Database Users

1080p on phones?

So I I have been researching extensively and reading many articles about 1080p screens on smartphones..... And I think I have figured it out. The human eye cannot see a difference between a 1080p smartphone and a 720p smartphone, however, there are a few drawbacks to having 1080p on a phone. One of them is battery life. It seems to use much more battery to display a 1080p resolution as opposed to a 720p resolution. And that gets multiplied when you're gaming. Also, applications and games will take up much more space then they did previously if they are optimized for the 1080p resolution. So my question is what do you guys think about the new 1080p smartphone screen Resolution Revolution? I'm hoping it doesn't make it into the Nexus 5, but that's just me.
°N4°

It's a marketing thing. Companies are going to do it because they feel like they have to and to be able to say true HD!! And think of all the tech blogs that will take a new phone down a peg or two for having "last year tech." But ultimately it's another megahertz or megapixel thing.
Sent from my Nexus 4

Endoran said:
It's a marketing thing. Companies are going to do it because they feel like they have to and to be able to say true HD!! And think of all the tech blogs that will take a new phone down a peg or two for having "last year tech." But ultimately it's another megahertz or megapixel thing.
Sent from my Nexus 4
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Reminds me of the old days when Intel just kept upping the clockspeed on their CPU's. So what if the tiny FSB choked the movement of information down to a crawl? The standard consumer didn't know any better. The number was higher, so people bought it. In the end, it's business. You do what sells. Gimmicks sell.
*cough* Siri *cough*

1080P is utterly useless in my opinion. To be honest I can't tell the difference between my HTC One and Nexus 4 in display. 1080P should stick with HDTVs. Imagine a 4K res phone in the future and how useless it is in a 4.7 and 5 inch screen -.-

I don't really understand the need for 1080P either. Hopefully Google realizes this and sticks with 720P for the next Nexus or Moto X phone.

Its a bloody 4-5" screen, 720p looks gorgeous, with that being said, if it costs no extra battery life and performance, than 1080p on a phone is not something worth complaining about.
However when I see 1366x768 on 15.6" laptops, than I am just dissapointed.

Have any of you actually seen a 720p and 1080p screen side by side? You can definitely see a difference...well at least I can. Every time anything gets a spec bump there are always you people saying "what's the point of blah blah blah". The point of it is that its possible so why not. Its a step forward...so we should just keep phones at 720p for as long as they become irrelevant? Should we keep laptop displays at 1080p?
No that's why we have a retina iPad and Macbook and a Chromebook Pixel and a Nexus 10. Just because the difference isn't as vast as 480p-720p doesn't mean its a useless change. A 1080p HD screen looks better than a 720p screen for me and many others and just because you cannot discern the difference doesn't mean it's pointless or useless.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

Serious_Beans said:
Have any of you actually seen a 720p and 1080p screen side by side? You can definitely see a difference...well at least I can. Every time anything gets a spec bump there are always you people saying "what's the point of blah blah blah". The point of it is that its possible so why not. Its a step forward...so we should just keep phones at 720p for as long as they become irrelevant? Should we keep laptop displays at 1080p?
No that's why we have a retina iPad and Macbook and a Chromebook Pixel and a Nexus 10. Just because the difference isn't as vast as 480p-720p doesn't mean its a useless change. A 1080p HD screen looks better than a 720p screen for me and many others and just because you cannot discern the difference doesn't mean it's pointless or useless.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
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I have. There is no difference in my opinion. I don't know if its my eyes or not but 720P and 1080P look different only in displays larger than 10 inches for me personally. To be honest it just puts more stress on battery and/or CPU on gaming since it needs to render at 1920 x 1080.

blahblah13233 said:
I have. There is no difference in my opinion. I don't know if its my eyes or not but 720P and 1080P look different only in displays larger than 10 inches for me personally. To be honest it just puts more stress on battery and/or CPU on gaming since it needs to render at 1920 x 1080.
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U must have sum eye problem there bro, put an HTC one next to HTC one x then tell me u don't see any difference, then I will tell you to see an optician.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

blahblah13233 said:
I have. There is no difference in my opinion. I don't know if its my eyes or not but 720P and 1080P look different only in displays larger than 10 inches for me personally. To be honest it just puts more stress on battery and/or CPU on gaming since it needs to render at 1920 x 1080.
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IMHO the quality of the technology driving the resolution is more important than the res itself. Super Amoled v. Ips+ and such. In most cases however I think a distinguishable difference is present from my gnex to this DNA. And my battery dumps on that device.. Even though we all know the gnex has blah blah blah battery. I get 17hrs on moderate use. Never before. Soo personal preference? Although I'd take the n4 ANY DAY.
Sent from my HTC6435LVW using Tapatalk 2

Tybaltus Prime said:
IMHO the quality of the technology driving the resolution is more important than the res itself. Super Amoled v. Ips+ and such. In most cases however I think a distinguishable difference is present from my gnex to this DNA. And my battery dumps on that device.. Even though we all know the gnex has blah blah blah battery. I get 17hrs on moderate use. Never before. Soo personal preference? Although I'd take the n4 ANY DAY.
Sent from my HTC6435LVW using Tapatalk 2
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More so true. I dont like the oversaturated Super Amoled had after seeing the Galaxy Nexus had. Even if they had a 1080P res. Droid phones usually have better battery but say the Nexus 4 had a 1080P screen and with the battery it has now. It'll die out faster.

