ZDNet: Picture Getting Clearer on Mobile Phones

[Raphael Salgado]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-6052693.html' target='_blank'>http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-6052693.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Mobile-phone shipments long ago passed PC shipments, but most mobile-phone displays have yet to approach the resolution PC monitors started delivering many years ago. The excitement at shows like CES centers around impossibly large flat-panel televisions, but display manufacturers gathered here for the DisplaySearch U.S. FPD Conference this week are starting to talk about the small screen."</i><br /><br />This is an interesting article that talks about how the evolution of mobile phones require a better, sharper display in the same or smaller form factor. It's about time they kick-started the idea of going beyond QVGA resolution - if not just for media, but for web browsing capabilities and more. ClearType may be great, but it only goes so far. Can you imagine a 2.2" VGA screen on a Windows Mobile phone? (The upcoming <a href="http://www.myaxia.com/a308.htm">Axia A308</a>'s display is a 2.2" QVGA - just imagine if the resolution was doubled!) When does it become unnecessary?

[SteveHoward999]

Without a magnifying glass or great eyesight, I doubt there is any value at all to a VGA screen at 2.2 inches. Certainly you cannot take advantage of 8 or 10 point text like you can on a VGA with a 4 inch or so screen and hope for the average user to be able to actually read it - heck the average user cannot read that point of text on a 4 inch screen. And there's little sense putting up 2.2 inch VGA photographs so small - they are just going to be tiny, not beautiful.

I'm all for the latest super-fantastic technology, but 2.2 inch VGA is not something I can ever get my juices flowing for.

[rhelwig]

Without a magnifying glass or great eyesight, I doubt there is any value at all to a VGA screen at 2.2 inches. Certainly you cannot take advantage of 8 or 10 point text like you can on a VGA with a 4 inch or so screen

I think you're confusing points with pixels.

Points is a size measurement (1/72nd of an inch, IIRC). An 8 point font should be the same size on a VGA screen as it is on a QVGA screen. The difference would be that the text would be clearer on the VGA screen than on the QVGA screen.

Consider this: can you even purchase a 120 DPI printer anymore? Even a 300 DPI printer is considered poor quality. Good quality printers are over 1,000 DPI. The higher the DPI, the clearer the text and the easier it is to read.

I most definitely want a 300 DPI or greater resolution screen on my PDA. Imagine if the text quality of an ebook was near print quality.

[SteveHoward999]

I think you're confusing points with pixels.


Nope. I know what size point size is, and the PocketPC screen, like every other computer screen has NO IDEA how many inches big or small it is. So even though the technical definition of point size in fonts is physical size measurement, it has no relevance on a computer screen.

A 2.2 inch QVGA screen is something like 150 to 200 dpi (I'm too lazy to work it out exactly). So a VGA screen like that would be in the region of 300 to 400 dpi. But since it is points of lighje we are talking about rather than points of pigment, our eyes are not going to really see much improvement between them. The extra detail possible in such a tiny screen would be undiscernable by most of us.

But you are not going to believe me unless you see a VGA screen at 2.2 inches.

[rhelwig]

I think you're confusing points with pixels.


Nope. I know what size point size is, and the PocketPC screen, like every other computer screen has NO IDEA how many inches big or small it is. So even though the technical definition of point size in fonts is physical size measurement, it has no relevance on a computer screen.


I've been a Windows programmer for about 10 years. Not sure if this function applies to CE (but I'd bet it does).
The GetDeviceCaps function retrieves device-specific information for the specified device.
...
HORZSIZE Width, in millimeters, of the physical screen.
VERTSIZE Height, in millimeters, of the physical screen.

From there you can calculate the rest (and I did so in my first programming job).

Of course most programmers are too lazy/busy to worry about that kind of detail.

[SteveHoward999]

Of course most programmers are too lazy/busy to worry about that kind of detail.


So is that an explanation as to why 8 point text is a different size on my screen and every other screen depending on the resolution setting and the physical size of the screen? Busy or lazy programmers? Surely of it was that simple, 8 point text would be the exact same physical size regardless of screen and resolution. Or at least it could be, and would be in at least some applications.

But screen fonts are based on some (seemingly arbitrary) hypothetical dpi setting that has nothing to do with physical screen size and everything to do with apparent screen pixels ... typically based on 96 dpi - except it's not really dots per inch since inch doesn't normally come into it on the computer screen - on Windows machines ... which has always struck me as odd since the Windows graphics setting is an equally arbitrary, but different 'standard' of 72 dpi.

Should really be dppi ... dots per pretend inch ;-).