Do they exist? I love the hyper low pixel pitch of my dad's MacBook Pro 15" (1680x1050) and my friend's MBP 17" (1920x1200), and of course there's the new iPad with its phenomenal Retina display. Are there displays of less than 20 inches with such high pixel densities? I would love a 20" 1920x1200 monitor or hell, just take the 17" out of the MBP and slap it in a frame, but do such things exist? And is it possible to take a laptop monitor out of a dead laptop (from ebay maybe?) and wire it up to work as a real DVI or displayport monitor?
On laptops, certainly, though only in "premium" laptops for which a fortune is charged. It's mainly a gimmick feature on such a small screen (e.g: 13" Sony 1920x1080) To be honest, while a better pixel pitch is nice to have, on the distances at which a desktop display is used there's little to no perceivable difference, which is why 20" monitors tend to run 1600x900 max. The highest pixel pitch you'll generally see is 2560x1440 at 27", or maybe a 21/22" 1080p screen. This is even before you consider how Windows scales at high DPI (IE: reportedly not well). I believe that with the correct connection/adapter you would be able to run a laptop's display sans-laptop, and I'm sure there's a project log or two with such a setup.
I agree, But higher DPI is nice. But because VERY few people uses a higher DPI, software aren't tested under such condition, and this is where you have problems: From missing menu options (out of the screen), to text going out of buttons, text cut, blurry images, icons, and even text (depending on how the software is made), are some of the few issues. Even Microsoft doesn't pay much attention to it, but I find Microsoft is the only one that does provide some sort of effort, o make sure that a higher DPI will make things look nice. I can see that Windows 8 did some improvements (probably for tablet with super high resolutions, like the ASUS Transformer Prime tablet with 1920x1200 (16:10) resolution. And I am sure Office 15, in development now, will also be designed for it. Already the way Metro apps are design by Microsoft guides and WinRT engine, it won't be a problem. Desktop app is another story.
The most useless one I've used is the 1600x768 8" display on the Vaio P netbook, impossible to see anything!
If done correctly, a high PPI display is a beautiful experience. The ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity's 10.1in 1920x1200 display is a great example of this, thanks to the way Android handles display resolution in its APIs, but it's not the only one. The new iPad is also great in this respect, but where I find the iPad falls down is when watching movies - there's an awful lot of wasted space above and below the content. The 16:10 vs 4:3 argument will go on for a long time and it's more horses for courses than anything else... each to their own. I remember the Sony P series netbook very well - I've still got one somewhere - and it could have been beautiful with more thought put into the usability of the display's resolution (rather than just making everything tiny). Don't expect it to stay that way forever, though - I can't say much more than that at the moment.
Oh yes for sure. As soon as high PPI monitors comes in, software developers will (else they'll get a lot of complaints), to test and fix their program under a high DPI envirement, and then you'll get a great experience under Windows.
One of the most annoying things I've come across thus far is just how bad some web images are. There's nothing quite like a high PPI display to show that up in all its ugliness
I just don't see what I'm missing, what's the difference between 100PPI and 300PPI when the monitor is set 3 feet or so away? Both of my monitors are ~90PPI and I can't see individual pixels at the normal desk distance.
eye test perhaps I you have lots of information on screen, more real estate is useful, when it comes to gaming or browsing the web it doesn'y matter so much IMO. I have 2 1080p 15.6" laptops a vaio and a dell, they are superb, particularly when working on the move, I wish they were higher res though as I use 3 screens at the desk and the drop down to 1920 is so limiting, alright for playtime though. 1080p on a 13.1" sounds wonderful, 168dpi, my 15 inchers are 141 dpi and I could certainly handle more, don't know if that might be too much though, love to take a look at one.
Its to do with humans FOV (field of view) With more pixels in a smaller space, the human eye can focus on a lot more screen real estate while looking at only one point. With 24" monitors at standard 1080p, many people find they cant focus on the entire screen all at once. If we had twice that resolution density, the amount of screen they can focus on effectively doubles (when i say amount of screen, I'm basically referring to the number of pixels)
true, thats the problem with getting a new 720p screen android when many apps are optimized for a much lower resolution...
I'm currently using two LED 21.5" LG monitors which are both 1920x1080 and I really like them at this resolution. Pretty sure (for the price of £100 each) that's the best size to resolution ratio you can get at the moment.
To those saying you get more screen real estate with a high resolution on a small screen, that's true, but you'll have to get up ridiculously close to see it - IE: all you'll get is high fidelity, there'll be no increase in what you'll be able to display at a fixed screen size. For a screen to become more useful, you'll need an increase in size as well. For example, the new iPad is very good at displaying photos in a very crisp and clean way - it looks as if it's photo paper, not a pixellated display. However, you'll still need to zoom on webpages and apps cannot display more actual content because you'd need a magnifying glass to see it, and obviously fingers don't suddenly become smaller and more precise either. Same principle with a PC - while I definitely would like to increase my 14" laptop's resolution (1366x768) to something like 1680x1050 as I can read small text on the screen, past a certain point, the only benefit is more clarity, not more space. The new iPad is past this point, and frankly the Android tablets (1280x800) are approximately at this point.
Not quite true. The web is very readable on high PPI Android & iOS tablets because of the way resolution is handled. The web page is formatted in exactly the same way on an ASUS Transformer Prime (1280x800) as it is on the new Transformer Pad Infinity (1920x1200) - although text looks a lot smoother/crisper on the latter. I can't say too much due to NDAs, but a high PPI notebook running Windows doesn't have to have tiny icons & text like the VAIO P series.
OK, so the Transformer Pad I have needs charging up so can't post that photo for the time being, but here's the Transformer Pad Infinity having just loaded the BBC homepage: As you can see, the webpage is more than readable without having to zoom. The same is true when you go into an article - no need to zoom. EDIT: Transformer Pad