I mean 720P to FHD is important on a television sure but, in that situation it's easier to notice the bump in Res. In phones I doubt most consumers would even know the difference between qHD, 720P, and 1080P. If it's possible to add FHD w/o impacting battery+perf significantly then I all for it however if we must suffer with these tiny 3000>2xxxmah batteries then the tradeoff isn't worth it IMO. Increasing battery should be a top priority, the Razr MAXX battery should be in every high end phone.

Reminds me of camera phone megapixel discussions I have had with friends. "I have more megapixels than you do, then my camera is better" which isn't necessarily true. Anything pass 8mp isn't really needed because the majority of us will not be enlarging pictures to the point where the difference is noticeable(I think its 20x20 or 30x30). Also, the lens plays a large role as well but enough of the pixel talk.
720 is like the 8mp phone camera, it'll meet our needs and even exceed them dependent on the technology. 1080p screens just play into peoples ego's and the logic that bigger = better. We are programmed to think that way and the companies play us for the fools that we are.
Instead of a 1080p screen, I'd take a higher capacity battery and a 720p screen any day.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app

Nexus 4 at 720p = 320 ppi. At 1080p it would be 480 ppi. If you think the naked eye at typical viewing distances can resolve the difference with all other things being equal, you need to see a psychiatrist instead of an optician.
Pushing 50% more pixels is going to take more CPU/GPU, hence more battery, again all things being equal. I'll take higher frame rates and lower overhead of 720p every time as those are actually noticeable.
But feel free to buy into the hype of 1080p on on a display the size of a pack of smokes, or 14Mp on a camera sensor the size of a match head. You'll make the marketing suits very happy. (c;

There is a video on YouTube somewhere, on it they are playing the same film on 2 tellys, they are both 42 inches and one is 720p and one is 1080p and just about no one can tell the difference.

I think most are not seeing the difference in resolution between 720/1080p on a phone, but instead seeing different screen technologies and attributing that to the screens resolution... IE - Super Amoled with its over-saturation and great blacks vs LCD IPS, etc.....
°N4°

Is there a difference between 720p and 1080p? Well of course there is, but I don't think its a night and day difference. If I go 1080P on a smartphone I want the screen to be at leat 5.5.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

NardVa said:
Is there a difference between 720p and 1080p? Well of course there is, but I don't think its a night and day difference. If I go 1080P on a smartphone I want the screen to be at leat 5.5.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
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I recommend the LG Optimus G Pro for you. n_n
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Via LG Mako using XDA_Elite App_2

Well, you can see the difference if you hold it 1cm away from your eyes.
we don't really need more than 720p on 4.3-5" displays in my opinion.
It's just ridiculous that 4.7" phones have displays with up to 1920x1080 pixel, yet 15.6" laptops are mostly stuck at 1366x768.
Also, why the hell do we have 27" PC monitors with 1080p? (Sure, there are some with 2560x1440 but those are way too expensive. Hell, I'm not going to pay 800€ for such a monitor)
That's just pure bull****.
Instead of pushing 1080p on phones and 1600p on tablets, they should push the resolution of laptops and desktop computers.

its called advancements and bragging rights of owning something thats better... and for battery life, I bet making a new battery design right now, slimmer and bigger cap....
tech advanced is really picking up right now compare to years ago...

Is there a way to lower the screen resolution from 1080p to 720p?

I hear they lower the res from 1440 to 1080 in the G3 so is there a way to lower the screen resolution in the G2 from 1080p to 720p?
I couldn't find anything about it in search.

Screen resolution of an lCD is a physical attribute, it cannot be changed. You can change the software to renderer the image so you would get a lower resolution data to show, and since android source is available, it is technically possible. I doubt anybody tried, because our device has a adequite computing power to generate 1080p images. On the other hand, lg g3 has almost same power, but it displays almost double size image. For g2, it won't worth the lost of quality.
The issue is, since LCD will display it on its physical resolution(there is no other way), your image quality will be far worse than the down sampled version. For example, if you render the sceen at 720p, and show it on a 720p 5.2" display, you will lose ~%55 of your data, but since you render your source on this resolution, will be sharp, just won't have so much detail. If you display this 720p image in 1080p display however, screen resolution cannot be changed, so your screen will try to calculate the missing %55, and then show you the result. Since there is no original data, it assumes the missing pixels were like the ones around them, which means your result will be blurry.
As a side note, old tube displays does not have a resolution, they can support various resolutions. We used to set resolution to our taste between speed and detail back then.

