Samsung to unveil 2560 x 1600, 10.1-inch display for tablets

[Jos]

Attendees to the SID Display Week 2011 International Symposium in Los Angeles next week will be getting a first hand look at Samsung’s new 10.1-inch WQXGA tablet display, created in partnership with Nouvoyance. With a resolution of 2560 by 1600, the display has a density of 300 pixels per inch, which comes close to the iPhone's 326ppi display (manufactured by LG) and matches what Apple considers a 'retina display' -- but in a larger form factor.

The ultra-high resolution display uses something called PenTile RGBW technology, which has been used in devices like the Motorola Atrix and is said to offer better outdoor visibility and consume less power than traditional RGB stripe LCDs. "There is no other commercial display technology on the market today that offers this high of a resolution and pixel density in a 10.1-inch size display,” said Dr. Sungtae Shin, Senior VP of Samsung Electronics.

Samsung's new 10.1-inch WQXGA tablet display is expected to become commercially available later this year. There's no indication yet when it will find its way into Samsung's Galaxy tablets or if Apple will scoop them up for a future iPad -- their current provider, LG, is also expected to unveil a full lineup of ultra-high resolution displays at the show.

It's previously been rumored that Apple wanted to include a higher resolution display in the iPad 2, but was unable to do so because of high costs and manufacturing constraints. A bump in resolution might also cause some minor headaches to app developers, who would have to optimize their software for the extra pixels.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/43783-samsung-to-unveil-2560-x-1600-101-inch-display-for-tablets.html

 

[Wagan8r]

Oh, yes. Oh, yes, yes, YES!

I have to say that I'm surprised though. Jumping from 1280x800 all the way to 2560x1600? Funny that they didn't do 1920x1200 first. I mean, just think of how massively powerful a tablet's CPU/GPU will have to be JUST to run regular apps. I fear it would die an aweful death if it tried to run a game pushing that many pixels!

 

[mattfrompa]

Amazing resolution, but I wonder how many users would even use this resolution on a 10 inch screen? I use 1920x1200 on a 24" monitor and love it, but without using the product I'll just say I can see the potential for the first products using this to suffer from some minor headaches.

 

[pcnthuziast]

Impressive, but with my poor eyesight I'd have trouble reading text on it as it would be TINY due to the pixel density.

 

[Jesse]

It's not like taking a 30" 2560x1600 resolution monitor and shrinking it down to the scale of 10". You will have the same pixel density, but the text would be adjusted to be readable. There is no way you could even read a standard 12pt font if it was to shrunk to scale from 30" to 10"

 

[Guest]

It still seems like complete overkill for a 10" screen. Like Wagan8r said, displaying full screen video at that resolution is going to require some horsepower.

 

[pcnthuziast]

My mistake... I meant pitch not density.

 

[Vrmithrax]

Yah, welcome to the world of resolution overkill... I mean, if it improves movie clarity and such (which I'm sure it will), that's great... But they had better be absolutely sure that every component of the user interface scales up properly on whatever OS is using these screens. I'm picturing the fiasco of trying to implement an HTPC with Windows XP some time back, where random things (like the sys tray, etc) just were not ever made to scale up, while other basic things (that often didn't matter) were.

 

[madboyv1]

I want this to become big, and to be applied to larger screens as well. I'm so sick and tired of the 1366x766 esqe being "the standard", and hell 1600x900 is somewhat funky, especially on a 17" screen. My 7 year old Thinkpad had a 1600x1200 15" screen, and most laptops at that screen size decided to take a step back, even today. >_<

Plus larger density/smaller pitch is great for photo editing and image reproduction where it counts the most, though some consider the natural sharpening that occurs when you have a larger density to be a negative aspect.

 

[Guest]

More marketing than usefulness. I used a 1280x800 12.1 inch IBM laptop for office work and found it completely inadequate. At such a resolution, it was already painful to use Microsoft Office/Excel for prolonged periods of time. I can't even imagine using a 2560x1600 10 inch laptop for productivity!

As mentioned above, you can increase resolution all you want, but a small screen is a small screen. Resolution matters, but it's also important to note that how far from the eyes you are looking at the screen is more important. I suppose some people just always want higher specs regardless of usability.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

Wow that is a crazy high res for such a small display. Honestly i'd be more than happy with 1920x1080 at this point. But please, please make these with excellent viewing angles and backlighting. I'm tired of devices with displays that colors distort when viewing 30 degrees below its optimal viewing angle, and i'm tired of crappy dim backlighting that is useless even on cloudy days.

 

[Zecias]

how much will this cost?......

 

[Greg S]

zecias said:
how much will this cost?......

Probably more than you want it to. I'm guessing $300-$375 for the screen itself.

 

[Mizzou]

As has been stated, this seems like massive overkill for a 10" display.

 

[princeton]

Just in case people bring it up. This is not the same subpixel matrix used on the Galaxy S i9000. All the other major publications are bringing up how it will suffer from the SGS text issues. I guess engadget and gizmodo hear pentile and immediately think RGBG.

Thanks for actually doing the research techspot. +1 respect.