Database Users

OS not taking advantage of higher screen res?

So I now own both the N1 and the Archos 5 android tablet. Despite their obvious screen size differences, they're both 800x480 screens. Yet the Archos has more real estate over the N1. The main issue is that android on the N1 is scaling everthing up, so we end up with a home screen that doesn't display anything more than what is found on the first gen android 320x480 phones, despite having almost 2/3rds more screen res lengthwise. That's not the case on the Archos, which means icons and text are smaller than on the N1, so they're not taking up as much space as on the N1. See the attached picture to see what I mean. The scale being used on the archos is still very usable and not significantly smaller than what is found on the N1. I think options to adjust icon and/or text sizes would allow much better use of the larger and higer res screens on these new phones, because right now, I don't think we're getting the real benefits of these improvements over the previous generations.

Its a capacitive touch mobile device... making things smaller is really a bad idea as it will hurt usability...

You can try setting to density lower and see how it looks.
Having the same scale in ui of N1 as in Archos would make things very tiny.
Smaller ui components would really not be usable with fingers.

Try the More Icons app. Makes your screen a lot more appealing and cleaner, though sometimes I get fat fingers and poke the wrong icon, but that doesn't happen too much.

A follow up to this issue: there's an app on the market called Screen Resolution that shows the actual pixels being used on the screen. The first pic is of the Archos 5 and N1 and the second is the G1. On the A5 and N1, the UI isn't taking full advantage of the true resolution of their screens. The A5 uses close to the screen's actual res, which is why elements on screen appear generally smaller and there's more on screen than on the N1, while still quite finger friendly BTW. I still think options to scale the UI for user preference would be a nice addition to the OS, especially when even higher res screens come out, and we end up with a a 1024x768 screen running the UI at a mere 640x480, or something to that effect.

You have to remember that the A5 has a much larger screen than the N1, even tho they run the same resolution. I think if you were to scale the N1 to its true resution, you would not be able to use the touch screen as good.

I'm not talking about going A5 size on the N1, but the fact is the UI isn't taking full advantage of the N1's screen capabilities.

A good comparison is like trying to your PC desktop @ 1920 x 1080 on a 17" compared to a 42" screen with the default 96 DPI setting in windows vista/7. I actually run 1920 x 1080 native on my 17 inch laptop and with the default 96 DPI everything from the text to the icons are really tiny. I have to take the DPI up to 133 (40% bigger) for it to be even usable. Well unless your idea of pleasure is squinting just trying to see the mouse pointer, never mind reading any text.
Which is exactly why the icons on the N1 are much larger (use more pixels per icon) than on the A5. You have to remember that although they both have the same resolution, the N1 is a much physically smaller screen. As you have linked on your picture with the A5 and N1 side by side, you can see on teh A5 the icons is 7 icon by 5 icons (7x5) while on the N1 it's 5x4 icons, but viewing the icons are of similar physical size. If you "used the full capabilities" on the N1's resolution as you suggest, by putting a 7x5 icon grid, the icons are going to be too small. Well everyone has their preferences, but unless the typical user have baby finger people in general are going to have a hard time just trying to press the correct icon and not the one next to it.

I'm not specifically talking about having the N1 display at the same DPI as the A5, but to have an option to change resolution and scaling. The UI running at 320x533 seems arbitrarily low for the UI. Something like 400(or 480)x640 would quite usable and provide the homescreen with additional realestate. Frankly, wanting the OS to be able to provide for higher resolutions along with options to enlarge elements and text on the N1 is perfectly reasonable.

I don't think you understand, the UI does run at 800x420, just because the icons are the same size as a lower resolution device doesn't make the UI lower resolution overall.

Bizarre request for Omnia 7 owners

Hey everybody!
I hope you guys are enjoying your Omnias. I'm thinking about getting one, but I already have a Galaxy S and am suffering the dreaded SAMOLED Pentile issue. That is, that the screen Samsung uses has a lower pixel count than standard LCD screens. On Android this is pretty awful and makes text look fuzzy at small sizes.
Now, I'd like to see how WP7 looks on the screen, especially since everyone is raving about how awesome it looks. It might be that Samsung has tweaked the display so that it looks better.
So, my request is close-up pictures of the display while it's on. Showing websites (zoomed out), pictures and the main menu. Preferrably taken with a camera that supports "macro mode" so that we can clearly see how sharp (or not) the display actually looks. I'd love to see it in person, but apparently the phone hasn't arrived in Spain yet.
I'd really appreciate this, so thanks in advance to anyone that goes ahead with my request!

