Log in

View Full Version : "Sharp Unveils Prototype 300 PPI VGA Display" - MobileMag


Jason Dunn
11-04-2003, 11:58 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/102/C2196/' target='_blank'>http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/102/C2196/</a><br /><br /></div><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/2196_super.jpg" /> <br /><br />"According to EE Times, Sharp Electronics Japan has plans to meet consumers demands for next-generation mobile phones. Sharp has demonstrated a prototype of a 2.6-inch CG silicon panel with VGA resolution, or 300 pixels per inch resolution."<br /><br />Hmm. 2.6 inch VGA screens. Now put that together with the recent news that Windows Mobile 2004 will support VGA resolution, and that earlier this year Microsoft relaxed OEM design restrictions and will allow smaller screens, down to either 2.6" or 2.8" (I can't seem to find the reference). It's important to understand what 300 ppi means - we're talking a display that is getting close to paper in terms of readability. Onward technology, onward!

Deslock
11-05-2003, 12:04 AM
Looks very cool! PDA technology keeps getting better and better...

BTW, this was posted almost a week ago at Brighthand... there's 4 pages of posts on it over there:
http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?threadid=93099

MooseMaster
11-05-2003, 12:19 AM
Same with PocketMatrix.

I never thought that PocketPCThoughts would be the last to get the news! 8O

moaske
11-05-2003, 12:59 AM
Hmmmm....i wonder....
Will PDA's and phones with a screen like this come supplied with a magnifying glass ? :wink:
And as for 300ppi: i work in a photostore where i do the minilab printing, and that machine prints @ 300ppi !!! So were actually talking photo/picture quality here 8O

Edit: what will they think of using as a pointing device for this ? A stylus would probably activate a dozen pixels i guess :|

JustinGTP
11-05-2003, 01:01 AM
Wholy moly! That is so cool, and is that MS Excell I see on there? That is so neat, but so tiny, Im going to need some high power glasses for that. I love technology :D

-Justin.

crazy0000
11-05-2003, 01:10 AM
Woah and see how close it is to the edge of the screen you could take any pocket pc out there right now and put that type in it and have an extra inch of screen 8O 8O 8O 8O

bikeman
11-05-2003, 01:43 AM
And as for 300ppi: i work in a photostore where i do the minilab printing, and that machine prints @ 300ppi !!! So were actually talking photo/picture quality here

What kind of printers are you using? Most professional photos and posters are printed using dye sublimation printers at 300 dots per inch (dpi), but that is a very different sort of technology than an inkjet printer at 300 dpi. The dye sub printers use a thermal print head, consisting of thousands of heating elements, capable of precise temperature variations. Heat from the heating elements cause the color on the ribbon to vaporize and diffuse onto the surface of specially coated paper. Precise temperature variations are responsible for the varying densities of color. The hotter the heating element, the more dye is vaporized and diffused onto the paper's surface. These printers will blow away any inkjet printer set at 300 dpi.

On a display, 300 pixels per inch (ppi) looks great. :D But it also looks mighty small. :(

MaximumPDA
11-05-2003, 01:56 AM
Hmmmm....i wonder....
Will PDA's and phones with a screen like this come supplied with a magnifying glass ? :wink:

What you would do is set your text and icons to "very large" like in Windows XP. With the high level of detail you would get a very relaxing to the eye image and easy to read text. Just like paper or a PDF document on a high quality screen.

At Comdex last year I got to play with the Sharp Zuarus Linux PDA with the clamshell/keyboard design and I must say that it was a huge eye relief just looking at the screen. It’s hard to describe the feeling of looking at the screen but all I know is that I was reluctant to go back my XDA screen.

ShivShanks
11-05-2003, 01:58 AM
Wholy moly! That is so cool, and is that MS Excell I see on there?


Yeah it is Excel but I wonder why they are using Excel 95?! After all that was the last version of Office with the raised 3D like toolbar buttons as is evident on that screen. You'd think that for all that cool technology they'd be able to afford a later version of Office? :)

LarDude
11-05-2003, 02:03 AM
Wholy moly! That is so cool, and is that MS Excell I see on there?


