Evo screen pixel density

[EarlyMon]

As for panel type, apple doesn't specify what kind of IPS nor it's quality, but it's still an IPS nonetheless. Maybe it's not the best tech as there are new display tech emerging, but I am satisfied with whatever IPS tech that apple is using in their iPhone 4

Please don't misunderstand my intention - it's not to slag IPS technology, it's to simply ask for differentiation, and to recognize that a lot of what goes on for any top brand in any field is just pure hype.

For me, it simply followed that the present trend I saw rejecting the iPad display as a bad thing based on what amounts to a buzzword for most people is a disservice.

That was my sole intent.

Remember - you're talking to a guy very satisfied with the IPS tech used on my Apple MacBook Pro in my lab's iMacs.

How could I not like the choice Apple made for the iP4?

I merely meant to caution: don't drink the Kool Aide on IPS. Not a one of these corporations are our friends. Let's not ever let them off the hook - any single one of them.

There was a time when Apple didn't market their displays with panel-type buzzwords. They simply insisted they were quality. I could be naive and guilty of Utopianism - but I know from experience that whenever marketeers put their hand in and get the market to along with buzzwords they really are not equipped to understand - they're pulling sleight of hand, and they always have a reason for that.

HTC, Apple, Moto, Sony, Samsung, Dell, Ford, Toyota - every last one of them.

I've watched the market evolve from hucksterism to taking honest chances back to hucksterism over the decades. I'm not for hucksterism.

As for the displays of tomorrow and their resolutions - they're really going to be dictated by multinational corporations performing cost / benefits analysis in mass manufacturing and then selling the consumer on the idea that their choice was quality-based.

And with that sleight of hand, too many may not stop to notice what quality tradeoffs they made.

Apple did not have your best interests at heart with the retinal display. They were playing catchup in their display area and have now a very clever explanation for going overboard on one parameter. It added to the cost, and they've sold you on why they went overboard - but if you follow any of what I've said, you'll see some truth in charges.

While microscopic resolution is exciting - see what you said, what I said, what common sense says - no one needs that or uses their devices that way.

So - why didn't they produce a display that would look IDENTICAL to what you're seeing now on your iP4 under normal use conditions and save you, the consumer a buck? Why have they taken that path and chosen to add marketing costs selling a buzzword?

So - why didn't HTC produce an fps-uncapped display system? Why did they pocket that money while selling the need for a larger display?

It's this simple - the larger conglomerates producing parts for integration - the ones you don't hear about - are shifting their alliances while they get their act together for the next wave of competition.

This thread, as I recall, started by an Evo fanboy looking for meaningless numbers to "compete" against an Apple-owning "friend." Then the Apple fanboys jumped in on the people who said what I had to say with less technology in shorter posts.

Not once have claimed that the Evo is superior to the iP4 display. Many times I've claimed it's superior in various aspects.

All I've said is - look at physics and don't drink the Kool Aide.

For that, I'm near-on to being tagged as an Evo fanboy - when my record in other threads says otherwise, as well as my specific words in posts above. I've been asked more than once to just look at an iPhone 4! - and not that anyone is calling me a liar - but I've said repeatedly that I've done that.

I've done all that I can to alert you and others to ask the right questions as consumers, because us consumers against the makers. And in my opinion whenever that changes into us against them among the consumers - something's gone obviously wrong.

But I simply cannot back down on a violation of statements of physical law because of other's impressions, beliefs or attitudes - this thread is first and foremost about raw resolution - and I've called shenanigans and have provided what you or anyone needs to question that parameter.

Perceived quality in a display is influenced by four factors, raw resolution comes in last.

Why that is ok in the minds of many to translate that simple statement into claims of what I don't get about quality, and then shift the conversation to other matters - such as fonts or panel type or resolution now being important to zoom-in! - just is what it is.

Beyond that, we can respect each others' opinions and agree to disagree.

I'm sincerely always willing and able to do that.

 

[mrspeedmaster]

960x480 retina display was the smartest thing Apple did. They didn't do it to out-class their competitor or other technologies like AMOLED.

I would say, their main objective/primary justification was to maintain an easy transition for their developer base. That was the key reason for that weird resolution. All the old apps just pixel doubled and it didn't break any of the old apps. I've been writing software for Android for 2 months and making different res layout files is a "little" bit of a hassle. Now, I can only imagine making another layout for 1024x600, 1338x768, etc... So, with that resolution, they specifically picked was a stroke of genius, business acumen, and forward thinking to cover all their basis. A 800x480 display would have brought more problems if they went that route.