Spybreak said:
Hey everybody!
I hope you guys are enjoying your Omnias. I'm thinking about getting one, but I already have a Galaxy S and am suffering the dreaded SAMOLED Pentile issue. That is, that the screen Samsung uses has a lower pixel count than standard LCD screens. On Android this is pretty awful and makes text look fuzzy at small sizes.
Now, I'd like to see how WP7 looks on the screen, especially since everyone is raving about how awesome it looks. It might be that Samsung has tweaked the display so that it looks better.
So, my request is close-up pictures of the display while it's on. Showing websites (zoomed out), pictures and the main menu. Preferrably taken with a camera that supports "macro mode" so that we can clearly see how sharp (or not) the display actually looks. I'd love to see it in person, but apparently the phone hasn't arrived in Spain yet.
I'd really appreciate this, so thanks in advance to anyone that goes ahead with my request!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These reviews by GSMArena and PhoneArena should give you an idea, and has some close shots. While zoomed out webpages does look pixelated, the contrast and colours of the Omnia 7 is just stunning. I personally just zoom abit if it gets pixelated, plus I dont like reading text thats too small anyway.
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i8700_omnia_7-review-522.php
http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Samsung-Omnia-7-Review_id2559

Hello,
If you still need I may try to take some photos of it this weekend...
I used to have HTC Diamond (2 devices : touch and Pro), then I get an iPhone 4, and now the omnia7 : the screen is really really better on the Omnia, I was very impressed by the quality of it (video playback is very nice, pictures too, websites are ok)
See Ya'

DarkAngelFR said:
Hello,
If you still need I may try to take some photos of it this weekend...
I used to have HTC Diamond (2 devices : touch and Pro), then I get an iPhone 4, and now the omnia7 : the screen is really really better on the Omnia, I was very impressed by the quality of it (video playback is very nice, pictures too, websites are ok)
See Ya'
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would really appreciate it if you would I have seen the online reviews but none of them have pics of enough quality for me to see how text is rendered on the screen.
I really hate how pixelated everything looks on the Galaxy S. As soon as I get close to the screen it's like I'm looking through a net. The screen on the Omnia is the same, but if Microsoft has better font rendering it might be less noticeable.
Thanks!

No way to overpass a hardware limitation with any software. If you found very small text being difficult to read on your Galaxy S, it would be the same on Omnia 7. However, in contrast to Android, Windows Phone 7 is designed with the AMOLED tech in mind. All text in the default UI are big enough (even too big for some tastes ) avoiding described flaw being noticeable. Still in the browser or bad compound third party apps with too small fonts it would be the same as Galaxy S.
Btw, IMHO this is no issue. I don’t like to torture myself by reading so small texts on an already small phone screen anyway, so just zoom in is used here .

Well - on the "no fix in software is possible" - not quite. Microsoft ClearType is used on RGB LCDs to make text look smoother by changing the color of pixels based on the known layout of the colored subpixel-elements.
The problem with the AMOLED Screens seems to be that they don't have red and blue in every pixel (only green). Perhaps using clever software it would be possible to avoid fuzzy rendering of text and Microsoft developed WP7 with AMOLED screens in mind.
So it would be possible but I guess there are no optimizations of that kind. I had no problems with my Omnia 7 up to now so I'd just say it's not that big of a deal.

I just have swapped from Galaxy to Omnia and the I do like the display I have no problem reading large or small fonts between the 2. I have not had a sunny day yet to test this but I found on the Galaxy that the auto brightness always had a little lag I would always need to remove my sunnies for a couple of seconds to see what I was doing then the phone would kick in and I could put them on. The Omnia on black background is really designed for reading text large or small.