Yeah it is Excel but I wonder why they are using Excel 95?! After all that was the last version of Office with the raised 3D like toolbar buttons as is evident on that screen. You'd think that for all that cool technology they'd be able to afford a later version of Office? :)

They can't afford it. They spent all their money on the cool screen. :D

DubWireless
11-05-2003, 02:27 AM
we got one of their CGS displays in a Vodafone Live! handset over here, the Sharp GX20 (http://www.sharp-mobile.com/europe/uk/products/model.asp?id=gx20) with a QVGA 240x320, 64K-colour CGS (Continuous Grain Silicon ) LCD - it's an amazing screen - Sharp were doing a slide show on one at CeBIT Europe showing images and graphs, they were crystal clear - unfortunaltey the handset it's up to much compared to the likes of a Symbian or MS Smartphoen device - but it's screen is the best out there on a handset...

David Prahl
11-05-2003, 03:01 AM
Beautiful screen, UGLY thumbnail! (look again at the bottom finger)

Wuss912
11-05-2003, 03:16 AM
Wholy moly! That is so cool, and is that MS Excell I see on there?


Yeah it is Excel but I wonder why they are using Excel 95?! After all that was the last version of Office with the raised 3D like toolbar buttons as is evident on that screen. You'd think that for all that cool technology they'd be able to afford a later version of Office? :)
it's the only one that runs at 640* 480
:roll:

ultach
11-05-2003, 03:21 AM
I think the higher density is really sweet. But in reality
I don't think I would have much of a use for it without
some sort of magnifier!

Sean

JustinGTP
11-05-2003, 03:30 AM
But considering this is for a smartphone, very very cool. It shows you that technology is heading in the right direction! :D

-Justin.

mattchapin
11-05-2003, 03:43 AM
Perhaps finally optometrists will get into the handheld computer business...

"Wanna buy a PocketPC?"

"Man, I can't read that screen!"

"Wanna buy some glasses?"

-Matt

JustinGTP
11-05-2003, 04:07 AM
Lol Matt,

Everyone can benefit, and they can upsell their latest contacts and laser eye surgery! :D

-Justin.

Ketsugi
11-05-2003, 04:42 AM
But I've already had LASIK done. :(

ctmagnus
11-05-2003, 06:11 AM
Something like this will require a whole new class of screen protectors, clarity-wise.

Jonathan1
11-05-2003, 06:40 AM
What you would do is set your text and icons to "very large" like in Windows XP. With the high level of detail you would get a very relaxing to the eye image and easy to read text. Just like paper or a PDF document on a high quality screen.

At Comdex last year I got to play with the Sharp Zuarus Linux PDA with the clamshell/keyboard design and I must say that it was a huge eye relief just looking at the screen. It’s hard to describe the feeling of looking at the screen but all I know is that I was reluctant to go back my XDA screen.

OK think about this a second. The clamshell is, what?, 2-3 times the size of this screen. So obviously you can handle the res on a screen that size.
Doubling the font icons and overall GUI to double the size would defeat the purpose of having such a small screen.
This is the fatal flaw in smartphones, as I commented about in another thread. You can only have a screen so big on such a device and after that jacking up the res does you no good unless you want to have some sort of zoom in features similar to niadot (I know I slaughtered the name, sorry.) I see practical uses in screens PPC and larger sized for text but such small screens will be more practical for pictures and other images you don’t need to interpret information. (Read: trying to read a line on a spreadsheet or word doc on your wristwatch vs. viewing a picture of your kid tossing a football around.) 300 PPI on a laptop or Pocket PC could allow a sharpness to text and images unlike we've ever seen before but that entails duplicating this process on a much larger scale which is probably going to be a while. :-\


Side question. What is the max res the human eye can detect? I'm wondering if these screens are getting to the point that the human eye can't detect the difference between these screens and real life. 8O That would be scary. Imagine a display that is displaying a lake and it’s as real as being there.