enigmanp covered the technical aspect of it and I'll just follow up with my own personal experience.
I had a chinese android tablet running at 2048x1536 resolution, the same resolution commonly found in iPad tablets.
My Android tablet sometimes perform sluggish because of the high resolution. Even though the CPU was a quad core 1Ghz, it's still chinese and the GPU wasn't great either. So I lowered the resolution and everything was blurred and not sharp at all (due to the reasons enigmamp explained above). I DID notice an improvement in overall speed, but apps started misbehaving and it was all a huge mess.
Now the only reason I did that was because I found my tablet lacking smoothness/performance. I just don't quite see why you'd want to do that on the G2 since the CPU and GPU can clearly handle even the most intensive 3D games on high detail. Could you please explain?

vPro97 said:
Could you please explain?
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Mainly to save on battery.
enginmanap said:
Screen resolution of an lCD is a physical attribute, it cannot be changed. You can change the software to renderer the image so you would get a lower resolution data to show, and since android source is available, it is technically possible. I doubt anybody tried, because our device has a adequite computing power to generate 1080p images. On the other hand, lg g3 has almost same power, but it displays almost double size image. For g2, it won't worth the lost of quality.
The issue is, since LCD will display it on its physical resolution(there is no other way), your image quality will be far worse than the down sampled version. For example, if you render the sceen at 720p, and show it on a 720p 5.2" display, you will lose ~%55 of your data, but since you render your source on this resolution, will be sharp, just won't have so much detail. If you display this 720p image in 1080p display however, screen resolution cannot be changed, so your screen will try to calculate the missing %55, and then show you the result. Since there is no original data, it assumes the missing pixels were like the ones around them, which means your result will be blurry.
As a side note, old tube displays does not have a resolution, they can support various resolutions. We used to set resolution to our taste between speed and detail back then.
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So why it doesn't get blurry on the G3 then?

If it's to save battery, I doubt you'll see much of a change.
The GPU is working on a smaller load but most of the time it's running at 200 MHz anyway. But I'm no expert, I'm just telling what I know and what I've experienced. I'll head over to the g3 thread to read more!

Reducing the number of pixels would help you to save battery if you are using a phone with AMOLED screen, sadly it is not the case with LG G2. So even by turning the resolution down, you are using pretty much the same amount of battery as you would with full 1080p resolution.
If you want to go ahead with it anyway, there are plenty of apps on the play store which does this. Just search "resolution" in the play store and you'll find them. However I don't think this will help your battery life at all, nor do I recommend it.

Late addition
Well, when i found out this was an option i just had to tinker. I have a G2 that is my daily driver and a S6 for back up. I changed it to 900x1600 480dpi and it works just fine. The camera touch focus is a little off, but otherwise it is sooper smooth now. I also throttle the CPU down. So both together I get a good experience and decent battery life. I know this is a late response, but to anyone out there with root and some lackluster performance might want to give this a shot. I needed to reboot once to correct some keyboard skewing. I also adjusted the height of the keyboard to compensate for the change in real estate. Works like a champ, no real noticeable degradation in viewing pics or videos. I'm going to try this on my Nook Hd+. It needs a shot in the arm (no pun intended).

villain222 said:
Well, when i found out this was an option i just had to tinker. I have a G2 that is my daily driver and a S6 for back up. I changed it to 900x1600 480dpi and it works just fine. The camera touch focus is a little off, but otherwise it is sooper smooth now. I also throttle the CPU down. So both together I get a good experience and decent battery life. I know this is a late response, but to anyone out there with root and some lackluster performance might want to give this a shot. I needed to reboot once to correct some keyboard skewing. I also adjusted the height of the keyboard to compensate for the change in real estate. Works like a champ, no real noticeable degradation in viewing pics or videos. I'm going to try this on my Nook Hd+. It needs a shot in the arm (no pun intended).
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it would be nice if you share a "how to" as well
i tried lowering the resolution on my tablet and G2 with some apps from the playstore - but only thing i got was an unstable device(s)...

desertmod1 said:
I hear they lower the res from 1440 to 1080 in the G3 so is there a way to lower the screen resolution in the G2 from 1080p to 720p?
I couldn't find anything about it in search.
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download terminal
write in terminal :
su [ENTER]
wm size 720x1280 && wm density 220 [ENTER]
new density: new resolution * current dpi / old resolution ( for e.g. 720*1280*480/(1080*1920) = 213), altough i tested, and it seems that 240 is the best (for me), but it looks awful, for me, so i will go back to full hd + 410 dpi
ofc root required )
anyway, please share with us if it will be any battery life improvement

enginmanap said:
As a side note, old tube displays does not have a resolution, they can support various resolutions. We used to set resolution to our taste between speed and detail back then.
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Now I miss those glory days of correcting CRT display alignment and freedom to changes aspect ratio/resolution beyond the DAC supported rate at the expense of mild irreversible eye's retina damage. Lol. :laugh:

Anyone tried downscaling the display to 1080p?

