Pixel Density on PCs; Why You So Low!

Posted by pete42 on March 15, 2012 11:39 pm 15

The recent trend in mobile is to create displays at very high resolution in a very small space. The iPhone 4's display and qHD displays on Android somewhat started this. Now Android phones are moving to 720p displays and the newly released iPad has over 3 million pixels in a 10 inch display. The mobile industry has moved incredibly fast in increasing its display technology and I started to wonder my PCs have not had the same rapid increase. Is it a cost issue or is it just that the focus of manufacturers is now mobile.

I first started to wonder this when I got an iPhone 4 which had a resolution pretty close to my 6 year old MacBook Pro that I was still using at the time. But then when I recently acquired a Galaxy Nexus I started to think of why my New 13-inch MacBook Air only has a 1440 x 900 resolution when why 4.65 inch phone had a 720p display.

As far as I know, there exists displays that have a high pixel count but those displays always seem to be high in size such as 20 inches or so. As far as laptops go, the resolution for a good display seems to be 1080p. These aren't really low resolution but for a 15 inch display it seems quite lack luster compared to a display like the new iPad which has a greater resolution at a smaller size. So it technically possible to have a much higher resolution at 15 inches but why hasn't it really happened.

For a few years now computers have become more of a commodity item and prices are extremely low compared to 5 or 10 years ago. This might explain why manufacturers choose lower resolution displays since it keeps the cost low. Also mobile has exploded and companies have invested heavily into getting into the market which is generating a lot of innovation. Theses are the two reasons I believe my MacBook Air only has a 1440 x 900 screen when it could clearly have a display similar to the new iPad.

It saddens me to think that innovations from mobile are not making their way to the PC faster. For instance, why hasn't AMOLED made a big appearance in laptops. For instance, this new wave of ultrabooks would benefit from AMOLED with its lower power draw than LCD displays. I use mainly Apple computers on a daily basis which usually is lagging in the super cutting edge of PCs but most Windows computers are still behind some aspects of mobile. Hopefully manufactures will use Windows on ARM to bring some of their mobile innovations to the PC world.

For now, I'll continue to hope for better displays and the day where I can get an ARM ultrabook with an AMOLED display of ridiculous resolution. Samsung could make it and call it the Samsung Galaxy Laptop HD Touch with Keyboard. Leave a replay with your thoughts on the resolution an screen quality of current PCs.