So, the retina display dot-pitch was the smartest project consideration for the 4th generation iPhone. The fact it has the highest PPI is mostly secondary. If you look at the app store, the iOS updated apps are happening at a lightening pace. All the developers need to do is regenerate any new bitmaps for a sharper display. All the text/system UI scales. They put a lot of forethought in choosing their components like choosing a 5MP sensor to maintain pixel density of the camera sensor/noise level or a VGA front camera.

 

[EarlyMon]

By the way - this post only matters if you read what I said about conglomerates earlier.

Anyone who's really in to HDTV, even a bit, knows that most people - the very vast majority - are buying 1080p displays are of a size and location where 720p would do.

Most all of that know not to kick too hard. Better to get standardization, level the playing field on that parameter (ending forever the inane 720p vs. 1080i arguments) and then let us all attack the makers for better quality where it's left to matter - color, performance, reliability.

Then - the economic slump came along.

On the upturn, the makers came out and expressed dismay that HDTV sales projections showed a unhappy leveling of sales. People were content to wait rather than risk money on HDTV like they had been.

So - in the right place at the right time, the movie Avatar - years and years in the making comes out. And suddenly the HDTV market sees a mechanism to spark market interest: you need 3D!!!!

And they did magically in under a year. And it's all super quality.

Uh huh, ok.

Except that for a few of those systems, each of your eyes is seeing only 540 lines at a time.

Every thing I have just said is yours for the asking with google. Not a single opinion there at all - not one.

So - Apple is your friend, thinks outside the box and that ultra-mega-high resolution is what they innovated because they care about image quality.

Or - a Far-East manufacturing conglomerate, needing to invest in new fabs in order to meet future supply, instead hits on a process to significantly decrease dot pitch - and knows that they can sell it to the HDTV initiates, afraid to spend because of the economy, and their message will be: you were smart to wait - see, now with more pixels. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, and don't look back to discover that in your environment, there's no way you can see the full resolution of our existing full 1080 line sets.

And that Apple - behind in home media (see any Apple TV sales tearing up the market lately?) - and tired of being bashed for their hardware being overpriced at the same performance as others, partnered with them to be at the leading edge of that new sales wave.

Then again, some people believe that everything changes for a display when it's a monitor, a cell phone or an HDTV. I don't. I show people actual test patterns some times on their HDTVs and despite the fact that they admit that they can't resolve over 600 or 700 or 800 lines from where they're sitting - they'll argue that its the 1080p goodness that makes their set so fab. For the reasons I've stated above - I just let it go - better that we all get a little too much and standardize our technologies for interoperability and better competition to serve us.

My opinion on this is self-evident - and exactly why I kept bringing up HDTV.

Why let the market cry for color, performance and reliability when dots will do?

Why not sell those consumers that prefer the Apple iPhone on the idea of being early adopters, with a little razz-ma-tazz, and to pay for start up costs of the next HDTV shell game?

I'll be seeing you in places like the AVS forums in a few years when everyone starts arguing why they need 4096 line displays on a 40" set viewed 12' away.

After all - it'll be Retinal.

Hope that clarifies where I've been coming from - and where we're headed next.

 

[RickJ]

I thought it was pretty clear that you said that the pixel density (and/ or the retina display in general) was just marketing hype because of diminishing returns. Add into that the info on how the eye works and the inability to distinguish the higher resolutions, and your rebuttal/questioning of Soneira's claims seemed pretty clear to me.

Yes, my comments about the resolution was an oversimplification, and I apologize for that. That being said, it was essentially the tone that you laid out, offering instead that the color and brightness are the reason why the IP4 SEEMS to have much better resolution. You did go into great depth to back this up. We were discussing the advantage, or lack thereof, of 640x960 vs 480x800 on a ~3.5 display, and at least in my mind the application of a proportional ratio on a 4.3, I fail to see how I mis-interpreted your position.

I only tried to understand what 'hype' and how much was actually just 'hype' after reading this statment of yours "And because I hate hype wherever I find it for its own sake, I hate the Retinal Display hype and not because of any personal insecurity or need to feel better about my phone or my decision or myself"

As for the the term "retina" display, and the claim that it exceeds what the eye can resolve (whether it actually does or not), its pretty much a moot pooint so much so as Sprint calls their next generation wireless data 4g, because it doesnt meet the itu definition of 4g.

