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.