Do you want a 2k or 4k display phone?

[too lame to come up with a good username]

So is the new fad toward 2k and 4k displays on smartphones an actually useful feature people want in smartphones, or are OEMs just desperate to find something, ANYTHING, to gain leverage in the spec wars? Can anyone REALLY tell the difference between 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440 on a 5-inch screen? Or does 1440p on such a small screen do nothing but drain the battery faster?

My Galaxy S3 "only" has a 720p screen at 316 ppi and my Nexus 7 "only" has a 1920 x 1200 display at 323 ppi. I seriously cant see any pixels on either device. I think a high res display would only make a difference on a screen larger than 8 inches. But even then, I used to be disappointed that the Nexus 9 "only" has a 2048 x 1536 display (288 ppi) but when I held an N9 in person the screen looked great. So why do we need phones with 2560 x 1440 displays?

I assume a thread like this has already been posted before, so sorry if that's the case.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[NewDawnSoft]

That's just marketing. Now, I hope they will not release 4K screen phones before the hardware is ready to handle 4K intensive 3D games...

 

[grosssmutttr]

It is purely not necessary to release a phone with 4k...the human eye can't recognize it on a small screen like a smartphone screen...so it is really only marketing [language removed by Moderator]

 

[Minisaur]

We don't really need them. It's mostly Spec wars. Although a higher resolution might sound like an improvement, the human eye stops being able to see individual pixels after a certain point – and after that, increasing the resolution won't really do anything! According to Apple, that is 326 PPI for a smartphone, although someone says that people with really good vison can see up to 600 PPI.

 

[zorak950]

For a 5.5+ inch device I suppose it's noticeable, but for anything less 1080p is perfectly fine. Having higher resolution than that is potentially a nice bonus, but it's not really worth taking a hit to performance and battery life in my opinion.

 

[barth2]

I think ~300 dpi is good enough. More than that it's marketing and people trying to justify their purchase ("but I can see it's sharper if I look real close")

 

[lkbig]

Frankly I like Sony's approach and stopping at 1080p. That leaves more head room for the graphics processor and saves on battery life.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

[rews]

Frankly I like Sony's approach and stopping at 1080p. That leaves more head room for the graphics processor and saves on battery life.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

Totally agree. Right now there's a big disparity between the evolution of smartphone technology and battery technology. But besides that, I find the people who are slobbering over resolution that advanced on such a puny screen somewhat silly.

 

[pseudoware]

I like going around telling others I got QHD and they don't.

Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk

 

[stackberry369]

I want a 200K display

Posted via the Galaxy Note 4

 

[someguy01234]

Well people are complaining about stutter issues (encryption aside) and not great battery life with the Nexus 6.

 

[mohit9206]

Nobody needs it, it's just that everyone wants it.

Sent from my Moto E using Tapatalk.

 

[mrjspeed]

I pretty much agree with everyone... 4K is way excessive for normal phone use.

However, I recently got a Google Cardboard kit (well a pre-assembled plastic one, but still the same idea) to turn my phone into a VR headset. When I use my Moto X (1080p) with it, I can definitely discern individual pixels. Having a 4K display would make that experience much nicer. An edge-case for most people, but at least one example where 4K would be useful.

 

[Ry]

At 6 inches and below, nope.

Give me 280 to 350 PPI. ..all I need.

 

[LeoRex]

Well people are complaining about stutter issues (encryption aside) and not great battery life with the Nexus 6.

Then they are misguided. Granted, I don't slam video and heavy 3D gaming through mine, but I can get a FULL day (as in 24 hours) and a good 5 to 6 hours of screen time per charge (which rarely happens as I'm not on my phone that much most of the time). I'm not going to concern myself much until that 24/5 number doubles.

But...

As for the display... my last two phones had QHD (G3 and Nexus 6) and I owned a Nexus 5 previously. I've shown off the Nexus 6 to plenty of people... with S5's, M8's, iPhones... all manners of dispay and they all immediately remark at how sharp the display looks. Now, it's not like 1080s are junk... they aren't. In fact, they all look quite nice and by no means substandard. My Nexus 5 looked great. But when you drop a display that's bigger AND sharper, you notice. It's like noticing a subtle difference in sound quality between a good recording and one that's been compressed a bit.

Granted, it was more apparent on my G3 due to the higher pixel density, but really fine text on my Nexus 6 does look a bit better than the same text on my Nexus 5. Only a fool would point at the 'lower' resolution screen and say its crappy though.

Do you NEED that high a resolution on a small screen? Hell no... we don't even need 1080 displays for that matter. Phone performance has passed the point where they had fundamental issues (I'd peg the Galaxy SIII generation). Now we're just running up the score. Extremely fine displays, blazing procs, gigs upon gigs of storage....

But I got a QHD screen it because I could.

 

[kanuj5678]

400 dpi is great beyond which it doesnot make sense I have a nexus 5 it has a good display

 

[Haalcyon]

My feeling about screen resolution is that the difference has to

a) be tangible
b) be worth any negative affect on graphics performance and battery life.

Based on what I see on my Note 4 I'm doubtful that a move to a 4K screen at <= 6" will be a) and pretty sure it won't be b). Moving from the Note 3's screen to the Note 4's is nice but certainly not dramatic me. ...definitely not like the move from 1280x800 to 1920x1080 was. ...that whole 'Retina' philoso.

 

[salmanahmad]

Frankly I like Sony's approach and stopping at 1080p. That leaves more head room for the graphics processor and saves on battery life.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

Trust me Sony just used that as an excuse, the Z3 has little difference from the Z2 and probably only came out because of the fact that Sony follows a 6 month flagship release cycle.

The Z4 will most definitely be 2K, and all of what Sony said in the past would be nullified.

 

[Playzoid]

My eyes can't handle that resolution. But I would still buy it. LOL.

 

[Justin Stepp]

That's what they said about 1080p phones. "We don't need that resolution on such a small screen." Bologna.

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