Perhaps it has exceeded the threshold, maybe even "grossly" so but I havent seen anywhere where you have offered any sort of acknowledgement of significant benefit over 480x800, in fact quite the opposite.

No matter, it wasn't my intention to irritate you, and I understand this might come across as a bit touchy, but the only suggestion I can make is compare the IP4 to multiple other recent devices of an equivalent screen size in the 480x800 resolution. Sometimes real world experience can outweigh the application of fact, and I would bet that there are factors you havent taken into consideration.

 

[RickJ]

I'll be seeing you in places like the AVS forums in a few years when everyone starts arguing why they need 4096 line displays on a 40" set viewed 12' away.

TeeHee, already there Sorry cant hold a candle to most of those diehards though.

 

[EarlyMon]

960x480 retina display was the smartest thing Apple did. They didn't do it to out-class their competitor or other technologies like AMOLED.

I would say, their main objective/primary justification was to maintain an easy transition for their developer base. That was the key reason for that weird resolution. All the old apps just pixel doubled and it didn't break any of the old apps. I've been writing software for Android for 2 months and making different res layout files is a "little" bit of a hassle. Now, I can only imagine making another layout for 1024x600, 1338x768, etc... So, with that resolution, they specifically picked was a stroke of genius, business acumen, and forward thinking to cover all their basis. A 800x480 display would have brought more problems if they went that route.

So, the retina display dot-pitch was the smartest project consideration for the 4th generation iPhone. The fact it has the highest PPI is mostly secondary. If you look at the app store, the iOS updated apps are happening at a lightening pace. All the developers need to do is regenerate any new bitmaps for a sharper display. All the text/system UI scales. They put a lot of forethought in choosing their components like choosing a 5MP sensor to maintain pixel density of the camera sensor/noise level or a VGA front camera.

Yes. Thank you. That makes perfect sense.

Driven by economic factors - the highest ppi is secondary.

Dead on.

Brilliant analysis.

Many kudos!

Keep the dev costs low, and come up with marketing to divert attention, because everyone understands bigger is better but no one grasps software maintenance costs and protecting ROI.

What you've grasped and stated so well is what a relatively few following Apple understand:

Apple is first and foremost a hardware company. Any and all of their software or software support by them exists for one reason - to move that iron.

As Walt Mosspuppet says, Android's just the Wild West compared to Apple.

Google is a software and services company, always looking for the hardware to support that software.

Again - excellent, +5 insightful.

 

[EarlyMon]

I thought it was pretty clear that you said that the pixel density (and/ or the retina display in general) was just marketing hype because of diminishing returns. Add into that the info on how the eye works and the inability to distinguish the higher resolutions, and your rebuttal/questioning of Soneira's claims seemed pretty clear to me.

Yes, my comments about the resolution was an oversimplification, and I apologize for that. That being said, it was essentially the tone that you laid out, offering instead that the color and brightness are the reason why the IP4 SEEMS to have much better resolution. You did go into great depth to back this up. We were discussing the advantage, or lack thereof, of 640x960 vs 480x800 on a ~3.5 display, and at least in my mind the application of a proportional ratio on a 4.3, I fail to see how I mis-interpreted your position.

The iPhone 4 has an excellent display. Among its many fine qualities are its resolution improvement.

However, because of diminishing returns, I contend that everyone would have been as excited with any above-integration threshold of any number of other resolution values. The ultra-high resolution that maintains integration to the point of your focus sub-threshold is not a reasonable target for how we use our devices. If you need to see something that small - you don't hold your phone to your nose - you zoom in. At least - I do.

Perhaps it has exceeded the threshold, maybe even "grossly" so but I havent seen anywhere where you have offered any sort of acknowledgement of significant benefit over 480x800, in fact quite the opposite.

The significant benefit of any resolution is to have full integration with respect to the given screen size and expected range of viewing distances.

Beyond that, there's no practical reason for more dots.

I have acknowledged the other fine qualities of the iP4 display. It's good.

But once the dots are invisible and integrate into lines, selling the dots under a marketing name, or selling the idea that it's the dots themselves doing it - just hype.

If Apple had come up with that display with fewer dots so that you couldn't hold it to your nose but still did have the resolution improvement they needed for - but left all other factors equal - you would not see a difference between that device and your existing iP4, side by side, at the use-case distance - say - 7 inches away or better.

Your common sense might argue with you. Just like your common sense will tell you that the earth is flat, not round, unless you're a seafarer.

