Reference phone (LG Nexus) resolution changed too quickly? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

The Nexus One and Nexus S both had the same resolution (800 x 480) which makes sense for a reference device as having a stable target for UI / display is beneficial to developers. It allows them to acclimate to a certain resolution to produce the best looking apps available. They seem to have ditched tradition (and sensibility) by going from 1280 x 720 to 768 in a year, different resolution, different aspect ratio.
Personally I find that there isn't enough vertical resolution what with the navbar and status bar so it all seems kind of silly.
Perhaps Google is going to do something new with the increased lateral resolution?

I am not a developer so correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the android SDK have some sort of implementation that makes apps compatible with a lot of screen sizes and resolution? So I don't think changing the resolution will matter so much.

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[Q] Titan Screen Resolution

Does anyone know if the Titan is capable of displaying a higher resolution if a future Windows version allowed it, or whether it is physically pixel-locked to 480 x 800?
There is no such thing as being "pixel locked"
However, the screen has 480x800 pixels. If you could raise the resolution, it would look like crap. So you don't want to.
Thanks, I think. I am not saying I want to increase the resolution, I was merely asking if it was possible. For example if Windows 8 came out and the the system supported QHD at 960 pixels high, would the Titan display at 960 px high. I guess you are saying that the screen will only display at 480 x 800 no matter what. TFT monitors are capable of multiple resolutions and I was wondering if the Titan was capable of displaying higher res, that's all.
comclusive said:
Thanks, I think. I am not saying I want to increase the resolution, I was merely asking if it was possible. For example if Windows 8 came out and the the system supported QHD at 960 pixels high, would the Titan display at 960 px high. I guess you are saying that the screen will only display at 480 x 800 no matter what. TFT monitors are capable of multiple resolutions and I was wondering if the Titan was capable of displaying higher res, that's all.
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Has anyone used it with any type of video out like hdmi? That would tell you. However the digitizer on the phone may not support it.
Interesting question though.
comclusive said:
Thanks, I think. I am not saying I want to increase the resolution, I was merely asking if it was possible. For example if Windows 8 came out and the the system supported QHD at 960 pixels high, would the Titan display at 960 px high. I guess you are saying that the screen will only display at 480 x 800 no matter what. TFT monitors are capable of multiple resolutions and I was wondering if the Titan was capable of displaying higher res, that's all.
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Monitors are able to use lower resolution. THey have a maximum amount and can go below. Not above. What your asking isnt available and never will be probably
the phone's Max resolution is 480x800. If WP8 supported higher resolutions, this phone would not be able to go any higher. This is how the screen was built by HTC and all current WP7 phone manufacturers
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Simmo3D said:
the phone's Max resolution is 480x800. If WP8 supported higher resolutions, this phone would not be able to go any higher. This is how the screen was built by HTC and all current WP7 phone manufacturers
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
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Thanks, concise, clear answer. Much appreciated!

Pixel Density: 160 vs 132 - Small or big difference??

Hi guys,
I currently have a 9.7 inch ICS tablet which has a pixel density of 132, just like ipad 1 & 2. I thought it was not that bad until I got a phone with pretty high ppi (HTC One V), and now it suddenly makes my tablet look so cheap when I look at it. So I would like a tablet with higher ppi, and I thought how about an 8 inch tablet with 1024 x 768 resolution? So I tried the ppi calculation online, and it gave me 160. are 160ppi and 132 ppi a big difference in text sharpness? Currently, on my 9.7 tablet, even the blue digital clock in the status bar is somewhat pixelated.
Also I like to use 4:3 tablet in a portrait mode only, so when I'm web browsing with my 9.7 inch tablet in portrait mode, some small texts are kind of readable, BUT uncomfortably... like you can go on Yahoo desktop website in portrait mode, and try to make out the smallest text in that website, and it's kind of garbled looking. So I was wondering, IF PPI is higher, EVEN THOUGH the screen is smaller, will that make the texts sharper for the same webpages? If I had both 8 inch and 9.7 tablets, I could test it out, but I don't, so I need expert's knowledge..
Also, 8 inch tablet is cheaper and lighter than 9.7 or 10.1 tablets so I am considering this option more now.
Please answer my questions above!
Thank you.
Don't get too star struck, htc devices are meant to beautiful and only other htc devices can give you that premium look and feel, ( no company tops htc in the beauty department). My htc sensation resolution is 540×960 and has a 256 pixel density and 240 dpi. It come down to the quality of your tablet, by increasing your dpi (almost like zooming in) you will see more pixels (BAD!), but you will see the difference is you increase the ppi, however it depends on your display. Right now the top android phones (htc one s/v and sgs2 & 3 and etc) have better displays than tablets and those 7 to 8 inch tablets aren't recommended also. They are build to be budget friendly and the display quality won't be too good either. Maybe you should get a better android tablet (asus transformer prime the BEST) or iPad+Retina Display= Big Smile

