Most of the popular smartphones in the market at the moment feature 1280×720 resolutions, but that might just change soon. Japanese components and electronics giant Sharp is waiting to unveil its 1080p displays for phones and tablets and has announced that it has begun mass production of 5 inch full HD displays for smartphones. With the increased resolution to 1920×1080, the displays will have a pixel density of 443ppi, which is a mind blowing increase over current standards. To establish a comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S III’s 4.8” display features 720p resolution and 306ppi, while the iPhone 5 has a 4” screen with 1136×640 resolution and 326ppi.
According to Sharp, it has made several changes to the new LCD panels which are going to have a new pixel design and are manufactured in a modified and more intelligent process that gives rise to impressively high pixel density. CG-Silicon technology is behind the crisper text along with crystal clear maps and sharper and more vivid HD images. The new displays have been tailored for greater power efficiency and thinness, and open up a plethora of opportunities for app developers and manufacturers to fit in more content in comparison to similar sized displays.
Currently, Sharp is engaged in produced 4” IPS displays for the iPhone 5, which already features an eye popping pixel density with vivid images and crisp text. The company is reported to be behind schedule for the production of the iPhone 5 displays, but it has issued a statement that it is back on track and can cope with higher demands for iPhone production. Sharp began producing the 5” 1080p displays towards the end of September at Kameyama in Japan and mass production is expected to begin later in October. It will be interesting to see which companies will be the first ones to adopt the full HD displays. The likely candidates are the upcoming Galaxy devices from Samsung or the new devices in the One series from HTC.
One concern that the large displays will cause is battery life. The Galaxy Nexus and the One series of phones reportedly have poor battery life because of their huge displays and unless something drastic is done about that, it will only get worse with larger screens. The best way is to provide larger batteries as the alternate, using underpowered processors, will only make the situation worse by causing lag and other issues.