Physical effects and common sense are usually at odds with one another. It's why science moves so slow. It's hard to know where the thinking traps are.

No matter, it wasn't my intention to irritate you, and I understand this might come across as a bit touchy, but the only suggestion I can make is compare the IP4 to multiple other recent devices of an equivalent screen size in the 480x800 resolution. Sometimes real world experience can outweigh the application of fact, and I would bet that there are factors you havent taken into consideration.

Miscommunication - I thought you were irritated at my long and frequent posts - I was, in my own way, trying to give you space and respect for that, not intending to be irritated.

Sure - I'll be glad to. Kindly suggest a few models of 480x800 devices with Apple's color quality and I'll be glad to compare them. With the same content displayed. At my normal use condition for those devices or mrspeedmaster's - and my last use with an iPhone - of about 7 to 9" from my face. I'm sure it will prove somehow informative. I don't recall claiming that 480x800 was the magic number for the iPhone's display size. I don't recall saying that at all.

My claim was very clear - an iPhone 4 at 7 to 9" away is the same relative size as an Evo at 12" away - and that makes all of the difference in the world.

I have not defended 480x800 - I have attacked hype.

For a fair test - I'd magically make the fonts on the Evo appear at the same relative size as those on the iPhone, if you prefer text. I'd make the two screens relative parameters exactly the same. I'd put 20 lines of the same text with the same font - Georgia seems to work for me - on the two screens.

And because both are beyond that threshold I keep harping about, they'd look the same.

Its not about resolution.

Its about resolution with respect to size and the viewing distance.

As I've MrX8503 said - and I agreed with him - pixel density has to be higher when its closer in.

My Evo, normalized for it's 1/4 relative size of my 15" 1440x900 laptop when the Evo is at 12 inches and the laptop is at 24 inches - has a higher dot density than than my laptop. As does the iPhone 4 - only insanely so.

You could give my Evo a 4096x2048 display - but I wouldn't hold it any closer and I'd enjoy no visible benefit unless I did hold it closer. While there's no doubt that such a hypothetical display could display 40 or maybe even 60 lines of text - I wouldn't waste my time reading text that small just because I could.

While we all have our own preferences and visual acuity, I believe you may find my position is really not unreasonable.

And I hope that this isn't too long again, because I'm the guy that keeps repeating, including on this page alone:

One test is worth a thousand expert opinions.

Yet, you keep challenging me to do that - it's not a new idea to me. And I've seen and held an iPhone 4.

By the way - I decided to run my little video test, at my normal distance from my 1080 set and holding up the Evo so it was the same relative size, and with little effort, time sync'd the simultaneous playback of Big Buck Bunny on both sets.

I held the Evo so that it occluded the lower 15% of the HDTV display, so that I could rapidly make subtle eye movements to compare the two displays.

I was doing that for color.

Why don't you do that for yourself and tell me what resolution differences you see - color impressions too, if your set is calibrated, if you like.

Here's the download - go for the N.264 version - surely you can play that on your TV, even if you have to make a DVD or something, yes?

Big Buck Bunny Download

Try both 720 and 1080p versions if you like.

Kindly tell me what resolution differences you see.

PS - I can display 38 lines of crystal clear text on my Evo - can read it just fine at 12". At that point, the print is considerably smaller than any normal paper back I tend to read. So my 20 line test suggestion was just an arbitrary suggestion - I can go to 38. If you can go a higher number of lines with a smaller font - 1) Can you enjoy that without moving your iP4 closer? 2) Can you enjoy that? 3) Have you ever enjoyed reading long passages of text that small?

PPS - If we're talking at cross purposes, I apologize. There seems to have been some miscommunications throughout.

 

[EarlyMon]

As for the the term "retina" display, and the claim that it exceeds what the eye can resolve (whether it actually does or not), its pretty much a moot pooint so much so as Sprint calls their next generation wireless data 4g, because it doesnt meet the itu definition of 4g.

Perhaps I'm less forgiving that you.

I don't think one evil forgives the other.

Even though three wrongs make a right, two don't.

I'll gladly point you to existing posts where I say what I find superior about WiMAX - and I say there that it's not 4G.

I'm just one of those guys that does not care for hype.

If you want to start a thread on that, I'll be happy to back you up.

Wear your asbestos underoos, cowboy, 'cause we'll get flamed all the way to moon. Works for me - but give it a week, I'm really going scarce right soon now.

