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At a small press event at CES today, Raj Talluri, Qualcomm’s VP of Product Management dropped this little nugget. “You are just starting to see 1080p display phones. I think that will go even higher.” My brain instantly exploded.
If people are working on UltraHD screens for mobile phones, Raj would know about it, as Qualcomm builds chips for virtually every mobile device manufacturer you can name. 1920 x 1080 pixels (1080p) on five inch screens—which are popping up like crazy on new high-end phones) have 440 pixels per inch. You couldn’t see those pixels if your eyeballs were pressed to the glass. So, I asked him what the point could possibly be. It’s just a pointless manufacturer pissing contest, right?
Raj’s answer was that sure, above 400 PPI or so, it’s not really about how many pixels the screen itself can display, what’s important is how many pixels the CPU and GPU can push. It’s because of things like Miracast, where you can wirelessly push video and audio to your TV. If these upcoming phones with the superfast Snapdragon 800 processor can shoot 4K UHD video, wouldn’t it be great if you could push that directly to your 4K UHD TV? Damn right it would. And there’s certainly room to go well beyond 1080p on larger tablet screens.
We really hope that phone manufacturers don’t waste their time, energy, and endless marketing money on pushing beyond 440 PPI displays for phones. Until we all have our eyes replaced with robotic cameras, their efforts would be better spent on making screens more efficient. If you look at your phone’s battery stats, the screen is always the biggest devourer of juice, often by a factor of three or four. That said, if chip makers like Qualcomm are eager to push beyond 1080p into 4K video recording, even 8K video, bring it on.
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Can’t I just have a battery that lasts more than 36 seconds? pretty please?
Seconded – battery life. Not sexy but kinda important all you phone maker people!
+1
Screw you all, MOAR PPI!!!
Totally agree. I don’t understand why there aren’t modern devices on the market more focused on practicality than novelty.
I reckon we’ll see a solar powered phone one day in the near future, that’d be great
No, It sounds like a good idea but is impractical because
1. British climate.
2. Presumably the solar cells are on the back of the phone, so while charging you can’t see the phones screen.
3. You will need to leave your phone somewhere to charge, that’s an invitation to have it nicked.
You can already get solar powered phone chargers, while this has the inconvenience of having to carry a second device it avoids problem 2 and reduces the risk of problem 3. Nothing, unfortunately, can be done about problem 1.
1. So what about all those people with solar panels on their roofs
2. Have a look at this article http://www.fastcompany.com/1742124/your-next-smartphone-may-sport-see-through-solar-power-screen
3. I have my phone next to me on my work desk, it wont be stolen and it could be charging right now rather than draining away quicker than it takes me to write this article
Hardly generate anything in the grey winter months, I know
1. Have you seen the size of those panels, want to strap one of those to your phone? No, thought not.
2. Not here yet, not proven tech. Maybe one day phones will be powered by mini nuclear reactors or fairy dust.
3. I also have my phone next to me on my desk. but I have no windows so it’s no use to me.
its its on your desk at work, plug it into the USB port..?
Sharp made one a few years back for the Japanese market (http://mb.softbank.jp/en/products/sharp/936sh.html)
My Nexus 4 lasts about 36 hours with low to medium use (which is an improvement on my old HTC Desire) but i have a couple of ‘old’ dumb phones that will last around 2 weeks (with a little less usage admittedly)….. I’d love a smartphone that lasted at least 3-5 days.
I’m looking for a new phone at the moment and finding it really really hard to find any that credibly work for nearly a week. That should be number one priority now.
Kind of like when camera manufacturers realised there was no reason to keep pushing megapixles, an that they should focus on the more practical things like stabilizing.
Galaxy S3, double the thickness – double the battery pack, AND a hardware keyboard. This is the phone I would make.
I really don’t get why Apple concentrated on making the iPhone 5 thinner and lighter than the 4… would have much preferred them to use the space for battery!
Even 440ppi is way overkill. 300ppi is probably about the maximum PPI I can actually notice. The more pixels on screen, the more power needed to push those pixels which means more battery power needed. I for one am really hoping that focus for mobile phones turns to increasing their usage times between charges. Getting 24 hours or more of heavy usage would be my ideal goal.