LG Display released images last week of a new quad-HD resolution smartphone screen for devices of 5.5-inch or larger, but falls short of describing why we need them.
The new display technology packs 2560 x 1140 pixels into a 5.5-inch screen plate, offering a pixel density of 536 pixels per inch. By comparison, LG's current HD smartphone screen in the upcoming LG G2 has 1920 x 1080 pixels across a 5.2-inch screen, or 424 ppi.
The numbers are certainly impressive, but do they tell the whole story? Better yet, do they tell us a story at all? A higher resolution screen sounds like it should automatically be considered a good thing, but does increases the resolution of smartphone screens improve anything at all?
Writing for CNET, US AV expert Geoffrey Morrison answered a similar question in his article 'Why 4K TVs are stupid in the home' back in 2012, arguing that there is only so much definition the human eye can see, defined by the size of the screen and the distance it is from the eyes involved.
There is a lot of maths in Morrison's argument, more than I'll apply directly here, but the gist of it is that there is a finite resolution that the human eye can resolve and there is a point in this specs race where more pixels add little to no value to a device.
We're also not saying this is necessarily the case with LG's quad-HD screens, it would be unfair to do that before seeing them, but it is hard to fault the 1080p screens we are using this year in 5-inch smartphones.
More over, LG needs something to reinsert itself into the top-end smartphone market, and this is obviously the direction it is pushing in. If it were up to us, we'd be looking for less pixels and more design; more 'cool factor' and less geek.
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