The iPhone 4's crown of having the highest-density screen among smartphones could soon be usurped. Toshiba just unveiled a 4-inch screen with a density of 367 pixels per inch (ppi), making it the highest pixel density for any commercial display.
When Apple first showed the iPhone 4 last year, Steve Jobs famously proclaimed its 326ppi screen as a "retina" display, implying that it was so sharp, it was beyond the point where the human eye was able to discern the pixels. Those claims were later said to have been exaggerated, though the display is still notable for having the highest pixel density among phones.
The Toshiba screen, a low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) display that was shown this week at a trade show in Los Angeles, bests the iPhone 4's 3.5-inch 960x640 LCD with a 4-inch 1,280x720 screen. That's enough pixels to play 720p HD video at full resolution—on a phone.
The achievement, while technologically impressive, has questionable applicability. It would be difficult for most to see any actual difference in resolution between a 326ppi display and a 367ppi one.
Still, having the highest-resolution screen in a category is a talking point that Apple has shown can be a useful marketing tool, and phone makers will no doubt implement Toshiba's high-density screen in some the high-end handsets of tomorrow, possibly even Apple. Apple's current supplier for the iPhone 4 display is LG, although the company is rumored to be working with Toshiba on the next generation of the device.
Does that mean Toshiba's 367ppi screen could make its way into the next iPhone? It's possible—Apple is also rumored to be completely redesigning the iPhone for the next model to accommodate a 4-inch screen, but a shift from the current 1.5:1 aspect ratio to a widescreen one (like the Toshiba screen has) is unlikely since it would affect all apps, which have already been designed for the original ratio. If the rumors are true, however, that could mean Toshiba has a different display, with an iPhone-like aspect ratio, in the works.
The new display follows on the heels of Samsung's unveiling of a 10-inch "retina" screen for tablets with 2560x1600-pixel resolution. If the trend toward ever-higher resolution continues, mobile devices that can display full 1080p resolution video could become common—as long as their processors can keep up.
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