 

[mrspeedmaster]

Beyond that, there's no practical reason for more dots.

Sure - I'll be glad to. Kindly suggest a few models of 480x800 devices with Apple's color quality and I'll be glad to compare them. With the same content displayed.

I have not defended 480x800 - I have attacked hype.

I'll disagree with you because I have an iPhone 4 in my possession and I can see the difference. Doesn't matter how you slice and dice it,the screen is razor sharp. Also, the glass has no gap (no dust to seep thru) that gives it floating like appearance. The difference to the naked eye at normal distances is very, very real. If you plan to make any comparison. use some files that are fairly big like 3000x3000 jpegs. Copy them over via web-dav or some sort of filesharing set-up (synching the files will re-rez them), you will see it in pictures. For video, play a 1280x720p file at decent bit-rate. Again, you will see the difference.

For a fair test - I'd magically make the fonts on the Evo appear at the same relative size as those on the iPhone, if you prefer text. I'd make the two screens relative parameters exactly the same. I'd put 20 lines of the same text with the same font - Georgia seems to work for me - on the two screens.

There is no way to make a fair comparison. Google uses 9 system fonts and the family is called Droid. It was designed in 2007 for the G1. It doesn't scale too well. There are 233 bug request to fix it on google's Android bugfix site. The font is thicker and weightier than any iPhone font. Your Android font will be 1-2 points smaller or 4-6 pointe bigger. You can download Droid font from google and try to compare it side-by-side on your pc/mac. It isn't that sharp. Droid Monaco is a good monospace font used by Android and thats about it.
Also, in iOS4, iPhone 4, Apple changed the system font to a sharper Helvetica Nueue. Only iPhone 4 retina devices uses this font and it helps give the extra appearance of razor sharpness. You can google everything I just stated. It is this little details people don't realize how they make an effort to make it more polished.

I would suggest using a vector PDF to attempt to make any text comparison.That way, you bypass Android's limited fonts.

 

[EarlyMon]

I would suggest using a vector PDF to attempt to make any text comparison.That way, you bypass Android's limited fonts.

I was presuming that fonts fully embedded within a PDF would do as the obvious solution when I wrote that in the first place.

Perhaps I missed something?

Adobe's mobile PDF reader doesn't support fully embedded fonts? I will have to read up on that, then.

Further, I suggested Georgia not because it's an Android font - I'm suggesting any decorated font.

Helvetica might give the iOS that razor sharp appearance you love, but it's nothing I'd personally want to waste time reading Macbeth with - or anything else for that matter.

If the comparison for a page of text can't be performed with the same font, selected for readability by a printer's criteria, not a phone OS manufacturer's ones, then I'm not sure I see the point. And I'd expect to use real quotation marks (dotted ascenders and descenders) because I certainly enjoy those on my eBooks, not the lazy, ugly U3003 typewriter mark.

A use case for a user, not preferential to an OS - harder for it.

Not dissimilar to what was done for and comes with Second Variation, Phillip K. Dick, Project Gutenberg. The ones with images seem to have correct punctuation.

I'll disagree with you because I have an iPhone 4 in my possession and I can see the difference.

Difference from what? Please remind me - you have an Evo as well? Yes, I get you're developing Android apps, I'm just asking to be reminded.

Difference perceived by your own visual acuity for the raw resolution differences under a normal application?

As for 3k x 3k pictures - jpg or otherwise - that sort of pathologically introduces various differences in the how the photo library/app will scale that, will it not? But - I suggested it, and fully expected to have that going on.

As for 720p video - try the HDTV comparison I outlined.

It seemed to me that rather compare the phones to each other, comparing both to some reference HDTV made more sense, as 720p@24 fps is an HDTV standard. When I have my hands on an iP4 again next week, I plan to repeat that for both phones using a calibrated Kuro as a reference - I'd presume that the Kuro's scaler should suffice, wouldn't you? If I had enough time, I could even try a 1080p rev of the suggested short animation on the TV vs. 720p on the phones.

Have you tried that?

Intuitively, comparing both to an external standard seemed like a better test to me, but I suppose I may be wrong.

Again - I was calling for a comparison of raw resolution with respect to the eye's abilities.

While I also couldn't help but make some observations on color temperature and contrast range that I found personally interesting, the issue at hand is resolution with respect to size and viewing distance.

Doesn't matter how you slice and dice it,the screen is razor sharp.

Curious - I don't recall questioning that.