Hi all,
I personally don't think there's much difference between 2.5K and 1080p on a ~5 inch display. Has anyone with root found a way to and tried down scaling the display output to 1080p?
If so do you notice any visible difference and has it noticeably improved battery life?
I'm not convinced how much difference it would make as the display itself would still be physically outputting 2.5K pixels but at least the processing side of things would only need to push 1080p.
Thanks!
Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

I searched for an answer to the same question. I doubt it's have much impact on battery life honestly. The gpu isn't working as hard, but that's not the biggest drain by far. The best reason to do this would be improved performance in gpu-intensive activities like gaming. However with this phone that hardly seems necessary.
(I suppose, theoretically, you might get better battery life during gaming)

1080p won't look nice on this screeeen

omnikai said:
I searched for an answer to the same question. I doubt it's have much impact on battery life honestly. The gpu isn't working as hard, but that's not the biggest drain by far. The best reason to do this would be improved performance in gpu-intensive activities like gaming. However with this phone that hardly seems necessary.
(I suppose, theoretically, you might get better battery life during gaming)
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My guess is the won't matter because the GPU will need to work just as hard. The number of pixels you push to the screen will always need to be converted to the number of pixels the screen is designed for. Pixels are more hardware related than software related.
A screen has several tiny LED's that illuminate to display the image on the screen. The 6p resolution is 2560x1440 which equates to roughly 3.7 million pixels. It has to display 3.7 million pixels. 1080 equates 2.1 million pixels but the 6p has to display 3.7 even if you only push 2.1 million pixels to it.
Depending on how well the Android OS is designed it wouldn't be out of the realm of reason to say that dropping the resolution to 1080 might reduce battery life instead of save it depending on how well the code is reused internally and where the interpretation of scaling happens in the chain.
I talk out my ass a lot so I am only guessing that the above is true.

Downscaling to 1080p won't do much for battery , the pixels still need to be lit, but the GPU will be less stressed, it doesn't have to render those extra pixels with new information, its just upscales

italia0101 said:
Downscaling to 1080p won't do much for battery , the pixels still need to be lit, but the GPU will be less stressed, it doesn't have to render those extra pixels with new information, its just upscales
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That's my understanding as well. It's still rendering at lower resolution, which requires less from the gpu, but then upscales to the native resolution. I'd still suspect this will improve battery while gaming, but not in general use. Entirely direction though.

It won´t look good on the screen, that´s for sure. Downscaling might only be needed if you want to play a heavy game which wouldn´t run fluid enough on the Nexus 6P, due to hardware limitations.

This seems a bit shady imo. Native Resolution @ only Full HD from the box.

Samsung is advertising S8 and S8+ 2960 x 1440p the device defaults to Full HD+ and can be changed to Quad HD+ (WQHD+) in the settings. My concerns are why? Battery life? Better bragging rights concerning performance? I am going to play with one today and will report back on if it makes a difference switching but I wonder if reported battery life from Samsung is going off of Full HD or the full pixel count. It sucks to even have to question this.

Yup I've been posted about this for a few days now. They are being incredibly misleading and they are doing it on purpose to disguise the **** battery life. The Samsung battery life is using FHD I am pretty sure because on their spec sheet they say that the "default" resolution is FHD, which will then be what their rated battery life stats are based on. Of course they then have people comparing the S7 stats vs the S8 but the S7 ones were based on it running its native 1440p resolution because at the time of release, the ability to change resolutions did not exist, it came in Nougat. So effectively Samsung are being extremely sly. You have battery life stated on the S8 which is basically the same as the S7, and what they obviously don't want people to figure out is that the S7's was 1440p and the S8's was 1080.
How much difference that makes will be interesting. It will obviously make less difference on browsing and light use (but might still but noticaeble) and a lot more difference on video and games.
Of course the other issue is they keep touting how good this 1440p display is in all the advertising......but it doesn't run at 1440p by default does it? Noooooo, because the battery is ****!

Why use max hd it's only any use in vr

It uses FHD resolution by default
The Galaxy S8 and S8+ have QHD+ screens like its predecessors. Unlike its predecessors, however, Samsung is tuning down the screen resolution to 1080p by default. This is for power efficiency purposes, as it decreases the number of pixels that need you be rendered. This is the same optimization that Sony used on the Xperia Z5 Premium, but that had a 4K screen.
Of course, when the content calls for it, the Galaxy S8 switches to its native QHD resolution. And you can always set it to use QHD all the time. It’s just something you have to keep in mind if the user interface looks a tad too big for your eyes.
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https://www.slashgear.com/8-things-to-know-about-the-samsung-galaxy-s8-30480276/
I see nothing shady or misleading but that is me.

