why is droids screen resolution different?

[exp]

Seems most phones coming out have 480 by 800 or something, and the droid has a slightly different and bigger resolution of like 480 by 840 or something. The droid even has more resolution than the new evo 4. Can anyone explain why motorola made this choice and what benefits it offers? And why has no one else chosen it for their handset?

[iPirate]

Wide VGA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

854×480 is approximately the resolution of anamorphically "un-squeezed" DVD widescreen video and considered a "safe" resolution that would not crop any of the image. It's called Full WVGA as it represent true 16:9 aspect ratio which can display High-definition video without cropping (i.e. full width, albeit with considerable reduction in size.) [1].


Droid does display your video correctly

[exp]

So what reasons cause basically every other new Android phone to have 480 by 800 resolution instead?

[Jim 777]

Wide VGA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

854×480 is approximately the resolution of anamorphically "un-squeezed" DVD widescreen video and considered a "safe" resolution that would not crop any of the image. It's called Full WVGA as it represent true 16:9 aspect ratio which can display High-definition video without cropping (i.e. full width, albeit with considerable reduction in size.) [1].


Droid does display your video correctly

Nice answer! Another "does" for the droid.

[iPirate]

So what reasons cause basically every other new Android phone to have 480 by 800 resolution instead?

Huh??????

my post gave the reason

[bwhite82]

So what reasons cause basically every other new Android phone to have 480 by 800 resolution instead?

Huh??????

my post gave the reason

Your post gave the reason why the DROID has that resolution. He is asking why the others do not. BTW, from that article, the N1 is capable of WVGA resolution as well.

[dezymond]

more of an HD screen i guess. No way am i complaining about the awesome resolution the Droid has.

[iPirate]

So what reasons cause basically every other new Android phone to have 480 by 800 resolution instead?

Huh??????

my post gave the reason

Your post gave the reason why the DROID has that resolution. He is asking why the others do not. BTW, from that article, the N1 is capable of WVGA resolution as well.

I'm not sure why other phones aren't doing it... cost might be involved.

N1 is capable of WVGA, but it is not 16:9 and will compress the video some.

[gatorbait]

I've been wondering about this too. The Droid is 854x480, but it seems every new Android phone is going with 800x480. That seems weird to me since 854x480 is true 16:9 widescreen. If you are showing a 16:9 movie on an 800x480 screen, will you get image cropping or black bars?

[takeshi]

Some, but the 54 pixel difference shouldn't be a big deal. Is anyone only viewing 16:9 content on their devices anyway?