Also, the glass has no gap (no dust to seep thru) that gives it floating like appearance.

Yeah. That relates to visual acuity and raw resolution, how, exactly?

Also, in iOS4, iPhone 4, Apple changed the system font to a sharper Helvetica Nueue. Only iPhone 4 retina devices uses this font and it helps give the extra appearance of razor sharpness. You can google everything I just stated. It is this little details people don't realize how they make an effort to make it more polished.

And the polish of the operating system's appearance - that relates to visual acuity and raw resolution, how, exactly?

And the font choice relates to visual acuity and raw resolution, how, exactly?

Because I'm slagging the iP4, how, exactly, apart from the hype associated with hyper-resolution?

In any case, thanks again for telling me again how great the iP4 display is.

And the fonts.

Oh, and thanks anyway for the callout on the system font. I take it you've compared it with the Geneva system font used in OS X? The one that was one of those little attentions to detail that people don't notice on my MacBook Pro? I have. I can certainly see why they use Helvetica Neue instead of Geneva on a device with fewer pixels on a higher density display - the letters are quite similar (aside from G of course), but HN is just a bit wider per letter, allowing easier perception of the space within. I'll be sure to not use TinkerTool and make HN my system font, then.

~~~~

And by the way - this didn't occur to me sooner, I was distracted I suppose - would you happen to know why the graphics API in the iOS API doesn't simply have developers work in a 0.0 to 1.0 space, or a 0~1.5x0~1.0 space and let an underlying layer scale everything, as opposed to direct hardware scaling?

Further - why again wouldn't they simply provide a re-mapping layer for any existing app, not unlike the simultaneous existence of Carbon and Cocoa?

And you're say the Android SDK is similarly crippled?

I was honestly unaware that things were so primitive for either phone's OS for graphics, let alone both.

Last time I saw that sort of thing was when I stripped it out of a Livermore 2D/3D graphics library API supporting MATLIB and replaced it with virtual mapping, and then re-wrote and the drivers for various displays, printers and plotters but that was at least a few decades ago - or when I wrote my graphics driver to replace the ones that came with some PC's graphics card (that seemed like a good idea at the time to buy) to give it virtual mapping even some years than that. Those seemed like minor efforts, as I recall - no animation involved, just some mapping I needed to display some EM calculation results I was working on - necessity being the mother of invention.

I've not worked with these later tools (for most people today, I guess that MATLIB is a gui with math, not a collection of raw math code on a 9-track tape), so I'm quite out of touch with how rough you developers must be having it - it really sounds like you're living in the 70s or 80s with that sort of graphics development and deployment environment.

 

[RickJ]

I actually just read the post where you did give credit where its was due, lol.

Here is where we really differ, and can see why you have the opinion you do. I am reading around 50 lines of text on my evo @ 12to 14" away, AND scrolling (which is why im so interested in the fps cap) For example, The evo4g index page on this forum from the first sticky down shows shows 26topics inluding last post column with time date and last poster, this is well over 50. I will zoom in to choose a page. When reading and skimming: your post #66 in this thread is one screen (including the quote) looks to be about 49+ lines worth. The text doesnt look half bad at all, though I do keep my phone at 100% brightness. I couldnt tell you how many lines I had on the IP4's smaller screen but at the approximate same size font the text was VERY noticibly crisper, and oh boy, it really blew the evo away scrolling.

As far as movies or animations go, I have no need for anything better, I'm not sure I could tell the difference, and havent viewed any movies on the IP4. I have several pixar flicks on my phone to keep my son entertained when the need arises and they look remarkable.


After reading mr speedmaster's post I guess I'd have to take in apple's sharper font into consideration, but I cant imagine that being the root of the better text (more so than the resolution).

 

[EarlyMon]

Ok, then I may stand corrected.

50 lines of text is equivalent to a full typed page at 6 lines/in with just about a 1.5" top border and a 1.125" bottom border for 8.5x11 letter paper.

And you're comfortable reading that on a 2.25x3.75" display at over a foot away?

And that's your normal use case?

I read a few novelettes at 38 lines per page. It was plenty crisp, but as I'd stated, my reference is the book archetype I'd suggested (yeah, yeah - not letter paper), and I ended up just not seeing the point - it wasn't the eyestrain, my visual acuity is above average (big deal - just saying) - it was the cognitive dissonance I suffer reading text that small.

I note for your amusement what I'm about to say: that you keep your brightness at 100% to pull that off.

You've just empirically verified for yourself two of my very early assertions - that one unspoken factor in visual acuity is brightness, and that it matters on a display because of light diffusion helping to fill in the dots. Points Soneira left out and knew full well.

Have you tried adjusting brightness downwards to see how that effects crispness?

I'd be curious if you weren't to find that you're overdoing it, and that diffusion I speak of has entered into what's popularly called blooming. You might be a tad happier with it turned down. Obviously, there's no such thing as black projected from a display - so black lines are formed by the quality of the white borders. As you can already visualize, too much light blooming out will encroach upon those borders and cause a loss of crispness.

I'd be very curious to see if you find your observations change with that adjusted.

Mine certainly do.


