Samsung Note 5 to have a 4k display with a record-breaking 748PPI (and 762 for the Edge variant)

[Sauron]

the iphone 6 plus is 649 with 1080p screen and 16GB of storage while note 4 has 32GB so the 720 price isnt so ridiculous compared to the competition 

 

I never said an iphone 6 makes any sense whatsoever. I'm looking at things like the zenfone 2 from asus, which is MUCH cheaper. Or what the OPO was, save the invite system.

[spartaman64]

I never said an iphone 6 makes any sense whatsoever. I'm looking at things like the zenfone 2 from asus, which is MUCH cheaper. Or what the OPO was, save the invite system.

lol the s pen pretty much singlehandedly justified the 700 dollar price for me and not sure about which oppo phone you are talking about but the oppo find 7 has a 1440p display and a snapdragon 801 with a 790 dollar price tag. though the zenfone 2 is a really good phone that keeps up with the note 4 and is like 1/3 the price 

[Sauron]

lol the s pen pretty much singlehandedly justified the 700 dollar price for me and not sure about which oppo phone you are talking about but the oppo find 7 has a 1440p display and a snapdragon 801 with a 790 dollar price tag

 

OPO = One Plus One.

 

And if a 10cm piece of plastic is worth 400$ to you go right ahead ^^

[Misanthrope]

So no, it is not unnecessary at all. But with all that being said, I still think it's a bad move by Samsung. I think we should stay at 2560x1440 until SoCs and battery technology catches up a bit.

I just think people should hate on it for the right reasons. "We can't see it" and "there is no point" are the wrong reasons.

You're just wrong: it is completely unnecessary, you're just so blinded by your "progress at all cost!" attitude you can't see the king is fucking naked.

[bcredeur97]

for VR this is great, for a phone this is STUPID.

 

Not only is everyone making phones thinner, but battery technology has not advanced one bit in the last few years and they are making screens that drain batteries like crazy. Not to mention it will probably be paired with a non-powerful-enough GPU and cause lag issues with modern applications only a couple years later.

[spartaman64]

OPO = One Plus One.

 

And if a 10cm piece of plastic is worth 400$ to you go right ahead ^^

there is more to s pen than plastic but sure

[Sauron]

there is more to s pen than plastic but sure

 

could be carbon fibre and still not cost 400$ to be honest

[sof006]

So much battery drain!

[spartaman64]

could be carbon fibre and still not cost 400$ to be honest

i got it on contract so i didnt pay the full 720 just 340 but i guess that doesnt really count. im fine with contracts i dont plan on upgrading anytime soon

[LAwLz]

You're just wrong: it is completely unnecessary, you're just so blinded by your "progress at all cost!" attitude you can't see the king is fucking naked.

Sorry but you can't argue against math.

 

 

Ever since the iPhone 4 was announced there has been a lot of talk about "how many PPI the human eye can see" and if the iPhone 4 really had a retina display. Today I thought I'd clear up some confusion.

Is the 326 PPI the iPhone 4 and above enough to be classified as a "retina" display?

Short answer: Yes

Long answer: For the average person at a normal distance it is. For a lot of people, and in a lot of situations it is not enough though. At the bottom of this page I have made a graph showing exactly what PPI you need to not see individual pixels depending on your eye sight and distance.

Before I show you the graph I am going to explain why it looks the way it does, what everything means and how I calculated it.

The first thing we have to understand is how to measure eye sight. To measure this we use something called an "arc minute".

The reason we don't use for example millimeter is because that does not take distance into consideration. 60 arc minutes is the same as 1 degree. If you can see 60 arc minutes, then it means that you can separate two dots that are 1 degree from each other (imagine a triangle coming out from your eye, and then measure the degree of difference between two dots to figure out how many degrees they differ, pic related):

(image source: wolfcrow)

 

OK so now that we know what an arc minute is, let's calculate how good our human eyes are.

 

A human with 20/20 vision can see down to 1 arc minute of difference. So if something is 1/60 of a degree away from each other, you can see them as two separate dots. Please bear in mind that 20/20 is considered normal vision. 20/20 means that you can see what a normal person see at 20 feet away. The first number is the distance the person needs to see something, and the second number is what a normal person needs. So if someone has 20/12 vision, they can see something at 20 feet away a normal person needs 12 feet to see. The reason I mentioned 20/12 is because that is actually not too rare to have. Some of the best recorded eye sights have been 20/8 which is just insane (a hawk has 20/2 for those of you who are interested).

 

So here is what some different eye sights can see:

20/20 - 1 arc minute

20/12 - 0.6 arc minute

20/8 - 0.4 arc minute

Most people with good eyes have between 20/12 and 20/20.

