VGA screens

[cab124]

I was just wondering why practically NONE of the new devices incorporate a VGA screen. Now that I have been using a Dell x50v for about a while, the VGA screen is a must have. It would be so hard to have to go back to QVGA.

Why no VGA?????????????? Battery life??? The battery life on my x50v is fine.

[JesterMania]

I bet all those question marks in your post indicate a lot of confusion so I'll try and clear this up. :wink:

First off, looking at the Fujitsu-Siemens LOOX series and the Acer/Dell models I'd say there are still modern Pocket PCs with VGA screens. However, if you're talking about PPC Phone Editions, most don't have VGA screens and I'd venture to take some guesses. These are primarily my ideas as to why hardly any PPC PEs support VGA:

- PPC PEs have a GSM/CDMA radio on at all times, VGA just adds to the burden.

- Many PPC PEs are still using 200MHz processors, once again pushing 4x the number of pixels on a VGA screen doesn't make much sense on these units with slower processors.

- Have you seen just how small those 2.5"-2.8" PPC PEs screens are? If you used VGA in its standard form (that is, just to make the screen clearer), I bet you'd hardly see a difference with a screen that small. If you use one of those "real VGA" hacks, you'd probably need a magnifying glass to see the objects on your screen.

- Going along with the above point, the two PPC PEs I'm aware of that do have VGA are the HTC Universal and the Sharp W-ZERO3. The Universal has a 3.6" screen and the W-ZERO3 has a 3.7", so both devices with their large screens can benefit significantly from VGA. Unfortunately, to make up for this they are absolutely huge. How many times have we heard people complain about the Universal's size for example?

- The cost too, with manufacturers concentrating more on integrating phone radios and GPS chips into their products, adding VGA would further increase the cost of the product.

I think to sum things up though, the main reason really is that screen sizes are tiny and although I've never used a 2.8" VGA screen, I'd venture to guess that the gain you get from VGA on a 2.8" isn't exactly the same as VGA on a spacious 3.5" screen.

[cab124]

Great insight, Jester!

I wasn't even aware that there were any PPC PE devices with VGA so at least I can check out the ones that you mentioned. If your insight is right, then I guess I will just have to stick to two seperate devices until some real advancements are made in battery capacity so that converged devices can be made with faster CPUs and VGA screens.

Thanks!

[JesterMania]

You can try the HTC Universal, but it is tri-band only :| . The W-ZERO3 uses W-SIM and only works in Japan.

[petvas]

Another big issue with VGA screens is the battery life. VGA screens do need more power!
I have recently bought the ipaq 6915 and I have to say that in the first few days I really hated the screen! Now, I think I got used to it and of course I love my iPaq!!!

[PetiteFlower]

Why no VGA?????????????? Battery life??? The battery life on my x50v is fine.

Yeah, the battery life on my X50v is acceptable, but it's pretty dismal compared to what I used to get with my old X5, and as far as I can tell the VGA screen is the culprit. Combine that with cell radios and you'd have a practically unusable device. I think the lower battery life is worth it for the VGA, but not everyone agrees.

[Deigo]

Another thing is the number of colours. Even the screens of many mid-end cellphones have 265k colours, some new ones even have 16 million. Why can't they make ppc with at leasat 265k colours? With such a large screen, having 265k colours will be very pleasing to the eyes.

[Darius Wey]

Another thing is the number of colours. Even the screens of many mid-end cellphones have 265k colours, some new ones even have 16 million. Why can't they make ppc with at leasat 265k colours? With such a large screen, having 265k colours will be very pleasing to the eyes.

They do, though only a minority of Pocket PCs have them. This post (http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/09/07/462187.aspx) at the Windows Mobile Team Blog will tell you why.

[Menneisyys]

Another big issue with VGA screens is the battery life. VGA screens do need more power!

They DO need more power but not so much as some people state. A correctly engineered VGA PDA won't consume considerably much power than a QVGA one just because it has a VGA screen. I'd say the difference is about 40-50% at most (with no or minimal backlight) - and even (far) less with the backlight (which consumes way more power than the VGA screen) on the top.

See my power consumption benchmarks if interested; I've also cross-posted them here in the PPCT forums.

The HTC Universal chews through batteries really fast compared to the HTC Wizard (again, see my benchmarks for real, comparable results) but I don't think it's (mainly) because of the screen - just plain bad engineering.

That is, the question is more of size. It'd be pretty useless to come up with a 2.8" VGA screen.

