Casio Develops Small Ultra-High Resolution Screen

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/09/25/casio.546dpi.2.inch.lcd/' target='_blank'>http://www.electronista.com/article...dpi.2.inch.lcd/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Casio on Thursday unveiled what it says is the sharpest display yet and took significant steps towards making HD video possible on mobile devices. Although measuring just two inches diagonally, the display uses a new hyper amorphous silicon LCD with an extremely small pixel structure and 15.5 micron dot pitch that lets Casio produce a 960x540 resolution. The output is a full quarter that of 1080p HD and results in an extremely dense 546 dots per inch, generating a near print-like quality to the final image."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1222365215.usr1.jpg" /></p><p>On mobile devices, screen resolution really matters - anyone that has gone from a QVGA (320 x 240) screen to a VGA (640 x 480) screen can tell you that. On digital cameras, when DSLRs went from 230,000 pixel displays up to 920,000 pixel displays, there was a huge improvement in how easy it was to review your photos and see real details. PPI, which stands for "pixels per inch", is a basic measurement of how many pixels there are on a screen to draw something - and it's often confused with DPI, which is a measurement related to printing. On an average 22 inch computer monitor, for instance, the display resolution will be 1680 x 1050 - which gives you a PPI of only 90. The Zune 8 has a 1.8 inch screen with a resolution of 240 x 320 - which gives it 222ppi. <MORE /></p><p>The higher the PPI, the more pixels there are to draw every item on the screen, and hence the better everything tends to look. Anything over 200 ppi tends to look fantastic, and the printed page has been said to be around 300ppi, so the idea of a 546ppi screen is simply mind-boggling. However, the more pixels, the more effort is needed to push and display those pixels - so the question of power consumption and processing requirements remain. Still, this is significant development that bodes well for a number of portable devices.</p>

[Gerard]

Considering that Casio were the ones with the most beautiful to look at screen (indoors... outside or in bright inside light it was far too dim and not reflective nor transflective, so quite useless) many years ago, with the E-125/EG-800 screens, this would seem to be a continuation of one of their strong points. Of course the E-200 was a bit of a step backwards, with the loss of contrast adjustability, which had been a bit part of what made the prior screens so nice to use.

I'd not want to have a 2" screen though, no matter how strikingly clear the image displayed. Sure, it would be nice to look at for pictures or maybe even videos, but working on such a screen with text editors or browsers would be a chore. My Sanyo camera has a very nice 2" screen, great for taking pictures with and viewing a bit afterwards, but one just cannot make out the whole image nearly so well as on a 4" screen such as that of the Toshiba e830. The currently mainstream 2.8" is usable, but a bit cramped. I'd really like to see 3.5" be the standard, edge-to-edge or as close as possible to keep phone sizes down, and with premium models being offered with 4" screens. And yeah... with bigger batteries to support all that brilliant screen goodness, and 900MHz processors to match.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Yum! When's the 3" and 4" versions gonna be out? I'd think they'd make a 2.5" and 3" version to put into their Exlim cameras. :P