[Review] The HD Dilemma

I thought this was very interesting, somewhat common sense to some of us geeks/nerds/smarties out there, and worth a share.
Origin: http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/16554/is-the-samsung-galaxy-s4-really-worth-it/
Despite the amazing features in recent mobile phones that include, high speed quad core processors, large screen sizes, high-fidelity Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) and innovative designs, the mobile phones manufacturers are desperately trying to surpass each other.
A number of marketing tactics are being used to get us all excited, and persuade us to upgrade our phones.
Due to the tremendous advancements in hardware and software technology and the challenges posed by a very competitive market, the smart phone manufacturers are left only with the screen resolution to boast about and as an immediate eye-catching feature for a potential upgrade.
Samsung is already making a big deal about the full High Definition (HD) resolution of its Galaxy S4 introduced this month. Although the S4 is not the first phone to be equipped with an HD resolution, the terrific success of the S2 and S3 makes it an appealing get-as-soon-as-possible feature for Galaxy lovers.
If you are charmed by the HD resolution and intend on throwing extra money to upgrade your phone to S4, let us first analyse if a full HD smart phone screen is really worth draining your wallet.
Resolution is the prime determinant of a screen’s clarity. HD resolution refers to a High Definition screen having either 1280 x 720 pixels (720p) or 1920 x 1080 pixels (1080p/full-HD) spread along the width and height of the smart phone’s screen.
The pixel is the elementary area of illumination on the screen. The image displayed is composed of pixels. Therefore, higher the number of pixels, the sharper and crisper an image appears on the screen.
For an immediate comparison, you can check the resolution of your old smart phone (For example a Nokia 6600, 176 x 208 pixels) and that of a recent smart phone (like the Samsung Galaxy S3, 720 x 1280 pixels). You will immediately notice that the high resolution produces a much clearer and sharper image.
Nevertheless, resolution is not the only factor responsible for a sharper screen. Keeping the resolution the same and increasing the screen’s size separates the pixels, thus resulting in lost sharpness.
What really matters for determining a screen’s quality is the number of pixels packed in a given area. The term Pixel Per Inch (PPI) represents how many pixels there are in one inch of a screen’s area; the larger the number, the better the screen’s quality.
As an example, Nokia 6600 launched in 2003 has a PPI density of 130, whereas, Apple’s iPhone 4, sensationalised and marketed by the brand name Retina Display, has a PPI of 330. This produces a much sharper and vibrant image on the screen and makes other older phones look lacklustre.
Increasing the resolution does increase the PPI, provided that the screen size is not increased significantly. Two smart phones having the same screen sizes but different resolutions will have different figures for PPI.
Does it mean increasing the PPI indefinitely will produce even sharper images on the screen? The answer is no.
Our eyes can determine the quality of the contents on a screen if the pixels are distinguishable at the normal viewing distance. The reason why Apple called their iPhone 4 screen ‘Retina Display’ was that the 326 PPI pixel density was so high that individual pixels were indistinguishable to the human eye at the normal viewing distance. However, Retina Display is no longer an industry-leading figure.
HTC was one of the companies to develop a display beating that of the iPhone 4 with HTC Rezound (342 PPI). Nevertheless, if you compare the screens of Iphone 4 and HTC Rezound, I can bet you won’t be able to tell the difference.
The reason is that the human eye cannot distinguish the difference in PPI when the figure reaches a saturation point of about 300 (slightly exaggerated, otherwise some studies suggest a threshold of 250 PPI). Therefore, having a PPI of more than 300 will not make any difference to normal human eye unless you use a magnifying glass or have the screen pressed up against your eyeballs to see the subtle difference (of course you don’t want to do that).