[Janak Parekh]

That is, the question is more of size. It'd be pretty useless to come up with a 2.8" VGA screen.
That's not entirely true. You'd get a very high-DPI screen great for photos and similar content; text would also appear sharper. In any case, there is a power hit, not just from the screen, but the fact the CPU has to work harder, more pixels have to be pushed, etc. -- and when you're trying to conserve battery life on a mobile device, every little bit has an effect.

Nevertheless, I think it's more of a question of "why VGA" than "why not VGA". Most applications work well in QVGA. I'd love to see higher-DPI screens, and they may very well come, but I think it'll take some time.

--janak

[juni]

Why VGA? Because of what I'm doing right now: Browsing the net, reading news while sitting on the sofa sipping my morning coffee. :)

[Janak Parekh]

Why VGA? Because of what I'm doing right now: Browsing the net, reading news while sitting on the sofa sipping my morning coffee. :)
Well, are you using regular VGA or true VGA? And would your workflow work on a 2.8" screen?

(And me, I'd just rather use my laptop for what you're doing. ;))

--janak

[ppcinfo]

(And me, I'd just rather use my laptop for what you're doing. ;))
--janak
I'm with you, I'd prefer to use a laptop for web browsing and checking my email. However, I often use my x50v (VGA screen) for doing both mentioned tasks while sitting as a passenger on a long car ride or while out on lunch break waiting for my meal to arrive. I can very easily and quickly make a bluetooth connection between my x50v and my Motorola phone and be viewing web pages within a few minutes. In True-VGA mode the text is tiny, but you get a lot of visible real estate.

ppcinfo

[juni]

Regular VGA, with Opera. I used to lug a laptop with me, but I think it is too big and cumbersome to have in the lap (not to mention the heat factor) when a device with a VGA screen does what I want - and I can hold it in one hand gripping the coffee mug with the other. :)

[Janak Parekh]

In True-VGA mode the text is tiny, but you get a lot of visible real estate.
But see, try slicing off an inch off the screen with true VGA (or small print in Opera). I've done small print on the JasJar, and it's just barely tolerable. It'd be intolerable with a small Pocket PC Phone screen.

(And, for those of you that don't mind the large form factor, we've posted on rumored successors to the JasJar, so it's possible VGA units will continue to be available in the future. We'll see.)

--janak

[Menneisyys]

Regular VGA, with Opera. I used to lug a laptop with me, but I think it is too big and cumbersome to have in the lap (not to mention the heat factor) when a device with a VGA screen does what I want - and I can hold it in one hand gripping the coffee mug with the other. :)

Yeah, the advantages of PDA-bsed web browsing - I do the same during lunch (eating with one hand, keeping the PDA & scrolling with the volume slider / navigating with the thumb with another) :)

[Janak Parekh]

Regular VGA, with Opera. I used to lug a laptop with me, but I think it is too big and cumbersome to have in the lap (not to mention the heat factor) when a device with a VGA screen does what I want - and I can hold it in one hand gripping the coffee mug with the other. :)
Yeah, the advantages of PDA-bsed web browsing - I do the same during lunch (eating with one hand, keeping the PDA & scrolling with the volume slider / navigating with the thumb with another) :)
I wonder if you guys tend to have a different distribution of websites you surf, or your surfing habits differ than mine. I had a JasJar, and I certainly used it with true VGA, etc. I still found it awkward to do the kinds of surfing and interaction that I do with a desktop, and ultimately gave up websurfing except for limited applications. Typically, on a desktop, I have 5-10 tabs open on different sites; I tend to scroll through content very quickly, and rapidly open and close new tabs. I also do a lot of data entry on sites like these and others. I found the Pocket PC is okay for simple sites, casual content, and minimal entry, but after that even the VGA units become really awkward with the lack of multimedia content, interaction, etc.

I do think the Pocket PC can be a great platform for RSS-based newsreading; that's a different matter entirely. On the other hand, when I use my desktop RSS reader, I'll start queueing tabs as I scroll past interesting articles. The number of tabs I'd have open would quickly cause the Pocket PC to slow to a crawl.

(As for the coffee metaphor, I don't drink coffee; maybe that's the problem :lol: More precisely, I'd much rather have the laptop on my table next to me if I'm doing real websurfing. I do little 5-minute RSS sessions on my Pocket PC, and that's about it.)

--janak

[juni]

I used to go to these sites before I got a VGA device (I should update it):

http://www.kolumbus.fi/anders.ruohio/links/default.htm

But now I go to any website even if it isn't optimized. I find the New York Times a good and entertaining morning read. :)