Resolution of Newer Electronic Devices Too Much??

Here's an news article I thought some electronics technophiles might find interesting. It discusses how the higher & higher resolutions of newer electronic devices are exceeding the human eye's ability to perceive it...thus possibly...unnecessary:

Enough pixels already! TVs, tablets, phones surpass limits of human vision, experts say.

- Nick

But Nick, think of how much my cat will enjoy her new 4K TV! ;P I'm lucky with these old eyes I can the screen of my dumb phone.

My eyes probably can't tell the difference. My wallet would probably notice the difference between 1080 and 4k though. At a certain point, I don't care about resolution allowing me to see the newscasters' acne or read the serial number on a prop gun in an action movie.

Hi Nick - boy, I agree - i.e. why go beyond what the human eye can even resolve? I'm happy w/ my current HDTV (about 2 y/o now) - I can't imagine being much happier even w/ the nearly 200 Blu-ray discs that I now own.

Of course, this is analogous to audio claiming to 'hearing' above the frequency of human audibility (20-20,000 Hz ideally) - those higher frequencies are lost quickly as we age - I listen to a lot of classical music and the overtones (i.e. 2x or more the fundamental frequencies) are important in distinguishing the various instruments; BUT, some of these audio claims that presumably reproduce these overtones ABOVE 20K Hz are ridiculous statements, i.e. maybe dogs can hear them but not humans!

Dave

I think the better measure of quality in relation to the number of pixels is pixel density. I've held devices with decent resolutions but lower pixel densities and definitely seen a difference. My first tablet for instance had a ppi of 149 whereas my Nexus 5 has a ppi of 445 and it's obvious that the detail is much better.

vansmith said:

My first tablet for instance had a ppi of 149 whereas my Nexus 5 has a ppi of 445 and it's obvious that the detail is much better.

Click to expand...

I agree 100%. 445ppi should be noticeably better than 149ppi. But is there somewhere between 149ppi and 445ppi where the human eye cannot tell the difference...but we as consumers are paying bigger bucks for technology we cannot utilize (see the difference).

Just throwing the thought out there. I don't claim to be an optical expert!

- Nick

This is where Apple gets its 'retina' designation - at typical viewing distance the pixels are small enough to be indistinguishable.

The point of 4k is more to support the demand for ever-larger screens whilst keeping this level of granularity.

Panasonic's 4k tablet with a resolution of 3840x2650 and a 20" screen.

Only price I could find - $6k - and it'll run 2 hrs on battery.

pigoo3 said:

I agree 100%. 445ppi should be noticeably better than 149ppi. But is there somewhere between 149ppi and 445ppi where the human eye cannot tell the difference...but we as consumers are paying bigger bucks for technology we cannot utilize (see the difference).

Just throwing the thought out there. I don't claim to be an optical expert!

- Nick

Click to expand...

You're certainly right - I've seen lower DPI screens and was unable to see any difference in clarity. Colour presentation however is a different story (I, like you, am not an optical expert so that's something we can leave to those who are).

Now the question is, can we get a retina display on a smart watch................?