 

Your average adult can focus at as close as 4 inches away (100 millimeter). Younger people can focus at things closer than that but let's do our calculations on your average adult to keep things fair and simple.

Here is the formula for calculating the perceived size of an object: p = 2 * d * tan (α/2) where p is the size, d is the distance in millimeters and α is the angle in degrees. (here is an online calculator, you want to use "linear size from angular size and distance)

Here are the pixel sizes assuming you look 100 millimeters away.

1 arc minute = 0.029 millimeters

0.6 arc minute = 0.0175 microns

0.4 arc minute = 0.0116 microns

All that is left now is to calculate the PPI if each pixel is a specific size. (I couldn't find a pixel pitch to PPI calculator so I had to use this site and change the resolution until I found the correct dot pitch and check what the PPI corresponded to)

1 arc minute - 874 PPI

0.6 arc minute - 1447 PPI

0.4 arc minute - 2181 PPI

Please note that I have done some rounding up/down on certain numbers so that I didn't have to use like 20 decimal points.

 

 

TLDR: Your average adult with normal vision can see up to 874 PPI. Some people with really really good eye sight (not super human, just really really REALLY good) can see over 2000 PPI. Don't underestimate the human eye. That's from 4 inches away though, and that's not really a normal viewing distance.

 

Here is the graph. Please note that I have done quite a bit of rounding up and down so your results may vary.

You should be able to use this as a rough estimation though. As we can see, someone with 20/20 vision can only see 291 PPI at 30 centimeters away, which is a typical viewing distance. That means that the iPhone's screen really is better than our retina, if you got average vision and hold it ~30 centimeter away from your eyes. If you hold it closer and/or have better than average vision then you should be able to see the individual pixels in the best possible conditions.

 

 

All of the above info is without taking vernier acuity (see if two lines are not aligned) into the equation. I used 1 arc minute as the resolution for 20/20 vision, but if we are talking about vernier acuity we are down in arc seconds territory. I don't have any good measurements for how sensitive your average person is to that, but I have heard of people with below 10 arc seconds of sensitivity.

This is without taking VR into consideration as well. With VR headsets you got lenses which allows you to focus even closer than 10cm.

 

 

The diminishing return becomes greater and greater, but increasing resolution will still have a visible benefit up until several thousands of PPI. It is not completely useless until we match the resolution of our eyes and even with this we are quite far away.

 

But like I said before, I think we should wait for battery tech and GPU tech to improve more before we go beyond 2560x1440 in phones. That's what I have been saying ever since 1440p phones started appearing on the market.

[Misanthrope]

Sorry but you can't argue against math.

You're the only one arguing math here: just because mathematically some people could pick up the difference doesn't means it's practical or necessary in the real world. Ever heard of diminished returns? The more pixel density, even if you can still tell the difference (and honestly you won't on a mobile device subject to different lighting conditions and constant movement) that doesn't means you can perceive a real improvement over a 1440p.

This is just a clear e-penis contest on Samsung's behalf and you're supporting it with math? That's stupid.

[Voids]

Samsung are doing it all wrong.

 

What we want:

 

• Thicker phones for larger batteries
• better camera
• Better build quality
• MicroSD slot
• Better OS
• Removable Battery

 

What they think we want:

 

• Above average camera
• Thinner phones
• 4k displays
• No SD slot
• Clunky OS
• Non removable battery

[othertomperson]

You're the only one arguing math here: just because mathematically some people could pick up the difference doesn't means it's practical or necessary in the real world. Ever heard of diminished returns? The more pixel density, even if you can still tell the difference (and honestly you won't on a mobile device subject to different lighting conditions and constant movement) that doesn't means you can perceive a real improvement over a 1440p.

This is just a clear e-penis contest on Samsung's behalf and you're supporting it with math? That's stupid.

 

I disagree here. I think if anyone can tell the difference, then it's progress worth making. If diminishing returns was something I particularly cared about, I'd be sitting here with a 270X and an i3.

 

That said, I think it should be balanced with things like battery life, cost, screen quality and possible degradation and things like that. I'm not about to buy a 4K phone if it being 4K causes it to fail my needs in other respects, but I'm not about to hate a phone or call it unnecessary just because it is 4K. If this results in the resolutions of all phones increasing over time as these barriers are overcome, then great.

 

I think an important difference with phones, though, is that they're not used the same way every time. Depending on if I'm checking a text, reading a map or checking social media or reading a book in bed, my phone can be anything from two feet to five centimetres away from my face. In some of these contexts the iPhone 4 was retina, and in others it wasn't. I can't say resolutions is the most important aspect, I'm not about to get upset that phones are moving forward here.