kamodt
11-05-2003, 07:53 AM
When we chose the Toshiba 4" display for the Bsquare "Maui" device, we ran into the problem of how to deal with small type. We wanted to give the user a better web-browsing experience than 1/4 VGA but didn't want there to be anything that couldn't be read reasonably. We came up with a zoom feature which allows you to view any area of the screen at 4x. We really wanted to let the user move the screen in a smooth scroll (with the stylus) but it was technically too difficult at the time. Instead, you can zoom into an area of the screen and then type in a text box in either mode.

I'm not surprised that PPCs will support full VGA as we were pushing MS for it 3 years ago.

Keith Amodt

theone3
11-05-2003, 11:06 AM
Wholy moly! That is so cool, and is that MS Excell I see on there?


Yeah it is Excel but I wonder why they are using Excel 95?! After all that was the last version of Office with the raised 3D like toolbar buttons as is evident on that screen. You'd think that for all that cool technology they'd be able to afford a later version of Office? :)Excel 95 gives you the ability to use huge toolbar icons (eg, save, print)

Prevost
11-05-2003, 01:52 PM
I can feel the rage on this news, but anyway the statement this is been developed for CELL PHONES (even considering the size) makes me worry. Is it coming to PPC?

Also, will this kind of screen be readable OUTDOORS?

Technology not always pursue human needs. In certain point of development, it just pursuits numbers, statistics, desires for what has the highest numbers and statistics, and the competitors pursuing to beat each other in the numbers and statistics.

I don't see anyone as busy and worried by making screens readable outside as making them with resolutions that, at best, will render very difficult to use and at worst will render BEYOND human "resolution" as Jonathan wrote previously.

Rok
11-05-2003, 05:42 PM
Side question. What is the max res the human eye can detect? I'm wondering if these screens are getting to the point that the human eye can't detect the difference between these screens and real life. 8O That would be scary. Imagine a display that is displaying a lake and it’s as real as being there.
Human eye is generally capable of discerning details on 0.1 mm scale (about 1/250th of an inch). So 300 PPI is indeed more than most human eyes are capable of - hence, resolution-wise, this already is paper-like quality. There are a lot of other aspects to reproducing paper quality, though - contrast, luminance, reflectiveness, you name it. We are not quite there just yet.

Cheers,
Rok

ShivShanks
11-06-2003, 05:00 AM
Side question. What is the max res the human eye can detect? I'm wondering if these screens are getting to the point that the human eye can't detect the difference between these screens and real life. 8O That would be scary. Imagine a display that is displaying a lake and it’s as real as being there.
Human eye is generally capable of discerning details on 0.1 mm scale (about 1/250th of an inch). So 300 PPI is indeed more than most human eyes are capable of - hence, resolution-wise, this already is paper-like quality. There are a lot of other aspects to reproducing paper quality, though - contrast, luminance, reflectiveness, you name it. We are not quite there just yet.

Cheers,
Rok

Thats really not true. 300 dpi is way less than the acuity of the human eye. According to a well known photographer who has done extensive research on this subject it appears that the human eye is capable of 1000 ppi. Please see these links for more information -
http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/printer-ppi/
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/eye-resolution.html

"The human eye, under best lighting conditions, can resolve objects slightly less than one arc minute (Blackwell, 1946; reference and plots are in my book Visual Astronomy of the Deep Sky, click here to go to my visual astronomy pages ). One arc-minute corresponds to 0.003 inch at a distance of 10 inches. The inverse of 0.003 = 344, but it takes at least two pixels to resolve something, so double this number and we get about 700 ppi as the resolution of the eye at one arc-minute. The eye can do a little better, so perhaps 1000 ppi is the limit."

