Overkill? LG Phone Has 2560x1440 Display, Laser Focusing 198
MojoKid (1002251) writes LG is probably getting a little tired of scraping for brand recognition versus big names like Samsung, Apple and Google. However, the company is also taking solace in the fact that their smartphone sales figures are heading for an all-time high in 2014, with an estimated 60 million units projected to be sold this year. LG's third iteration of their popular "G" line of flagship smartphones, simply dubbed the LG G3, is the culmination of all of the innovation the company has developed in previous devices to date, including its signature rear button layout, and a cutting-edge 5.5-inch QHD display that drives a resolution of 2560X1440 with a pixel density of 538 PPI. Not satisified with pixel overload, LG decide to equip their new smartphone with 'frickin' laser beams' to assist its 13MP camera in targeting subjects for auto-focus. The G3 performs well in the benchmarks with a Snapdragon 801 on board and no doubt its camera takes some great shots quickly and easily. However, it's questionable how much of that super high res 2560 display you can make use of on a 5.5-inch device.
I have an idea (Score:5, Insightful)
What? (Score:4, Insightful)
If this were a certain other high end phone manufacturer, the media would be falling over itself to explain how these improvements mark a new era in phone technology.
The improvements seem reasonable and unless they add excessively to the cost there's no reason to criticize them.
Specs On Paper & Buyer Mindset (Score:5, Insightful)
This is simply a stats arms race.
Seeing how Android flagship makers are using someone else's OS and app ecosystem, the only two places they can differentiate their products are through custom OS skinning (horrible) and product tech specs.
Considering how many Android users tend to be the "build your own PC" crowd who are hardcore gadget people, the specs bloat appeals to them.
Meanwhile, Apple is selling a smartphone with a tiny less-than-HD screen, a processor that toddles along at a whisker over 1 GHz and a tiny 1400 MaH battery, and they're doing quite nicely for themselves.
"Purpose Built" vs. "Specs in a Box" ?
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as they don't shorten battery life, of course. That is still the Achilles heel of mobile devices, after all, and all those pixels likely increase the amount of processing needed to control them.
Re:Embarrasment (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Rangefinder handy for more than camera focusing (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. I do architectural work, including taking measurements of existing buildings. If I could use this to get a point cloud of a room it would be amazing. I'd be willing to start programming again if it meant being able to access even rudimentary data. While high accuracy is probably not in this, even +/-3" would be good for small places (up to, say 20-25 feet).
Nobody tests RF ability anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
Just once, I'd love to see some side by side comparisons of the end-to-end RF ability of these new phones. While voice calls, the kids tell me, are a thing of the past we are getting more and more dependent on data connections. And how you get data is via RF link. And yet I haven't even seen link quality mentioned in a single review for at least two generations of smart phones.
Re:Probably not (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps part of the problem was that (prior to Google ownership) Motorola had already put off many of the geeks by producing the most locked-down phones of any Android manufacturer.
Re:Embarrasment (Score:4, Insightful)
The principle reason to put 2560x1440 pixels on a phone is to further the embarrassment of monitor manufacturers who can only manage to get 1/4 of the pixels into a 19" screen.
We will soon be better off buying a smart phone and a Fresnel lens instead of desktop monitor and our computers will begin to look a lot like the ones in the movie Brazil.
Re:640KB ought to be enough for anyone (Score:2, Insightful)
The same Bill Gates who, as late as 1995, dismissed the internet as a fad? That Bill Gates?
Re:Wait for tha Apple zealots... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't remember that. But I do remember a number of Adroid vendors introducing displays with even higher PPI, and I do remember Apple losing control of the tablet market after introducing a product that had quadruple pixel count as essentially its only improvement, while regressing in battery life and weight.
Re:Nobody tests RF ability anymore (Score:4, Insightful)
Testing RF capability fairly is actually really difficult. You can't just put two phones next to each other on a desk and expect a fair comparison, because even within that distance the RF field varies and you can't control which channel the cell tower allocates to each either. The cell tower and phones also negotiate the lowest possible power link and again you have no easy way of seeing if one managed to link at lower power (because it is more sensitive) than the other.
There are ways of testing this stuff, using expensive equipment in purpose built rooms, but tech web sites don't have access to it.
Re:Embarrasment (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually smaller screens are easier to produce. Larger screens need to be perfect over a much larger area. A defect will write off a much larger chunk of silicon and glass. There is more to go wrong too, since you need more track to wire up all those widely spaced pixels. Things like propagation delay start to become a major problem too, so you end up with multiple controllers for different parts of the screen.