iPhone 4! Only the pixels are larger. The Galaxy Nexus has 1280x720, but only for the color green. The colors red and blue are half resolution, in the staggered “Pentile” arrangement that causes straight lines to be rough, letters to have colored fringes, and solid colors to have a texture. In other words, the Nexus really only has 2/3 the pixel count they like to claim. Actual pixel count, then is equivalent to 614,400. Exactly what the iPhone has!)

Your confusing Super AMOLED with Super AMOLED+

 

[Ruahrc]

Displays are used in far more technology than cell phones.

A screen of this high PPI would be excellent for an electronic viewfinder in a digital camera, where the physical size of the view prism is usually quite small, but are effectively enlarged using magnifying optics. You could fit an extremely high resolution display within the small viewfinder (to provide a good picture) and it wouldn't be too small for eyes to see since it would be magnified.

That it's 6.1 inches? Likely more manufacturing prowess than an actual part designed for use in consumer electronics. They're showing- "look, we can make a 400+ppi display, and if you need it in a 6 inch size we can do that too".

It's like that Canon imaging sensor they made that was like 10cm square and 1024x1024, alongside their 120MP APS-C format sensor. Technology demos.

Ruahrc

 

[D.T.]

Exactly. Especially so that it requires a powerful GPU to run it = wasted battery.

That's my contention: don't add any beyond normal biological limits, since it increases cost, GPU requirements (which cascade into battery life, performance, etc.)

Apple releases product with screen having a ppi of 320+ even though more than 300 is apparently useless because the human eye can't distinguish the difference

"oh my god this is amazing, I love it"

Toshiba introduces screen with ~500 ppi

"wtf is the point?! they are so stupid!!"

lmao

Well, that was simply doubling the X/Y pixels (from the 3G/GS) to simplify UI design, and it happen to be _over_ 300ppi. I don't think people really considered the extra 26 ppi a significant waste, given the incredible effectiveness of the ultimate resolution they chose for the 4/4S.

***

To be honest, I still believe the "retina" spin was an afterthought on the part of marketing. Engineering looked at the simplest way to delivery a better display, the results are outstanding, and when they reverse engineer the PPI out of it, someone happens to note the ocular reference point, and ~tada~, the retina concept.

The iPhone display is +still+ my reference display in terms of color/accuracy, sunlight viewing, and text clarity. Pentile sub-pixel configurations don't do it for me (owned and used a number of them), the SAMOLED+ at least resolves that.

The killer display tech looks like it's coming from LG with their AH-IPS tech. They need to take that display, marry it with a no custom UI (i.e., "pure Android") OS on a Motorola built Google phone. I still don't think I'd be a customer, but it would be pretty slick.

 

[Dr McKay]

if the human retina can't see more than +-300 pixels per inch, why put 600 on 1 inch? You would think that the difference wouldn't matter. I would think that it's more important to make bigger retina display's (retina iMac, iPad?)?

This is simply not true. When Steve said this, he left out that this rule only applies at a certain distance. Which is roughly the distance you would hold your phone away if you were using it.

 

[Laird Knox]

In terms of pure ppi most people can probably see the individual dots on the iPhone screen. The reason they aren't more noticeable is because of other factors like anti-aliasing.

Do we need a higher res screen? Probably not. Could you see a difference between iPhone 4 and this display? Most likely. Fine lines would be finer, curves cleaner.

That would be a nice PPI for a head mounted device.

Indeed. In that case, the screen might be very close to the eyes, possibly less than 6 inches. Could be very nice. Will never forget my excitement over VR (Virtual Reality) way back when, then sat down in an arcade machine and didn't understand why everything looked so crappy. lol. Hey it was decades ago and I was young.

I attended a VR conference in San Francisco years ago (1990, 1991?) and got lucky in that I was able to tour the VPL Research facilities (see Jaron Lanier for reference - not much left on VPL).

We got to play with one of their systems. It used two (at the time) top of the line SGI workstations to power the video for the headset - one to process the display for each eye. A PC to handle the 3D sound and a Macintosh to control the whole thing. I forget what the Data Glove was hooked up to. It used fiber optics to detect finger positions and a Polhemus sensor for hand orientation. There was an additional Polhemus sensor to track the position of your head.

I remember how immersive the system was. The interaction was seamless and everything moved without a hiccup. I never realized just how low resolution the displays were until the screen froze while they loaded a different world. Each eye was something like 240x180. It looked horrid with a static image but when it was in motion it was amazing (for the time).

They were doing some really cutting edge research back then.