Hi, I've taken you some pics, but the "attach too" limits the size of an attachment. I can email them to you or if you have a minute to suggest a better way to upload them I'll be happy to give it a shot.
Cheers
Brian

Tail Happy said:
Hi, I've taken you some pics, but the "attach too" limits the size of an attachment. I can email them to you or if you have a minute to suggest a better way to upload them I'll be happy to give it a shot.
Cheers
Brian
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Click to collapse
Thanks! I actually forgot to update the thread. I have finally bought an Omnia for myself, decided to take the risk So I no longer need the pics.
It is true, it is the same screen as on the Galaxy S and the dreaded pentile is there. However, due to the metro UI it bothers me a lot less and it does make everything pop out more and seem very attractive.
WP7 renders fonts better than android so browsing is a lot easier on the Omnia's screen than it was on the Galaxy. Overall I'm really happy with the device and I like it a lot more than I like the Galaxy.

Grainy Screen

I just received my Xoom WiFi today. Background info : I own an iPhone and a Macbook Pro. When I first started up the Xoom, the first thing I noticed was that the honeycomb graphics were a little pixelated. Then I noticed the same thing in the music players - the album covers seemed pixelated.
Am I just spoiled by the retina display? Even the camera seemed like it wasn't 'HD'.

No one has a reply?

The xoom has a higher resolution but the screen is not as vibrant as others. Not sure how you would see pixels b/c of that. I dont see any pixels but I do only have 20/20 vision and view at a normal distance.

I dont notice any pixelation.
Compared to my girlfriends ipad2, the colours are not quite as saturated. I do notice the blacks seem better on the xoom and easier to read text while a webpage is scrolling.
There seems to be 2 different screens used on the xooms. The dmesg output says I have the AU optronics one.

DroidBee said:
...Am I just spoiled by the retina display? Even the camera seemed like it wasn't 'HD'.
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Click to collapse
Yes... But, I too own an iPhone 4 & Touch 4G, but you forgetting about the pixel density, not just resolution. In other words, a smaller display size given the same resolution will appear to the eye, to yield better visual results (notwitstanding color, screen technology, etc..)...
A fairer comparison would be between the Xoom and an iPad - where the Xoom has better resolution but a larger display surface...
As for album art, it really depends on how the software renders the graphic & its stored size, in which case I agree with you - Apple has a better design point...
Make sense?
Best to you,
John

Thanks for the replies!
I was talking about the album art of the sample media on it.

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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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:

Impact on battery life - FHD+ v.s QHD+

Hello,
I searched around this forum and didn't find anyone talking about this topic yet, so thought I would start one. Has anyone done any tests or observed the difference in battery usage between FHD+ v.s QHD+ screen resolution on their S8/S8+? Also, can anyone actually tell the difference between the two different resolutions?
Thanks

I can tell a very slight difference in resolution, my fiance has the same phone, so I set them to the two different resolutions and pulled up the same webpage. Next to each other the text is crisper, but not worth the hour and a half SoT that I lose for it.

I can see a clear difference when reading a pdf version of a tabloid size newspaper. Fonts are too fuzzy when using FHD but on QHD they look sharp.

On FHD+ I often notice the icons are fuzzy, they have blurred edges, et cetera. Did not notice any battery impact so far though.

If you want to see clear difference, use it with VR glasses, here even QHD is not enough, you can still clearly see individual pixels even in QHD and forget about FHD, the pixelation is actually distracting. As far as battery goes, I think it depends on a usage: If you play graphic intensive game I can see how rendering extra pixels can affect battery, but often this may be offset by higher frame rate. In more static displays I don't see how this should be making much of the difference, I think all pixels light up regardless of the resolution and it just takes more GPU power to process more pixels, but I could be wrong.

fonix232 said:
On FHD+ I often notice the icons are fuzzy, they have blurred edges, et cetera. Did not notice any battery impact so far though.
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Click to collapse
I noticed fuzzy icons on my s8 also however I am using a custom icon set and nova launcher. I was able to fix the fuzzyness by re-selecting/resetting the icons for each shortcut on my launcher. Now regardless of the resolution chosen the icons stay sharp. Maybe the same will work for you if you're also using custom icons that is.

JaeMelo said:
I noticed fuzzy icons on my s8 also however I am using a custom icon set and nova launcher. I was able to fix the fuzzyness by re-selecting/resetting the icons for each shortcut on my launcher. Now regardless of the resolution chosen the icons stay sharp. Maybe the same will work for you if you're also using custom icons that is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For some reason, even though I'm the highest level tinkerer when it comes to that, I prefer to stick to the stock launcher and icons with the S8. So it was with stock icons.

