10 Mobile Phone Features People Never Really Needed
6. Display Resolution
The displays of many modern smartphones are not just matching Full HD TVs nowadays. They are increasingly outdoing them in terms of resolution. A 1080p Full HD TV has the same resolution as the iPhone 6S Plus, but the latter dwarfs any TV on the market in terms of sheer pixel density (more pixels packed on a smaller area). What that means in terms of image clarity is more detail, greater texture and a photographic emulsion of smoothness. But do people really care? When Apple announced their first Retina Display in 2010, the goal was to make the screen image mimic the sharpness of printed text and photographs. Although the standard introduced by Apple is not consistent and vastly depends on the screen size, popular Retina Display devices like the iPhone 4S had the DPI of 326. Almost a hundred DPI less than the iPhone 6S Plus. With its announcement in 2010 Apple made us believe the industry hit the golden ratio and no further development made sense in terms of screen. Anything above the pixel density of Retina Displays was considered overkill assuming the typical distance from which we look at our devices. Yet here we are: every flagship phone in 2015 (including Apples) has a screen with at least 400 DPI, draining the precious battery juice we all need so much.