RMXO said:
https://www.slashgear.com/8-things-to-know-about-the-samsung-galaxy-s8-30480276/
I see nothing shady or misleading but that is me.
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What has an article written by slashgear got to do with Samsungs underhand tactics regarding battery life?
---------- Post added at 08:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:52 PM ----------
bayfisher1958 said:
stock in android 7....can be reset to qhd.
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huh?

I took a few pics and very closely eye balled the settings while going through them. I have a true dedicated theater room I spared no expense on and literally a HUGE freak when it comes to imperfections with any display. Options are HD+ 1480 x 720, FHD+ 2220 x 1080 (out of the box) and WQHD+ 2960 x 1440 and you can tell a difference but it didn't bother me. Obviously the higher resolution is sharp and starts to fall off from there. In a blind test you would be able to notice at regular viewing distance imo however its not at all distracting and my guess is no one will ever question the beauty of the screen at even 720 to hunt down settings outside of people like us. Having said that, when I locked the demo unit it reverted back to WQHD+ so I compared at the screen resolution option right there.

ewokuk said:
What has an article written by slashgear got to do with Samsungs underhand tactics regarding battery life?
---------- Post added at 08:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:52 PM ----------
huh?
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Its your opinion and others that Samsung is underhand tactics with battery life. not everyone feels the same as you.

RMXO said:
Its your opinion and others that Samsung is underhand tactics with battery life. not everyone feels the same as you.
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It's not opinion its fact. If they weren't trying to make it look better than it is, they would provide a like for like comparison with the S7 instead of conveniently showing battery life stats that are almost the same as the S7........and leaving out the key detail that they are completely different resolutions and not comparable at all. It was pretty clear something was up during the reveal event when they VERY quickly flashed up the mah of each battery and then quickly skipped past it without mentioning the battery life at all.
I still don't see what relevance an article by slashgear has to do with anything. It's an article written by slashgear, barely mentions battery at all and provides no comment on the battery stats vs the S7.
Your argument is like saying its our opinion that the earth is round but not everybody believes it.....doesn't matter what they believe, it's just a fact. If they wanted to be open about it, they would have provided battery life stats for the higher resolution so that it can be directly compared to the S7, instead they provide a 1440 screen, go on about thish high resolution screen in all the advertising, then set the default resolution to 1080 and quietly provide battery stats that are based on 1080, but don't actually ever tell you that the stats are based on this, because that would make it clear it isn't a fair comparison to the same stats they provided for the s7.

Umm sorry to break it to you but the Galaxy S7 with Nougat also defaulted to the lower resolution and it made ZERO difference to battery life. There is plenty of reviews and comments about this. Though it does make a difference in some apps and games where the scaling works better at 1080 resolution as higher than that and the assets are so small they are harder to use with a touch screen. So instead of stating facts with no actual facts why don't we wait till some real reviews come out and test the battery before we jump to conclusions.

ewokuk said:
It's not opinion its fact. If they weren't trying to make it look better than it is, they would provide a like for like comparison with the S7 instead of conveniently showing battery life stats that are almost the same as the S7........and leaving out the key detail that they are completely different resolutions and not comparable at all. It was pretty clear something was up during the reveal event when they VERY quickly flashed up the mah of each battery and then quickly skipped past it without mentioning the battery life at all.
I still don't see what relevance an article by slashgear has to do with anything. It's an article written by slashgear, barely mentions battery at all and provides no comment on the battery stats vs the S7.
Your argument is like saying its our opinion that the earth is round but not everybody believes it.....doesn't matter what they believe, it's just a fact. If they wanted to be open about it, they would have provided battery life stats for the higher resolution so that it can be directly compared to the S7, instead they provide a 1440 screen, go on about thish high resolution screen in all the advertising, then set the default resolution to 1080 and quietly provide battery stats that are based on 1080, but don't actually ever tell you that the stats are based on this, because that would make it clear it isn't a fair comparison to the same stats they provided for the s7.
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i never said anything is facts, i said i don't believe what you're saying. You are coming out like its facts, so show me the facts! While I do understand your concerns but you're making it out to be facts when there isn't any yet.
bnathan said:
Umm sorry to break it to you but the Galaxy S7 with Nougat also defaulted to the lower resolution and it made ZERO difference to battery life. There is plenty of reviews and comments about this. Though it does make a difference in some apps and games where the scaling works better at 1080 resolution as higher than that and the assets are so small they are harder to use with a touch screen. So instead of stating facts with no actual facts why don't we wait till some real reviews come out and test the battery before we jump to conclusions.
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BIngo!

The one thing people seem to overlook with lowering the resolution is the positive effect it has on the processor. Samsung may very well have it set at FHD out of the box for better performance power for the general user. Obviously, they also say it very slightly improves battery life - but by all accounts - and even my own experience with my S7 - it's pretty negligible.