~~~~~~

The other finer qualities of the iP4 are what they are, such as scrolling. There are plenty of threads for that, and I don't tend to defend the Evo for it - I simply say that if it's true that that's because of the HDMI port limitation, and given the fact that port's use is auto-sensed, cut the baloney and give people what they want - and throttle it back when the HDMI port is in use. MrX8503 is insistent that that will alleviate scrolling problems for those that suffer it, and I believe him - I'm rather ambivalent about it for my given uses.

Subjectively, the Evo looked great playing that animation. Objectively, it has a red/purple tint to it when compared to a calibrated display. I went back and checked - that's what mikeyandroid predicted. If he's similarly right about your iP4, you'll find that that has a blueish tint compared to a reference. I was surprised that the Evo wasn't black-crushing on that HD clip - nor was it washed out. I found the contrast range as evidenced by just that one anecdotal point to be surprisingly good.

As for font discussions, I'm happy to stay out of those, I'm not a typographer, I like what I like for reading and while there are fonts that can be exploited for crispness w.r.t. size, I think that book's been written.

 

[RickJ]

Does it seem strange that I would read with such small print? Perhaps, I can easily see how that would become fodder for "I call bull". When reading sites I tend to scroll vertically, not nearly as much left to right and suppose I prefer having as much relevant information on the page. Perhaps there is some sort of reverse cognitive dissonance at play here, lol.

I imagine that there are quite a few others who view at a similar size while surfing simply because most sites arent optimized for mobile devices. Besides that, the ones that are tend to be horribly short on information as opposed to their full style bretheren. I probably would not use as a book reader at that size, though I dont see myself ever going as low as 28 either.


If always indoors, I possibly would have a differrent setting on brightness, If I bothered to place an easily accessed widget to control screen brightness I *might* adjust it down while indoors. I do understand blooming though can pretty much dismiss that idea imo, this screen simply isnt bright enough ( FWIW I have a novatec) even at the font sizes mentioned. If the screen was much brighter I could see that becomming an issue. When in the menus and the text is white on black (at full brightness, indoors with only todays ambient light) momentary blooming seems evident, though it simply may be getting used to the transtion from black on white to the reverse.

As far a brightness I prefer the device as a whole, on its highest setting. Besides, reading your reply I was out on the patio, enjoying some joe, shaded but in daylight nonetheless. Came inside to type this reply, because typing anything extended on this device is not something I like to subject myself to.

 

[RickJ]

Upon reading outside again, Id have to correct the number of forum topics visible to 19-20 and lines per screen at +45. Thats the difference I suppose from randomly checking results as opposed to consciously trying to re-create a condition. However, the environment has changed as well, last night being in very limited lighting and today being outdoors.

 

[EarlyMon]

Perhaps some of the use case difference is generational.

When I lay the Evo atop my dog-eared paperback of Greg Bear's EON the Georgia, 16 point, normal font is VERY similar (perhaps coincidentally identical) to the decorated font in that book, including punctuation, AND it is slightly smaller than that standard paperback size. The line spacing is too much and sadly unadjustable. Going to a smaller font replicates the line spacing, but shrinks the font from books that I have years of use with. In both cases - the display is MUCH more defined, much clearer, crisper than a paperback. I settle on my accustomed font size and accept the line spacing issue, as standard paperback pages are 2.6 times larger than that on my Evo anyway.

As for your web use case, I am surprised. Perhaps I'm out of touch.

With your permission, my basis for use follows:

In my interface design experience dating back to the dinosaur age (mentioned above) I built oscillograph (plot on an oscilloscope) waveform editors for EMP measurements. That was all done on a 4k x 4k industrial vector terminal using minicomputers. My thinking then was to use the cleanest, simplest, most straightforward built-in font for the command interface. Users didn't read interfaces one they learned them, a few of us decided, they learned them once and relied on pattern recognition of the interface itself. I guess I'd believe that modern GUIs using icons - and very simple, clean system fonts, proves this out.