Even for people with 20/20 vision, a full HD resolution would be a waste because most people’s eye can’t resolve sharpness above 250 PPI. The same goes for observing the photos quality. The pixel details in a photograph is always spread over more than one pixel and never perfectly aligned with the pixel structure of the display. So it will not matter whether you view the photographs on a 1080p or 720p display; they will appear the same. If you come across a smart phone having a PPI above 350, safely take it as a marketing stunt. It is not going to make the smart phone’s screen any sharper.
Consequently, a full HD (1080p) resolution is no better looking than 720p resolution in smart phones. A full HD resolution is only better for tablets, laptop screens, or monitors where the human eyes can resolve such a high resolution. The smart phones having 720p resolutions and sizes ranging from 4.3 to 4.7 inches have PPIs within the range 312 to 341. This PPI range is more than enough. Therefore, Samsung’s claim to give a sensational screen experience is pretty pompous.
Whereas, a full HD resolution necessitates using larger screen size (at least 5 inches) which is pretty annoying for small-sized phones lovers.
Another issue is the increased power consumption. The extra features in electronic devices don’t come for free. The price usually has to be paid in terms of high power consumption. A full HD display makes more demand from the processor and the GPU, which in turn needs more power to help it cope.
Although, the S4 has much improved battery (2600 mAh) as compared to the S3 (2100 mAh), it is still not sure if we can get improved battery life as well. We must not forget that the Apple iPad 4′s screen has a higher than 1080p resolution (2048 x 1536, but a PPI of 264), and a battery rated as 11666 mAh, while the iPad2 has a less than 720p resolution (1024 x 768, 132 PPI). Yet both provide the same 10-hours of use before needing a recharge.
The only advantage of a full HD screen in smart phone is that it gives more space for user interface elements such as button and text. For example, a webpage can fit to the screen, but the size of the contents decreases due to high resolution. In most of the cases, the viewer has to zoom in the contents to view them easily.
Due to these reasons, I still prefer to stick to my Xperia S with 720p resolution and a PPI of 341.
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Interesting read. Though I can definitely tell there is a difference when comparing my lte and the HTC one side by side. That being said when they aren't side by side I can't tell.
Sent from my EVO using xda app-developers app
I would wager that you can only 'tell' because you read the spec .
My .02¢
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
scottspa74 said:
I would wager that you can only 'tell' because you read the spec .
My .02¢
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
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I can see pixelation on my Evo's screen if I look closely. I can't see the same pixelation on the DNA's screen. There's a real difference, although you have to be a serious gadget nerd (like me) to care.
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
scottspa74 said:
I would wager that you can only 'tell' because you read the spec .
My .02¢
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
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That's exactly my thinking.
maxpower7 said:
I can see pixelation on my Evo's screen if I look closely. I can't see the same pixelation on the DNA's screen. There's a real difference, although you have to be a serious gadget nerd (like me) to care.
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
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I honestly cannot tell the difference at all. Although I saw a slight difference between my 3D and this EVO LTE. Maybe because I knew the specs though =p. I'm a big fan of sleeping at night. Lol.
... Sent from my 'Maybe the LTEvo wasn't such a bad idea afterall,' using the XDA Developers app.