If you don't mind, I would love some clarification on the S7's ability to change the resolution:
First: doesn't the display draw power because it needs to produce light? Don't 2 pixels at half brightness create the same amount of light as 1 pixel at full brightness (since this is an OLED screen) or is that single pixel more power efficient because power draw isn't linear?
Second: does it physically turn off pixels or does it just change the DPI because turning off anything but 1/2 looks incredibly bad so I'm assuming it just changes the DPI. If it does just change the DPI than the power draw from the display should not change much but the GPU usage should fall.

Isn't the resolution also a function of the power savings plan settings which was new in the S7? The power savings plan also throttles the SoC and limits data speeds.
my 2 cents

When switching resolutions on my S7 Edge I haven't noticed any battery increase or decrease. So I just keep it at QHD

zathus said:
When switching resolutions on my S7 Edge I haven't noticed any battery increase or decrease. So I just keep it at QHD
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I think it's more about gaining performance, especially in games where you wouldn't really notice the lower resolution anyway. It's also easier on the eyes for some people in certain applications as the UI elements don't shrink so much.
It's nice to have the choice. When I swap between QHD and FHD phones the difference is negligible, certainly you can see a slight sharpness decrease if you look hard enough. Just not enough to warrant the loss in performance for many people.
There is a reason Apple haven't increased their screen resolutions yet. The need just isn't there for the average user. VR is the biggest reason for a higher res, that's something that definitely benefits from it. Again, not everybody has that need.
Personally, I like choice. I'll be switching between both depending on what I am doing.

Highspeed123 said:
I think it's more about gaining performance, especially in games where you wouldn't really notice the lower resolution anyway. It's also easier on the eyes for some people in certain applications as the UI elements don't shrink so much.
...
Personally, I like choice. I'll be switching between both depending on what I am doing.
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I really disagree on most points.
First, the myth that people won't notice the difference, they will. In the near future when screens keep improving, you will notice how bad a low res screen looks so having QHD is nice in future proofing.
The UI elements can be changed by changing the DPI which Samsung did from the Note 4 to the Note 5 (Note 5's UI has smaller elements, they are both 1440p) so there are obviously people at Samsung working to make the UI visible and accessible and the resolution isn't a problem for them.
The performance hit isn't that big to be honest, it comes down to hardware and software optimization, a slight change in DPI will not make much of a difference.
And one last point, it's nice for phones to have great displays because it puts focus on display technology and increases research on those areas.

aalxx said:
I really disagree on most points.
First, the myth that people won't notice the difference, they will. In the near future when screens keep improving, you will notice how bad a low res screen looks so having QHD is nice in future proofing.
The UI elements can be changed by changing the DPI which Samsung did from the Note 4 to the Note 5 (Note 5's UI has smaller elements, they are both 1440p) so there are obviously people at Samsung working to make the UI visible and accessible and the resolution isn't a problem for them.
The performance hit isn't that big to be honest, it comes down to hardware and software optimization, a slight change in DPI will not make much of a difference.
And one last point, it's nice for phones to have great displays because it puts focus on display technology and increases research on those areas.
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I agree, I wasn't saying that phones shouldn't have a QHD screen. I was merely suggesting that it's nice to have a choice and Samsung has provided it. There is of course a slight difference between the two but because of the smaller screens phones have, there comes a point where the resolution doesn't make a difference anymore. 1080p to 4k on a TV is nice but even that isn't a huge leap, even on my 75 Sony.
The real difference comes from other areas such as colour and HDR. QHD is pretty much the max you'll ever need unless it's for VR.
I have had many phones and there is only a small difference between QHD and FHD but it is there. I will be using QHD for browsing the Internet and photo viewing etc and I will drop to FHD for gaming. Options are a good thing.

The difference in battery use between FHD and QHD is so small it's not really noticed. The reason FHD is default is because a lot of apps look sbetter in FHD.

ewokuk said:
but it doesn't run at 1440p by default does it? Noooooo, because the battery is ****!
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Is that statement backed up by real world testing of S8 battery life or are just guessing?

dezborders said:
Is that statement backed up by real world testing of S8 battery life or are just guessing?
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Very educated guessing for 2 reasons.
First: small battery/screen size ratio. Compared to the 3600mAh for 5.5in on the S7 Edge, the S8's 3000mAh for 5.8in is ridiculous.
Second: the new design. This happened the last time Samsung changed the design with the S6, the battery life was horrid on that. Plus this design seems to rely a lot on looking a thin and slick phone from the future and that has probably compromised the battery life.
Edit: and also the 10nm process isn't enough to make a difference, you could remove the processor from the S7 Edge entirely and there wouldn't be a difference comparable to 600mAh because the main power draw on any phone is the display.

1080p Display???