[Sauron]

Sorry but you can't argue against math.

 

 

Ever since the iPhone 4 was announced there has been a lot of talk about "how many PPI the human eye can see" and if the iPhone 4 really had a retina display. Today I thought I'd clear up some confusion.

Is the 326 PPI the iPhone 4 and above enough to be classified as a "retina" display?

Short answer: Yes

Long answer: For the average person at a normal distance it is. For a lot of people, and in a lot of situations it is not enough though. At the bottom of this page I have made a graph showing exactly what PPI you need to not see individual pixels depending on your eye sight and distance.

Before I show you the graph I am going to explain why it looks the way it does, what everything means and how I calculated it.

The first thing we have to understand is how to measure eye sight. To measure this we use something called an "arc minute".

The reason we don't use for example millimeter is because that does not take distance into consideration. 60 arc minutes is the same as 1 degree. If you can see 60 arc minutes, then it means that you can separate two dots that are 1 degree from each other (imagine a triangle coming out from your eye, and then measure the degree of difference between two dots to figure out how many degrees they differ, pic related):

(image source: wolfcrow)

 

OK so now that we know what an arc minute is, let's calculate how good our human eyes are.

 

A human with 20/20 vision can see down to 1 arc minute of difference. So if something is 1/60 of a degree away from each other, you can see them as two separate dots. Please bear in mind that 20/20 is considered normal vision. 20/20 means that you can see what a normal person see at 20 feet away. The first number is the distance the person needs to see something, and the second number is what a normal person needs. So if someone has 20/12 vision, they can see something at 20 feet away a normal person needs 12 feet to see. The reason I mentioned 20/12 is because that is actually not too rare to have. Some of the best recorded eye sights have been 20/8 which is just insane (a hawk has 20/2 for those of you who are interested).

 

So here is what some different eye sights can see:

20/20 - 1 arc minute

20/12 - 0.6 arc minute

20/8 - 0.4 arc minute

Most people with good eyes have between 20/12 and 20/20.

 

Your average adult can focus at as close as 4 inches away (100 millimeter). Younger people can focus at things closer than that but let's do our calculations on your average adult to keep things fair and simple.

Here is the formula for calculating the perceived size of an object: p = 2 * d * tan (α/2) where p is the size, d is the distance in millimeters and α is the angle in degrees. (here is an online calculator, you want to use "linear size from angular size and distance)

Here are the pixel sizes assuming you look 100 millimeters away.

1 arc minute = 0.029 millimeters

0.6 arc minute = 0.0175 microns

0.4 arc minute = 0.0116 microns

All that is left now is to calculate the PPI if each pixel is a specific size. (I couldn't find a pixel pitch to PPI calculator so I had to use this site and change the resolution until I found the correct dot pitch and check what the PPI corresponded to)

1 arc minute - 874 PPI

0.6 arc minute - 1447 PPI

0.4 arc minute - 2181 PPI

Please note that I have done some rounding up/down on certain numbers so that I didn't have to use like 20 decimal points.

 

 

TLDR: Your average adult with normal vision can see up to 874 PPI. Some people with really really good eye sight (not super human, just really really REALLY good) can see over 2000 PPI. Don't underestimate the human eye. That's from 4 inches away though, and that's not really a normal viewing distance.

 

Here is the graph. Please note that I have done quite a bit of rounding up and down so your results may vary.

You should be able to use this as a rough estimation though. As we can see, someone with 20/20 vision can only see 291 PPI at 30 centimeters away, which is a typical viewing distance. That means that the iPhone's screen really is better than our retina, if you got average vision and hold it ~30 centimeter away from your eyes. If you hold it closer and/or have better than average vision then you should be able to see the individual pixels in the best possible conditions.

 

 

All of the above info is without taking vernier acuity (see if two lines are not aligned) into the equation. I used 1 arc minute as the resolution for 20/20 vision, but if we are talking about vernier acuity we are down in arc seconds territory. I don't have any good measurements for how sensitive your average person is to that, but I have heard of people with below 10 arc seconds of sensitivity.

This is without taking VR into consideration as well. With VR headsets you got lenses which allows you to focus even closer than 10cm.

 

 

The diminishing return becomes greater and greater, but increasing resolution will still have a visible benefit up until several thousands of PPI. It is not completely useless until we match the resolution of our eyes and even with this we are quite far away.

 

But like I said before, I think we should wait for battery tech and GPU tech to improve more before we go beyond 2560x1440 in phones. That's what I have been saying ever since 1440p phones started appearing on the market.

