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Why will the Prime have a 4.65" Screen?

Zimbz

Lurker
First off, the majority of people think that this screen size is overkill. I agree, that just makes for too big of a device for something that you need to put in a pocket constantly

Second, if a phone with a 4.5" screen, has a resolution of 1280x720, it has a PPI of approx 326. Sound familiar? It should, this is the resolution Apple claims to be the best PPI display possible for a screen. Add that to a Super AMOLED display, and holy crap your in for the best screen of your life.

I have heard rumors that the resolution would be 1280x800, which would make the PPI of a 4.65" display 338. But it could be an awkward resolution for applications made for many different phones. And most people wont liek a phone that big.

Anyone else agree with me on any of this? I would even rather a screen be 4.3"
 
Because bigger is better. And I think most people are excited about the big screen. It probably won't be much bigger than a Droid X. Keep in mind there will be a lot less bevel and no buttons at the bottom.
 
First off, the majority of people think that this screen size is overkill. I agree, that just makes for too big of a device for something that you need to put in a pocket constantly

Second, if a phone with a 4.5" screen, has a resolution of 1280x720, it has a PPI of approx 326. Sound familiar? It should, this is the resolution Apple claims to be the best PPI display possible for a screen. Add that to a Super AMOLED display, and holy crap your in for the best screen of your life.

I have heard rumors that the resolution would be 1280x800, which would make the PPI of a 4.65" display 338. But it could be an awkward resolution for applications made for many different phones. And most people wont liek a phone that big.

Anyone else agree with me on any of this? I would even rather a screen be 4.3"

I think that this screen size is perfect. (Granted, none of us has actually held it yet, so who really knows.) But I'm excited about it. I had 4.3 with the X2 for a little while, and although it was much bigger than my OG Droid, I felt like it could have been just a tad bit bigger. My feeling is that as long as it can fit in my pocket, I want the biggest available.

As far as Apple's Retina Display, Steve Jobs said last year that "Retina Display" was basically anything above, I think, 312 ppi. He said either 300 or 312, I can't remember and I'm too lazy to look it up. But I posted the link elsewhere a few weeks ago. Anyway, he said that the human eye is unable to distinguish pixelation at a resolution above that number. So whether you have 316, 326, or 900 ppi, it will essentially make no difference at all.
 
because they are removing the buttons on the bottom so essentially it will just be a 4.3 screen with the buttons removed which gives you 4.65

That's not possible if you want to maintain the aspect ratio (16:9) of 720p. You'll have to widen the phone as well.
 
Look at the pictures! This is a big, wide phone. No one in the public has held it yet, so saying it's "too big" is premature.

I, for one, have been looking forward to a huge screen like this for a lone time. Something to blur the line between "phone" and "tablet"
 
That's not possible if you want to maintain the aspect ratio (16:9) of 720p. You'll have to widen the phone as well.

maybe they are changing the aspect ratio? I mean until it is out there nobody knows how it will be. Phones are big enough as it is if they get much larger I'll stick with something else.
 
I have no interest in the Droid, Thunderbolt, and most 4.3-4.5" phones because of their bulk and heft. But I want the biggest, highest resolution screen possible (in a pocketable device), and the SGS2 form factor is acceptable. I'm hoping the Nexus Prime will have similar dimensions to the recently announced SGS2 LTE HD: 68.8
 
I'd much prefer even bigger if posible. I'd love even a 5" screen. Looks like the biggest is the Sensation XL at 4.7"..but as it stands looks like Sprint is not getting any of these...and the delays are just going to make me get the Epic 4G Touch
 
A 4.65" screen is no issue to me. I'm used to my DX and would prefer a bit more real estate.

Someone posted a picture in the mongo thread about how hard it is to reach the entire screen if it's over 4" (I forget the exact size). I've got average-sized hands and can reach the whole screen with one hand. Maybe most people have tiny little fingers.
 
As the guy above says, according to a few articles, in normal use the screen will be more like a 4.3", as the soft buttons will take up the bottom of the screen, therefore the device doesn't need to be any bigger than a device with a 4.3" screen.

I'm assuming when you're playing a video it'll lose the soft buttons and you'll get to enjoy the full screen.

Link to article to follow.

Edit: http://www.devicemag.com/2011/10/10...display-space-for-android-navigation-buttons/
 
A 4.65" screen is no issue to me. I'm used to my DX and would prefer a bit more real estate.

Someone posted a picture in the mongo thread about how hard it is to reach the entire screen if it's over 4" (I forget the exact size). I've got average-sized hands and can reach the whole screen with one hand. Maybe most people have tiny little fingers.

If the nav bar is like HC, you will end up with the same size display or slightly less space. Let us hope ICS is not a display robber like HC and the space is open when running apps or media. At least HC is on bigger devices. Even with a 7" display the loss of space is very annoying. Phones losing the space always will cause much gnashing of teeth.
 
Assuming about .5" is not taken up by a nav bar that can not be hidden ;)

Let us hope common sense drove design decisions for ICS, since smaller displays than tablets.

There was leaked photo of NP last week showing usable vertical and horizontal screen resolution and dpi number. I don't remember the exact numbers out of my head. But from my calculation, the bottom soft button seems to occupy about 0.3" vertically, leaving 4.3" usable space. I hope Google didn't overlook this screen space issue and made soft buttons auto hide depending on app.
 
There was leaked photo of NP last week showing usable vertical and horizontal screen resolution and dpi number. I don't remember the exact numbers out of my head. But from my calculation, the bottom soft button seems to occupy about 0.3" vertically, leaving 4.3" usable space. I hope Google didn't overlook this screen space issue and made soft buttons auto hide depending on app.


Yep. Though people overlook the issue on tablets, the smaller display will put more focus on this with ICS on phone displays. Seems a no brainer that it should be hidden as needed.

Added:

More the reason Apple made a great design decision with the home button and why (per Apple) they did not go the fixed nav button route. Even they make can sense sometimes ;)
 
Soft button issue on HC is not so bad as tablets have way more screen space than phones. I use Asus Transformer and it's nice HC tablet. HC seems to share the bottom soft button bar for notifications, so there is no top notification bar like phones.
But soft button in HC seem to always stay even in videos, games. I wonder if this is due to restriction in HC itself or apps are not written to do so yet.
 
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