[Q] Altering native resolution to alleviate GPU computation

Hi,
I noticed that the newest mobile devices sporting the latest GPUs have for the most screen matrices of size 1920x1080. I personally think that 960x540 is plenty (at least for a 5'' screen) and browsing glxbench I noticed that upgrading my device (running a mid range GPU with screen 960x540) to a newer device will not bring me the huge boost I was expecting as computation power will be wasted in filling up 4 times more pixels that I can barely see (or at least would not mind not seeing). From the bench it seems that the x4 pixel number increase imparts a 2.5x slowing down factor (1920x1080 offscreen vs 960x540 onscreen on my device). It seems very complex to change screen resolution under Android (at least up to 4.2), here are three questions:
- Why is it so complex?
- What is the easiest way? I will be already very happy with an option to run at binning 2 (1920x1080 --> 960x540) that could be activated on device startup.
- Will a native support will be supported in the next release(s)?
As a side question I noticed that some old games (especially Gameloft games) are not displayed right on my device (black borders + touch screen offset), changing resolution might cure it too... is that right?
Best, Sébastien

Resolution Suggestion

Hello fellow HTC users,
The biggest issue I've had with this phone has definitely been the resolution. It's just way too low. While the software tries to compensate, it just cannot do it. The pixels are too large not to be noticed and quite frankly, bothered by it. I have installed an app to up the resolution on my phone following an advice from another member on this forum. I tried plenty but NoMone seems to be the best app for it. Of course, you'll need root to do this but I assume most of you have it just by being here.
You can get the app here: NoMone Resolution Changer
I played with a lot of different resolutions and DPIs. When I use 720p or anything above, the phone starts to suffer real bad. It just isn't able to handle it. The best one resolution I found, after doing some calculations and using some apps as a guide such as Resolution Tool, which has various options to calculate the resolution and DPI. I found it to be:
Width: 725
Height: 1282
DPI: 315
This one looks really great and the phone performs wonderfully.
If anyone is looking to tweak their resolutions a bit, I would advise you try this one. You'll be glad you did. The resolution upholds the 16x9 ratio, which is the ratio the screen was designed for.
Amer28 said:
Hello fellow HTC users,
The biggest issue I've had with this phone has definitely been the resolution. It's just way too low. While the software tries to compensate, it just cannot do it. The pixels are too large not to be noticed and quite frankly, bothered by it. I have installed an app to up the resolution on my phone following an advice from another member on this forum. I tried plenty but NoMone seems to be the best app for it. Of course, you'll need root to do this but I assume most of you have it just by being here.
You can get the app here: NoMone Resolution Changer
I played with a lot of different resolutions and DPIs. When I use 720p or anything above, the phone starts to suffer real bad. It just isn't able to handle it. The best one resolution I found, after doing some calculations and using some apps as a guide such as Resolution Tool, which has various options to calculate the resolution and DPI. I found it to be:
Width: 725
Height: 1282
DPI: 315
This one looks really great and the phone performs wonderfully.
If anyone is looking to tweak their resolutions a bit, I would advise you try this one. You'll be glad you did. The resolution upholds the 16x9 ratio, which is the ratio the screen was designed for.
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Click to collapse
Very nice tip. Thanks!
Help please
Amer28 said:
Hello fellow HTC users,
The biggest issue I've had with this phone has definitely been the resolution. It's just way too low. While the software tries to compensate, it just cannot do it. The pixels are too large not to be noticed and quite frankly, bothered by it. I have installed an app to up the resolution on my phone following an advice from another member on this forum. I tried plenty but NoMone seems to be the best app for it. Of course, you'll need root to do this but I assume most of you have it just by being here.
You can get the app here: NoMone Resolution Changer
I played with a lot of different resolutions and DPIs. When I use 720p or anything above, the phone starts to suffer real bad. It just isn't able to handle it. The best one resolution I found, after doing some calculations and using some apps as a guide such as Resolution Tool, which has various options to calculate the resolution and DPI. I found it to be:
Width: 725
Height: 1282
DPI: 315
This one looks really great and the phone performs wonderfully.
If anyone is looking to tweak their resolutions a bit, I would advise you try this one. You'll be glad you did. The resolution upholds the 16x9 ratio, which is the ratio the screen was designed for.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried switching my screen to this resolution but the entire screen looks smaller. Do you have any other resolutions I could switch to?
Pointless. Adjust DPI instead. This causes your phone to attempt to scale the virtual display to the physical, and effectively causes the lag and slowness described.

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