I'd just like to canvas for opinions on a topic that affects a "buy now or wait" decision. Excuse the length of the setup.
On handheld devices these days, screen dot pitch seems relatively high: an iPhone is 480x320 at >160dpi; some Android 2.1 devices, and the Cowon V5, are 800x480 on a 4.8/5" diag, say 190dpi?
But look away from handhelds, and dpi drops significantly. The 21.5" screen I'm writing this on is one of the smallest 1080p desktop monitors around, yet that's still only ~105dpi. Portables are a little higher, but a 10.1" 1024x600 Atom netbook is still <120dpi, while the 11.6" 768p Acer Aspire 1410 tops out at ~135dpi.
Now some of this might be accounted for by how far away you're expected to be viewing the screen from, but most people can touch their monitor from where they're sitting, while a phone/PMP can be as far away as in the hand at the end of your arm, so there's not *that* much difference?
However, what's really surprising me is that the emerging class of MID devices seems so far to be stuck with the desktop/laptop, rather than handheld, pixel densities, even though I would expect that native HD, as opposed to handhelds' SD, video playback would be a significant selling point?
E.g., the iPad is 1024x768 at ~130dpi, plays SD video at 1024x576, even though the Apple Store pegs HD video at 1280x720 for Apple TV; Apple don't do that resolution below 13" laptops at ~115dpi, which is a lot of extra size, weight, and outlay…
Yet handheld dot pitches make HD capability easily achievable in MID form factors:
1280x720 @160dpi = 8x4.5"
1920x1080 @190dpi = 10.1x5.7"
Either of these would even be large enough, including bezel, to incorporate a slimline optical drive; but the one BD portable so far, the Panasonic DMP-B15, still expects you to accept downscaling to 1024x600 on its 8.9" screen.
So what's stopping the manufacturers? Do the screens not exist? Is true HD portable playback too niche a market, or is the bigger issue battery life, either to power the screen itself (in which case AMOLED would help?), or chips that don't actually choke on rendering the extra pixels?
So after all that, my question is: how long before we see devices (MID tablets, PMPs, or even plain BluRay portables) that meet HD specs of the types I defined above?
Sanity Clause: from *real* name brands, on UK shelves, that I can actually try before I buy, and get my money back under the Sale of Goods Act if it packs up.
On handheld devices these days, screen dot pitch seems relatively high: an iPhone is 480x320 at >160dpi; some Android 2.1 devices, and the Cowon V5, are 800x480 on a 4.8/5" diag, say 190dpi?
But look away from handhelds, and dpi drops significantly. The 21.5" screen I'm writing this on is one of the smallest 1080p desktop monitors around, yet that's still only ~105dpi. Portables are a little higher, but a 10.1" 1024x600 Atom netbook is still <120dpi, while the 11.6" 768p Acer Aspire 1410 tops out at ~135dpi.
Now some of this might be accounted for by how far away you're expected to be viewing the screen from, but most people can touch their monitor from where they're sitting, while a phone/PMP can be as far away as in the hand at the end of your arm, so there's not *that* much difference?
However, what's really surprising me is that the emerging class of MID devices seems so far to be stuck with the desktop/laptop, rather than handheld, pixel densities, even though I would expect that native HD, as opposed to handhelds' SD, video playback would be a significant selling point?
E.g., the iPad is 1024x768 at ~130dpi, plays SD video at 1024x576, even though the Apple Store pegs HD video at 1280x720 for Apple TV; Apple don't do that resolution below 13" laptops at ~115dpi, which is a lot of extra size, weight, and outlay…
Yet handheld dot pitches make HD capability easily achievable in MID form factors:
1280x720 @160dpi = 8x4.5"
1920x1080 @190dpi = 10.1x5.7"
Either of these would even be large enough, including bezel, to incorporate a slimline optical drive; but the one BD portable so far, the Panasonic DMP-B15, still expects you to accept downscaling to 1024x600 on its 8.9" screen.
So what's stopping the manufacturers? Do the screens not exist? Is true HD portable playback too niche a market, or is the bigger issue battery life, either to power the screen itself (in which case AMOLED would help?), or chips that don't actually choke on rendering the extra pixels?
So after all that, my question is: how long before we see devices (MID tablets, PMPs, or even plain BluRay portables) that meet HD specs of the types I defined above?
Sanity Clause: from *real* name brands, on UK shelves, that I can actually try before I buy, and get my money back under the Sale of Goods Act if it packs up.
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