 

[pgiguere1]

Apple releases product with screen having a ppi of 320+ even though more than 300 is apparently useless because the human eye can't distinguish the difference

"oh my god this is amazing, I love it"

Toshiba introduces screen with ~500 ppi

"wtf is the point?! they are so stupid!!"



lmao

That's not same at all.

What did you want, that Apple released an iPhone 4 with slightly lower resolution just so that they hit precisely 300ppi even if that means screwing up the scaling of older apps?

In case you didn't notice, the iPhone 4 has precisely 2 times the resolution of each axis of older iPhones, and that's for a reason.

Also, the 300ppi thing is approximative an depends on other factors like how good your eyes are, screen distance, etc. By having 326ppi you're safe even considering those factors.

500 ppi, on the other hand, is just straight pointless, unless you plan to put this inside glasses or something.

 

[Twizz91]

What's the point of a display that's significantly higher than 300dpi? (Yes - I realize the iPhone 4 is 324ish). You're eye isn't going to notice the difference between an image that's 300dpi or one that has higher pixel density. Unless you're holding it right up to your eyeball...

Don't get me wrong - I think this is great. I just am having trouble figuring out any practical applications for this sort of pixel depth. Would there be any tangible benefit to the increased cost?

I do dream of the day when 30in. monitors that are capable of 300ppi are affordable...

I think you'll notice. Think of sound quality. Theoretically, you should not be able to notice the difference between 320kbps sound and the sound coming from a vinyl. But in reality, you'll notice that the vinyl sounds better. I think you could compare this with better quality displays.

And then again, it's not about whether you could distinguish one pixel from another, but the wow factor you get looking at a picture or movie on that very screen.

 

[RafaelT]

I doubt that it's intended for a phone. 6" happens to be the average size for e-readers though.

Oh come on, you can't see at least one of those manufacturers proudly presenting there new 6" Android phone? It will have a dock that they sell along with it too... the only thing is the screen is already so big that the screen on the dock is smaller.. but that's ok since it has a keyboard.

Then we will have a small group of idiots here crying about how the iPhone is not as good because it has a smaller screen because they haven't realized that bigger does not mean better and it is a personal preference..

We are DOOMED!

 

[brunozs]

The actual iPhone 4 screen is more than fine. I don´t need any more pixels per inch.

What would really impress me is better view under sunlight, and improved fingerprints proof.

 

[rhett7660]

Great screen, but for a mobile device I wonder what this would do to the battery life of the product. I don't want a device that can get one hour's worth of usage before I have to teather it to a wall for power or charge it.

Great screen thou.. man that would be slick if Apple pulled this off and still maintained battery life.

 

[Piggie]

Remember everyone, and it seems to be constantly forgotten.

All Apple does is fit other people's hardware into it's own designed cases.
Apple can't fit any new screens until another company makes them and sells them to Apple.

This kinda annoys me a bit I will admit, when we here the Ohh Apple had made this and Apple has made that. No they have not.

Apple are not going to make a new screen themselves as they can't
When Samsung or someone else, who actually really makes hardware can supply Apple with new screens, then Apple will say, Wow, look at our new screen from Apple.

No. it's not. You have just fitted someone else's screen in your pretty case again.

I don't care that they do this, as many companies do. Apart from the ones that really build their own hardware. It's the way they mislead the general buying public into thinking they have actually made all the bits themselves I find irritating.

 

[zeromeus]

if the human retina can't see more than +-300 pixels per inch, why put 600 on 1 inch? You would think that the difference wouldn't matter. I would think that it's more important to make bigger retina display's (retina iMac, iPad?)?

It was intended for old people.... You know... when they use a magnifying glass on the display, the 600dpi 6inch will become a 300dpi 12 inch magnified!

 

[314631]

I'm not impressed with this. But if Apple releases a product that takes advantage of this technology then it will be the best thing ever and worth celebrating.

 

[Polo5]

Now if someone would please upgrade my eyeballs...

lol too funny

 

[Eric5h5]

if the human retina can't see more than +-300 pixels per inch

It can. Easily. For example, if you look at the output from a 300dpi laser printer, and compare that to a 600dpi laser printer, it's clearly jagged. The iPhone 4 display relies on anti-aliasing to disguise the jaggies, even at 300ppi. Without anti-aliasing, the jaggies are still pretty clearly visible at normal viewing distances (assuming your vision isn't poor). 300ppi is good, but it's hardly the final word in display resolution.

(Regarding 1200dpi printers, that's to facilitate halftone printing at decent quality. With color displays, that level of resolution isn't necessary.)

--Eric

 

[840quadra]

And outside the Smartphone / tablet arena, there are thousands of other devices in the world that use LCD screens. Something this clear would be really nice on a high end SLR, or even HD Video camera.