Rok
11-06-2003, 04:48 PM
Thats really not true. 300 dpi is way less than the acuity of the human eye. According to a well known photographer

Some assumptions on your linked pages are completely bogus. But even there it is plainly stated that human eye is capable of resolving objects the size of one arc minute, which corresponds to slightly more than 300 PPI at 10" viewing distance. Thus, at a typical reading distance of 15-20", 300 PPI is a lot more than human eye can manage, like it or not.
Choose to believe whomever you wish - I tend to believe any ophthalmological textbook a lot more than some photographers' research (whose basic findings are correct anyway, but his extrapolations are false).

Cheers
Rok

ShivShanks
11-06-2003, 08:17 PM
Thats really not true. 300 dpi is way less than the acuity of the human eye. According to a well known photographer

Some assumptions on your linked pages are completely bogus. But even there it is plainly stated that human eye is capable of resolving objects the size of one arc minute, which corresponds to slightly more than 300 PPI at 10" viewing distance. Thus, at a typical reading distance of 15-20", 300 PPI is a lot more than human eye can manage, like it or not.
Choose to believe whomever you wish - I tend to believe any ophthalmological textbook a lot more than some photographers' research (whose basic findings are correct anyway, but his extrapolations are false).

Cheers
Rok

Why don't you tell us ignorant folks what assumptions are bogus on that webpage? Just your saying so doesn't mean anything at all to me. Also please do tell me how you manage to read a book at 20"? The typical reading distance for printed matter is 10". And for a computer monitor it would be 15-20". But here we are talking about a PDAs and you are not going to read it by stretching out your arms and holding it at an extreme distance. I BTW tend to believe Clark more as he is a famous photographer and has done research and clearly shows proof of what he done including blind tests done on subjects (did you even read all the pages?). I do not know how you are qualified to debunk his statements without anything that backs up your claims. Have you for example given any links in support of it?
BTW did you miss the fact that it takes 2 pixels to resolve anything and therefore one arc minute at 10" corresponds to 344x2 or about 700 ppi just purely theoretically (not accounting for the fact that the eye can probably do somewhat better than that).

Rok
11-06-2003, 11:14 PM
Why don't you tell us ignorant folks what assumptions are bogus on that webpage? Just your saying so doesn't mean anything at all to me. Also please do tell me how you manage to read a book at 20"? The typical reading distance for printed matter is 10". And for a computer monitor it would be 15-20". But here we are talking about a PDAs and you are not going to read it by stretching out your arms and holding it at an extreme distance. I BTW tend to believe Clark more as he is a famous photographer and has done research and clearly shows proof of what he done including blind tests done on subjects (did you even read all the pages?). I do not know how you are qualified to debunk his statements without anything that backs up your claims. Have you for example given any links in support of it?
BTW did you miss the fact that it takes 2 pixels to resolve anything and therefore one arc minute at 10" corresponds to 344x2 or about 700 ppi just purely theoretically (not accounting for the fact that the eye can probably do somewhat better than that).
I don't know why you feel offended or threatened - I never called you or anyone else ignorant (not in this discussion anyway). The only thing that is correct on that page is the basic resolution part (one arc minute). All the extrapolations are wrong. Yes, you need two points - human eye is capable of distinguishing them as separate if they are more than approx. one arc minute apart (that's 300 PPI at 10" viewing distance). But that doesn't make it a double resolution (this is basic math, really)! It's 300 PPI, period. That's with a 20/20 vision, mind you. Many people have vision better than this, and the resolution their eyes are capable of is certainly somewhat better, on a percentage scale.

Anyway, as I stated before - believe whomever you want. But to form a better view on the subject, do try to find several (scientific) sources instead of clinging to a single one (quoted twice).

Cheers,
Rok

P.S.
As for reading distance - I never read anything at 10" distance. Neither does anyone else I know (with normal vision). 15" is a perfect distance for small print, while most normal text is best read at 20". I wear glasses and with them, I have a bit better than 20/20 vision. If you have to read most of the text at 10", you might want to consider visiting your ophthalmologist, as your vision certainly isn't good. Plus, we are talking about displays here, not books (and you said yourself you view them at 15-20").