 

While I do not doubt your math and I have good enough eyesight to use my 4k monitor with no scaling comfortably, I wonder if it really matters to reach a point where we can't even see the pixels on a phone, when most people work on a 1366x768 monitor. There are no tasks on a phone that benefit the extra resoluition (no or limited multiwindow multitasking is also a factor), content is not yet beyond 1080p in the vast majority of cases (and either way while watching a movie I doubt anyone would notice much of a difference on such a small screen), and there's no way a phone has the horsepower to game at that resolution. UI elements look smooth enough as it is, and frankly that's a minor issue. Right now I'd like to see three things: cheaper flagship phones (thanks apple for passing on the idea that 700+ bucks for a phone are ok...), even at the cost of "just" 1080p screens, better battery life, and more expandability. Everything else to me looks like something that has the wow factor the first week but then you don't really make use of ever again.

[LAwLz]

You're the only one arguing math here: just because mathematically some people could pick up the difference doesn't means it's practical or necessary in the real world. Ever heard of diminished returns? The more pixel density, even if you can still tell the difference (and honestly you won't on a mobile device subject to different lighting conditions and constant movement) that doesn't means you can perceive a real improvement over a 1440p.

This is just a clear e-penis contest on Samsung's behalf and you're supporting it with math? That's stupid.

Maybe you should read my entire post.

 

The diminishing return becomes greater and greater, but increasing resolution will still have a visible benefit up until several thousands of PPI. It is not completely useless until we match the resolution of our eyes and even with this we are quite far away.

 

But like I said before, I think we should wait for battery tech and GPU tech to improve more before we go beyond 2560x1440 in phones. That's what I have been saying ever since 1440p phones started appearing on the market.

 

We are still a long way from having the PPI match the average human eye so therefore it is not completely unnecessary.

 

 

 

While I do not doubt your math and I have good enough eyesight to use my 4k monitor with no scaling comfortably, I wonder if it really matters to reach a point where we can't even see the pixels on a phone, when most people work on a 1366x768 monitor. There are no tasks on a phone that benefit the extra resoluition (no or limited multiwindow multitasking is also a factor), content is not yet beyond 1080p in the vast majority of cases (and either way while watching a movie I doubt anyone would notice much of a difference on such a small screen), and there's no way a phone has the horsepower to game at that resolution. UI elements look smooth enough as it is, and frankly that's a minor issue. Right now I'd like to see three things: cheaper flagship phones (thanks apple for passing on the idea that 700+ bucks for a phone are ok...), even at the cost of "just" 1080p screens, better battery life, and more expandability. Everything else to me looks like something that has the wow factor the first week but then you don't really make use of ever again.

I agree with you. Hell if you look back at my other posts you will see that I don't think this is a good idea either.

All I am trying to say is that this isn't useless because "we can't see the difference anyway". This whole situation reminds me of "the human eye can't see over 30 FPS". Don't you get frustrated when people say that? I get the same feeling here with "the human eye can't see over XXX PPI".

 

We can see higher PPI but right now, with our current battery and GPU technology, the tradeoffs are most likely not worth it. If you want to hate on it then go ahead and say it will have a negative impact on battery life, but please don't say that it is useless because we can't see the difference.

It's not useless, but it might be impractical.

[Sauron]

I agree with you. Hell if you look back at my other posts you will see that I don't think this is a good idea either.

All I am trying to say is that this isn't useless because "we can't see the difference anyway". This whole situation reminds me of "the human eye can't see over 30 FPS". Don't you get frustrated when people say that? I get the same feeling here with "the human eye can't see over XXX PPI".

 

We can see higher PPI but right now, with our current battery and GPU technology, the tradeoffs are most likely not worth it. If you want to hate on it then go ahead and say it will have a negative impact on battery life, but please don't say that it is useless because we can't see the difference.

It's not useless, but it might be impractical.

 

I see this situation more like "you can't see more than 144 fps anyway". It's not strictly true, but at the same time it doesn't really matter. I don't think anyone is very interested in undriveable 200+hz monitors, even if theoretically the difference can be seen. I'll say it's useless (or almost) because it has no practical end, not because we can't see it if we try really hard.

 

I think you guys are arguing over nothing, you probably actually agree with each other but the wording differs.

[TroubleKlef]

Yes we have Apple to thank for $700 phones off contract. *cough* moto razr $500 ON contract. 

 

on topic. what a useless feature to have on a phone. A clear reason why Samsung profit's are diminishing. They clearly have no touch with what consumers really want.