For the graphics of those engineering plots, my initial target was to keep the user in their thinking domain, not a terminal use domain, so I built my own decorated font family because that was easy to do, just produced a vector-type stroke set of tables for the font family. Users appreciated this as intended, and it was then trivially easy to extend this to pen plotters and later PostScript output (optioned for 300 or 600 dpi if memory serves, but it was all just simple vector stroking based on that original 4k x 4k space into a 6.5" square, page centered, for report outputs).

Separating those two fonts - gui and user - has been part of my use for years.

I'm far from experts I know in that technology or web technologies or displays, but I mention all of that for this reason:

Even with that beginning background in these technologies, I initially had a years-running frustration trying to make fonts work out with respect to readable text on web pages. My first web use dates back to reading the first papers at CERN on my own port of Mosaic (because that's how it was done) - and following every update I could since.

And I was always fatigued and couldn't put my finger on it.

I noticed younger people, much more comfortable with reading long web pages than I, tended to scroll quite a bit more.

Remembering that Neil Stephenson modeled the communication between a web server and a browser as akin to a teletype system in his book, In The Beginning Was The Command Line I adopted the strategy I thought I was seeing others use.

I enlarge the text as needed (when needed) and using either a mouse scroll wheel or a trackpad or a Symbian or now a smartphone, leave my eyes at one screen area, and rhythmically gesture to keep the text flowing though that viewing window.

I immediately found that I could absorb and process much more information in this way than reading the web as static pages. And for a bonus, when I encounter a non-mobile complying device, I find I can zoom in on the stock browser and the text portions seem to flow into the screen's field of view without need for left-right browsing and I'm off to the races, video teletype style. (on this sort of page, the occasional left shift to see the author is automatic and once known, unneeded visual clutter, to me)

I never thought to ask, but this just seems so natural that I rather presumed that's what every web user does. Just like thinking that if one were reading pages, one would match the font, in shape, size and style, to an established standard for non-eWorld page reading (books).

So - based on that alone, either I've completely over-assumed how most people do things, in my dinosaur fashion - or you're in a minority. I am in no position to judge whatsoever, and would be willing to find out - it's a very curious situation.

That said, how long term use of text that size affects your eyes is something between you and your eye doctor. In my generation, we were taught to never consider such a thing.

So - if I am that far afield out there in what I've been calling a normal use case, then I do stand corrected.

I don't advocate gargantuan text - it just seemed so natural to match the font size to that of a smaller paperback - and with the modern display tech - to have the clarity of a finer hardcover at that convenient size.

I'll accept the judgement of others as to which of us is thinking / using as an outlyer to the norm - I can't tell, I'm now a test subject.

~~~~~

PS - Just wanted to leave this out there, as I mentioned, I'll be posting only little this week but will probably be able to read along well-enough.

It's a reference of possible interest to some.

Information Design: An Introduction by Rune Pettersson

 

[RickJ]

No doubt there is some generational difference, but I think there is just a much broader spectrum of what individuals consider important to them based on their use. It is very evident on this forum on a variety of issues with opinions being so far apart. Sometimes its hard to differentiate the koolaid drinker/dispenser from those that have legitimate gripes or opinions, especially when those opinions seem to encroach one what another perceives as common sense, or even fact, for that matter.

FWIW, I couldnt tell you if my use is normal case or not, and I'm not sure I really care one way or another. What I can say is that having legimate discussions is one the reasons why I visit the forums and I thank anyone who particpates in them with me. I dont have the background to dialog with either you or mrspeedmaster on an equivalent tech level, however it is refreshing to have such a debate without (too much ) obvious condescension, so thanks again.

 

[EarlyMon]

I dont have the background to dialog with either you or mrspeedmaster on an equivalent tech level, however it is refreshing to have such a debate without (too much ) obvious condescension, so thanks again.

I'm learning quite a bit myself.

If I'm chatty and if the content of that chattiness seems in any way condescending, all I can say is that I'm accustomed to sharing context for a point of view and someone has to go first.

I talk that way so that if anyone wants to show me my own errors, they have free reign to pick apart right back to where my mistakes were made.

Your concrete examples of specific uses of your phone, the how and why of it, were most interesting and informative - it seemed quite equivalent to me to my own approach to thinking out loud in an explanatory fashion.