I know this is the S8 forums, but I've been testing this for the past week or so on my S8+, and I consistently get an extra 1-1.5 hours of SoT when its set at FHD+ vs QHD+. I personally can't tell a difference between the two 99% of the time. Everything is still pretty sharp for me on Nova and a custom icon set (Vopor).
Still not sure which resolution to settle with. It's nice having the extra SoT, but I also feel like I should be making the most out of the gorgeous screen; even if I can't tell a difference most of the time lol... I get about 4-4.5hrs total SoT on QHD+, as opposed to 5-5.5hrs SoT at FHD+.

I have the Canadian Snapdragon version. I set it to FHD+ once and got about 1-1.5 hours more SOT. The text is noticeably more fuzzy, like it's always out of focus. I already get 6 hours SOT with WQHD+ so I just stuck with that.

pete4k said:
If you want to see clear difference, use it with VR glasses, here even QHD is not enough, you can still clearly see individual pixels even in QHD and forget about FHD, the pixelation is actually distracting. As far as battery goes, I think it depends on a usage: If you play graphic intensive game I can see how rendering extra pixels can affect battery, but often this may be offset by higher frame rate. In more static displays I don't see how this should be making much of the difference, I think all pixels light up regardless of the resolution and it just takes more GPU power to process more pixels, but I could be wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You actually hit it pretty close. All pixels on the screen are used regardless. Just a bigger sample size with FHD. However, QHD will use a little more battery if you are changing the image on the display. For the fact that it has to draw that many more pixels each time the image changes. Which is millions of pixels. But I believe a lot of static image changing is done by the cpu and not the gpu. where gpu is used mainly for constant motion on screen.
But honestly part of the reason they have such high resolution is for VR. That and to make more sense of taking UHD pics and videos. Most people won't notice a working difference between the two through regular use unless they keep it really close to their face, or have very good eye sight.
So you will see it use some extra battery. Not a detrimental amount more unless you are a heavy user of games and whatnot. Or if you force GPU rendering, then you should see a big difference in battery

RevoWution said:
I know this is the S8 forums, but I've been testing this for the past week or so on my S8+, and I consistently get an extra 1-1.5 hours of SoT when its set at FHD+ vs QHD+. I personally can't tell a difference between the two 99% of the time. Everything is still pretty sharp for me on Nova and a custom icon set (Vopor).
Still not sure which resolution to settle with. It's nice having the extra SoT, but I also feel like I should be making the most out of the gorgeous screen; even if I can't tell a difference most of the time lol... I get about 4-4.5hrs total SoT on QHD+, as opposed to 5-5.5hrs SoT at FHD+.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm... yes, that is the dilemma for me as well. I could tell that FHD looks slightly more fuzzy compared to QHD. Facebook and Whatsapp apps showed more washed out texts when comparing the two, for example. Would be nice to get more feedback from the others

I am using QHD+ on the S8+, as it is a little larger than the S8. As a techie, using a display at non native resolution is unbearable Kidding, with pentile, you can not tell anyway. I am having good to great battery life and I like small fonts - so I do definetly see a difference and therefore amusing the higher resolution.

I set mine to HD. That's not an option in the poll though.

I enjoy the extra battery life so FHD+ ftw. And on the occasion when I do consume 2160p content on YouTube I simply drag down the quick settings/notification pane and change the phone from Optimized to Entertainment. No big deal.

VaderSS said:
I set mine to HD. That's not an option in the poll though.
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Click to collapse
Cause no sane person would set their S8 to HD

lotreaglesfan said:
Cause no sane person would set their S8 to HD
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Click to collapse
Or someone with old eyes that can't tell the difference...

Whenever I go into phone maintenance and enable the battery saver thing it tells me I only save like 15mins by switching from WQHD+ down to FHD+ so that's doesn't seem worth it at all. Anybody else seeing the same... It actually tells me most of my battery savings (around a hour) would come from disabling the AOD.

Hmm all this time I've been thinking the difference between fullhd+ and qhd+ would be significant, guess il be changing it to the latter then.

Not even thinking about that lol just i can see the screen and its bright and great i dont care else

FHD+ is my way to go.
I've had it on QHD+ for the last 2 weeks but I never really found any difference and the "fuzzy" things got fixed when I changed the DPI so I have no problema at all. Even if FHD+ provides 30 minutes more of battery life I take it.