Acer to intro laptops with high-PPI (2880x1620) displays

[Rick]

According to a number of reports, Acer plans to outfit several of its premium laptops (and one ultrabook) with high-PPI displays. Although the exact specifications are unknown, we do know that one 15.x-inch display Acer showed off boasts a resolution of 2880x1620 -- a resolution which is essentially QWXGA+. Linus Torvalds would be proud.

Acer's 16:9 screen is a different aspect ratio than the Retina Macbook Pro's 16:10, indicating it is an altogether different panel -- possibly not even made by LG. Apple's 15-inch Retina display is actually 2880x1800 thanks to its slight height advantage. Most promisingly though, certain onlookers have expressed their emphatic content with the display's color and image quality, describing Acer's demo with laudatory language like "gorgeous" and "astounding".

Since Acer's roughly 15-inch display packs a resolution greater than even a high-res 27-inch monitor, there's an obvious need for DPI scaling. Without it, items on the screen will appear too small for most users' comfort.

When it comes to Windows, Windows 8 would seem best equipped to deal with this issue. Metro has been designed from the ground-up to scale on PPI-dense displays while the "desktop" portion of Windows 8 takes into consideration even minute details like mouse cursor size. However, The Tech Report demonstrated in September that Windows 8's handling of high-PPI displays is lacking. Hopefully Microsoft will make some improvements in this area.

The word on the street is Acer won't be launching laptops equipped with these impressive, high-PPI displays until around late spring.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/51363-acer-to-intro-laptops-with-high-ppi-2880x1620-displays.html

 

[PC nerd]

Why?

 

[Cueto_99]

Thats' Hong Kong on the Pic! Beautiful view! and at 2880x1620 must be amazing, although nothing compared to being there...

 

[waterytowers]

That gives me time to save... Now if only the other vendors would follow. I can have a choice of laptops.

 

[Steve]

Release some high high-PPI desktop monitors as well please

 

[amstech]

Why?

Because 1920 X 1080/1200 is outdated and overrated.
Because its time for the industry to move forward and stop banking $500 off new laptops with 1366 X 768 screens that can't view entire webpages.
Because users/business's have been using 1440p/1600p panels for several years.
Because its time for companies to stop telling you what high resolution is.
Because I use three 17" 1280X1024 LCD's at work and I still need more resolution.

 

[RH00D]

I used the Retina MBP at a store and after actually using a high PPI display, I wish every display was like 300 PPI+. There's just no comparison. It's like difference between Windows 95 and Windows 7.

But just because the resolution is high doesn't mean the screen real estate needs to scale up just as much. For example, you could take the screen real estate you normally get with 1920x1080 then double the amount of pixels, but keep the screen real estate the same so that everything simply just becomes more clearer instead of everything becoming super small.

 

[Steve]

Why?

One word, Progress.

But just because the resolution is high doesn't mean the screen real estate needs to scale up just as much. For example, you could take the screen real estate you normally get with 1920x1080 then double the amount of pixels, but keep the screen real estate the same so that everything simply just becomes more clearer instead of everything becoming super small.

You can mess around with it to get things to the size you want (as you say). The problem with 1920x1080 is that you cannot have two web pages side by side without zooming out. This is why I much prefer the 2560 panels as it makes productivity much easier. Bigger is certainly better when it comes to screens size and DPI

 

[St1ckM4n]

Ugh, I wish they'd stick to regular resolutions and not tack on 20 pixels here and there.

 

[VitalyT]

I expect it to be crappy. There are a few problems with this...

1. While they are after Apple in using retina display, they are alone in this. Apple products are within a single Eco-system, they design both retina display and the software to use it. As experiments showed, Windows 8 isn't ready for retina monitors, its support for custom PPI is just too bad, which leaves this Asus product literally nowhere in terms of the OS of choice.

2. Retina resolution of 2880x1620 gives us just 1440x810 of effective pixels for all of the OS elements, which for a 15" laptop is unimpressive. Today's good 15" laptops offer 1600x900 resolution, and many offer 1920x1080. They need 4K to make it a nice and practical display.

Certain things just cannot be practical. For instance, as I'm sitting with a 30" desktop monitor, its resolution is such that to make it a retina display the manufacturer would have to make it 3200P, which is much bigger than 4K. I don't think it will happen any time soon. However, I don't really see any need either.

 

[St1ckM4n]

2. Retina resolution of 2880x1620 gives us just 1440x810 of effective pixels for all of the OS elements, which for a 15" laptop is unimpressive. ...

Can you please expand this point further? I don't quite follow.

 

[VitalyT]

The retina effect is in using 4 pixels in place of one, to provide finer look. And while images will be able to take full advantage of it, the UI will have to scale to the resolution of 1440x810 for that. Have a look at Apple retina products, how they work - it is the same. At least Macbook Pro 15" offers 1440x900 of effective pixels, not as bad, but could be better. This is why today's retina products are still a compromise. A good 15" needs not less than 1600x900 of effective pixels, so x4 that for the retina version.

 

[St1ckM4n]

Ah, yes. I figured this but wanted to make sure what you were talking about.