Hey guys, so I'm sold on the OnePlus 5 in every way but there's one glaring con that has me on the fence here. My current phone is a Nexus 6, and I LOVE the size and QHD display! Now, I realize that they don't really make 6" phones much anymore....... but the thing that really has me unsure us the 1080p display in the 5. It's an upgrade for me in every way, but a downgrade in screen resolution. My question here, is there a HUGE noticeable difference in the 1080p panel when compared to a QHD one?

H4X0R46 said:
Hey guys, so I'm sold on the OnePlus 5 in every way but there's one glaring con that has me on the fence here. My current phone is a Nexus 6, and I LOVE the size and QHD display! Now, I realize that they don't really make 6" phones much anymore....... but the thing that really has me unsure us the 1080p display in the 5. It's an upgrade for me in every way, but a downgrade in screen resolution. My question here, is there a HUGE noticeable difference in the 1080p panel when compared to a QHD one?
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When I had the 3T the display was amazing. I'm my opinion 1080p for a device is solid. Doesn't drain battery like the s8.

I had a (casual) look at the OnePlus 5 yesterday and didn't notice the "missing" pixels when compared to my Nexus 6P. There is a good chance the OnePlus 5 will be next phone very soon.
Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Apparently the 5's screen has improved some what on the 3T despite being essentially the same panel?
I too am disappointed at the lack of a QHD screen but I guess it's a trade off between battery drain and price.

Yeah I'm trying to think hard on this one, it's smaller, has a lower res screen, and doesn't have stereo front facing speakers like my Nexus 6. Everything else about it runs circles around this device though. Decisions decisions.....
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

Having gone from Nexus 6 to OP3 and soon to OP5, I don't see the lower resolution as an issue. If comparing the screens of OP3 and N6 side by side, I'm having really hard time seeing any real difference. If I put the phone right next to my face, then yes I can see the pixels on the OP3. In normal use, there is no visible difference to me at all. So if you want to see the difference, then by pixel peeping you can see it. In real world use, for me at least the lower PPI makes no difference at all. The lack of stereo speakers when going from N6 to OP5 is a sort of bummer, but the performance and better battery life will easily make up for it.

alukarulz said:
When I had the 3T the display was amazing. I'm my opinion 1080p for a device is solid. Doesn't drain battery like the s8.
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cant say that, my s8+ has an awesome Battery

i went from a n6p tp a op3t and didnt notice any problems with the screen, no different from normal use at all. i never regretted the decision to move...
The stereo speakers i do miss, but it is what it is

Went from a Nexus 6P and Note 4 to the OP5 and the display it just fine in terms of size and quality. I like it very much, great color balance, sharp and saturated enough for my liking.
Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

Yes, the 1080 resolution is a major draw back for me. Because it's a pentile display the effective resolution is only around 800-900. It's not good enough.
---------- Post added at 05:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:02 PM ----------
alukarulz said:
When I had the 3T the display was amazing. I'm my opinion 1080p for a device is solid. Doesn't drain battery like the s8.
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A QHD display drains very little more battery than a 1080 display...
https://youtu.be/jBPcCETBGgI

Used my OnePlus 5 for a day, no issues with the 1080p display compared to my LG G3. Was expecting a decent downgrade, but honestly don't notice it at all and can't tell the difference.

H4X0R46 said:
Hey guys, so I'm sold on the OnePlus 5 in every way but there's one glaring con that has me on the fence here. My current phone is a Nexus 6, and I LOVE the size and QHD display! Now, I realize that they don't really make 6" phones much anymore....... but the thing that really has me unsure us the 1080p display in the 5. It's an upgrade for me in every way, but a downgrade in screen resolution. My question here, is there a HUGE noticeable difference in the 1080p panel when compared to a QHD one?
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Unless you frequently use VR, you will not notice the difference without looking closely. The display is the same one as the 3T because it's a very good panel.

Batfink33 said:
Yes, the 1080 resolution is a major draw back for me. Because it's a pentile display the effective resolution is only around 800-900. It's not good enough.
---------- Post added at 05:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:02 PM ----------
A QHD display drains very little more battery than a 1080 display...
https://youtu.be/jBPcCETBGgI
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S8+ in FHD mode still has QHD display matrix. So, this test shows how well Samsung "emulated" FHD display using QHD one and what is the gain from such operation. QHD display has to drive all it's pixels even if GPU would calculate resolution for FHD one. So, this test can be applied for S8+ FHD/QHD modes...
Regarding display resolutions, I am kinda agree with Apple "retina" reasons - as long at it more then 300 dpi it should be fine for looking at normal distance.

Vlad_z said:
S8+ in FHD mode still has QHD display matrix. So, this test shows how well Samsung "emulated" FHD display using QHD one and what is the gain from such operation. QHD display has to drive all it's pixels even if GPU would calculate resolution for FHD one. So, this test can be applied for S8+ FHD/QHD modes...
Regarding display resolutions, I am kinda agree with Apple "retina" reasons - as long at it more then 300 dpi it should be fine for looking at normal distance.
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That's not true. In FHD mode on the S8 every other Pixel is completely turned off(the advantage of an OLED display where this can be done) so it is true 1080. You are getting all the battery savings a true 1080 display is getting.

