[Anandtech] Galaxy S 5 with 1440p screen tested - No impact on battery life

[LAwLz]

The Galaxy S 5 LTE-A was recently announced in Korea. It's an upgraded version of the international version of the Galaxy S 5 with the new Snapdragon 805 (instead of 801) and a 2560x1440 SAMOLED screen (instead of 1920x1080). The Galaxy S 5 LTE-A also has a new modem (supports LTE-A and is made on 20nm), a different WiFi chip, higher performing flash and apparently uses a Sony camera sensor instead of Samsung's own sensor like in the regular Galaxy S 5.

 

Many people were worried that the higher resolution would have a significant impact on the battery life, but according to Anandtech's tests it does not.

 

This is because of improvements to the efficiency in the GPU (Adreno 420 instead of Adreno 330) and because of improvements to the SAMOLED screen.

The performance is about the same when running things at 1440p and the performance improvement is through the roof if you run it at 1080p.

 

 

I thought it was nice to have my assumptions confirmed. With the move to Snapdragon 805 we can increase the resolution to 1440p without it having an impact on battery life. This is why I was disappointed with the LG G3 only using the Snapdragon 801. I think we have reached the point (1440p) where we don't need to increase resolution any further for quite some time. I would still like to see the move to 4K on ~5" phones in the future (since the human eye is capable of seeing over 1440p on a 5" screen) but the difference would be so small it's not worth the battery life tradeoff until we have better batteries.

 

Source: Anandtech

[ShadowCaptain]

This is good to hear, more efficient GPUs and CPUs will really help us push displays while keeping performance and graphics at top performance

[PhantomChevron]

Huh, then why is dem G3 not as good, its batt is much bigger

[Simmytu]

This is quite nice to see, more efficient soc's is one awesome advancement in mobile industry.

[Nineshadow]

See?

Why does everyone hate 1440p screens?

[Nineshadow]

Huh, then why is dem G3 not as good, its batt is much bigger

More efficient SoC.

[PhantomChevron]

More efficient SoC.

HUH?! What is that

[Nineshadow]

HUH?! What is that

System on a chip.

The SoC contains the CPU,the GPU,etc.

[NationsAnarchy]

1440p screen on a smartphone. Now I feel suck with my own Galaxy Note LTE (1280x800)  

[LAwLz]

HUH?! What is that

Like Nineshadow said, an SoC is a "system on a chip". The Galaxy S 5 LTE-A has a Snapdragon 805 while the LG G3 has a Snapdragon 801. The biggest difference between the two is that the 805 has a much better GPU. It uses far less power and is more powerful performance wise. If the LG G3 had a Snapdragon 805 then it would have had much better battery life (and also higher performance).

[PhantomChevron]

Like Nineshadow said, an SoC is a "system on a chip". The Galaxy S 5 LTE-A has a Snapdragon 805 while the LG G3 has a Snapdragon 801. The biggest difference between the two is that the 805 has a much better GPU. It uses far less power and is more powerful performance wise. If the LG G3 had a Snapdragon 805 then it would have had much better battery life (and also higher performance).

But none the less, none of us is getting the S5 a wutever, since it is mean't to be a korean exclusive

[bbqsauce]

Why not use the 805 on a 1080p screen, plus 1080p is what most content is at, to me 1440p isnt saturated with enough content yet.

[Qvist]

Well, seeing how the oculus rift dk2 just have note 3 screens in them, I say just shove one of these 1440p badboys into a rift already and sell them!

[LukeTim]

4K on a 5" screen?

How close do you hold the phone to your face?!

[DLM_012]

4K on a 5" screen?

How close do you hold the phone to your face?!

 

An improvement is an improvement. If it doesn't kill battery or raise the price of the device, why is it worth caring about? That's the proper question to ask.

[LAwLz]

4K on a 5" screen?

How close do you hold the phone to your face?!

4K on a 5" screen would be about 881 PPI. That's enough for someone with average vision to not be able to see it no matter how close they hold it (most adults can't focus on things closer than 10cm from their eyes).

That's not even close to our ability to tell if two lines are aligned though. Our normal vision is about 1 arc minute but our vernier acuity is about 0.13 arc minutes. We need a 4K screen for 1 arc minute, and we need about 10 times as much to hit our vernier acuity limit. A 30K+ screen in a 5" smartphone is kind of wasteful though, but it just goes to show how good our eyes are (even though they suck compared to some other animals like the eagle).

 

4K screens would also allow us to view 4K videos (which will just become more and more popular) without having to downscale, and the same goes for photos. I am talking quite far into the future though. Like maybe 10 years. I think we need to solve the battery issues before we pump up the resolution another notch.