Batfink33 said:
That's not true. In FHD mode on the S8 every other Pixel is completely turned off(the advantage of an OLED display where this can be done) so it is true 1080. You are getting all the battery savings a true 1080 display is getting.
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Simple math:
Every other pixel of 1440 will give you 720 pixels.
Every 1 of 3 will yield 960 pixels - still not 1080.
Do you know how Samsung actually downscale 1440 into 1080?
If it will shutdown pixels, then brightness needs to be compensated by increasing current through remaining pixels... I don't have this information, do you?
PS: after looking on some examples (closeups of screen shots of S7 HD, FHD and QHD modes) I think that Samsung just uses zooming function to scale display resolutions and does not shutdown pixels. And if this is the case, my previous post still stands - all gain Samsung demonstrated by lowering resolution is just from GPU rendering lesser pixels.

Vlad_z said:
Simple math:
Every other pixel of 1440 will give you 720 pixels.
Every 1 of 3 will yield 960 pixels - still not 1080.
Do you know how Samsung actually downscale 1440 into 1080?
If it will shutdown pixels, then brightness needs to be compensated by increasing current through remaining pixels... I don't have this information, do you?
PS: after looking on some examples (closeups of screen shots of S7 HD, FHD and QHD modes) I think that Samsung just uses zooming function to scale display resolutions and does not shutdown pixels. And if this is the case, my previous post still stands - all gain Samsung demonstrated by lowering resolution is just from GPU rendering lesser pixels.
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Batfink is correct, it works by actually switching off pixels on the display. There's even an app on the Playstore that'll do the same thing if you have a rooted phone.

B3501 said:
Batfink is correct, it works by actually switching off pixels on the display. There's even an app on the Playstore that'll do the same thing if you have a rooted phone.
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Any references to prove this statement? or arguments?
PS: sometimes ago, I had asked author of Battery Calibration app (distributed through Play Store and sure needed root) where did he get an idea that by deleting certain file in Android OS he will force battery re-calibration process... His reply was - on XDA forum in thread which was using reference to his application as remedy for battery calibration issue. See where I am going - one myth got dragged from place to place and later on many use it as a source of true knowledge without even testing/questioning it.

Vlad_z said:
Any references to prove this statement? or arguments?
PS: sometimes ago, I had asked author of Battery Calibration app (distributed through Play Store and sure needed root) where did he get an idea that by deleting certain file in Android OS he will force battery re-calibration process... His reply was - on XDA forum in thread which was using reference to his application as remedy for battery calibration issue. See where I am going - one myth got dragged from place to place and later on many use it as a source of true knowledge without even testing/questioning it.
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This article shows how the performance is affected by the resolution change....
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...iny-new-hardware-meets-old-software-habits/5/
I'm not saying the battery doesn't or does drain more, only that the resolution is actually changed because it is. It's really quite simple with an AMOLED screen to turn a certain amount of pixels off and it's a native Android thing to be able to do it.
It's the same as Android TV boxes being able to output at say 720or 1080.

B3501 said:
This article shows how the performance is affected by the resolution change....
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...iny-new-hardware-meets-old-software-habits/5/
I'm not saying the battery doesn't or does drain more, only that the resolution is actually changed because it is. It's really quite simple with an AMOLED screen to turn a certain amount of pixels off and it's a native Android thing to be able to do it.
It's the same as Android TV boxes being able to output at say 720or 1080.
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This is a fact that resolution will affect performance (FPS). GPU has to render much less pixels in FHD vs QHD.
I am arguing how FHD got scaled to QHD matrix. Let's make an experiment, set resolution to even lowest setting like 720 - and if Samsung shuts down every other pixel then you should see black dots on white background. (because only half of QHD pixels should be lit according to your argument). And remaining pixels should double current consumption to keep up with overall screen brightness... is it what we seeing?
Maybe it's just like with PC monitor. Video card just scales lower resolution into HD monitor with high pixel count. So, I have 4k monitor but when I scale 800x640 resolution into it I see native pixels got combined into HUGE one and there is no black voids in between native white/lit pixels. Though every pixel on display can be controlled independently...

Batfink33 said:
Yes, the 1080 resolution is a major draw back for me. Because it's a pentile display the effective resolution is only around 800-900. It's not good enough.
---------- Post added at 05:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:02 PM ----------
A QHD display drains very little more battery than a 1080 display...
https://youtu.be/jBPcCETBGgI
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Either ways they don't have that kind of technology yet. probably the 5T will have it. Lets nag the oneplus for QHD in the forums until they give it to us... Didn't they say that they listen to their community.