 

 

Why not use the 805 on a 1080p screen, plus 1080p is what most content is at, to me 1440p isnt saturated with enough content yet.

Yes I'd say that's the next question. We don't know what the battery life would look like if the Galaxy S 5 LTE-A had a 1080p screen.

[Nomelas]

What would happen if you take the 1080p display out of the regular S5 and put in the 1440p one? you will most definitely see a drop in battery life. If they kept the 1080p display and upgraded everything else you would see an IMPROVEMENT in battery life. These benchmarks are pointless when comparing the 2 screens, the headline is misleading and sensationalist. Cell phone manufacturers need to address and improve the biggest concern in mobile products first.... Improving batter life is a far better benefit than a few more PPI....

[LukeTim]

4K on a 5" screen would be about 881 PPI. That's enough for someone with average vision to not be able to see it no matter how close they hold it (most adults can't focus on things closer than 10cm from their eyes).

That's not even close to our ability to tell if two lines are aligned though. Our normal vision is about 1 arc minute but our vernier acuity is about 0.13 arc minutes. We need a 4K screen for 1 arc minute, and we need about 10 times as much to hit our vernier acuity limit. A 30K+ screen in a 5" smartphone is kind of wasteful though, but it just goes to show how good our eyes are (even though they suck compared to some other animals like the eagle).

 

4K screens would also allow us to view 4K videos (which will just become more and more popular) without having to downscale, and the same goes for photos. I am talking quite far into the future though. Like maybe 10 years. I think we need to solve the battery issues before we pump up the resolution another notch.

 

 

Yes but is it really important to never be able to see the pixels no matter how close you hold the phone? How often do you hold your phone 2 inches from your face?

1080p phone screens (IIRC) are already "free of pixels" at around 6-7" (depending upon screen size)... That seems about the limit. I don't really bring my phone in much closer than 6" to my face all that often (only when I am bothered about seeing just how high resolution the screen is and if I can discern pixels). 2.5 or 3K on a 6" screen is maybe understandable... and I can see 4K on tablets maybe happening. But 4K on 5" is massive overkill, IMO.

[Victorious Secret]

It might be overkill, but if it doesn't harm battery life then why not have it? Why not use it en masse and drive down the costs overall thus making 4K panels of any size much cheaper? 

[Real_PhillBert]

Would buy.

[Nomelas]

Yes but is it really important to never be able to see the pixels no matter how close you hold the phone? How often do you hold your phone 2 inches from your face?

1080p phone screens (IIRC) are already "free of pixels" at around 6-7" (depending upon screen size)... That seems about the limit. I don't really bring my phone in much closer than 6" to my face all that often (only when I am bothered about seeing just how high resolution the screen is and if I can discern pixels). 2.5 or 3K on a 6" screen is maybe understandable... and I can see 4K on tablets maybe happening. But 4K on 5" is massive overkill, IMO.

1440p is better suited for tablets at 8+ inches imo. The issue is that it wont be as widely adopted for apps until it becomes mainstream on phones....

[LAwLz]

1440p is better suited for tablets at 8+ inches imo. The issue is that it wont be as widely adopted for apps until it becomes mainstream on phones....

I prefer 16:10 on tablets, and Samsung already has quite a few 2560x1600 tablets. I wish HTC and/or LG would start making 10" Android tablets as well. It kind of sucks that Samsung is the only one actually putting effort into it (I find Sony's and Asus' 10" tablets leaving a lot to be desired).

[BallGum]

Still, makes me wonder how much better the battery life would be if it used the efficient GPU and screen technology but with a @1080P display. Might be negligible.

[Socky]

Omg finally someone did a test. I've had a thought that higher resolutions don't effect battery life, its the bigger screen size since there is a bigger backlight (someone correct me if I'm wrong plz). Granted tho the GS5 uses SAMOLED so each pixel is individually lit (seriously? Can I haz on monitor I will pay $$$$$$$$). Pretty kewl. Gj Samsung.

[LAwLz]

Omg finally someone did a test. I've had a thought that higher resolutions don't effect battery life, its the bigger screen size since there is a bigger backlight (someone correct me if I'm wrong plz). Granted tho the GS5 uses SAMOLED so each pixel is individually lit (seriously? Can I haz on monitor I will pay $$$$$$$$). Pretty kewl. Gj Samsung.

Well higher res does equal more power used. The reason we didn't see a regression in battery life on the Galaxy S 5 LTE-A is because they also changed the GPU to a much more efficient one (and also higher performing).

If they had just taken the regular Galaxy S 5 and changed the display then it would have seen a drop in battery life.