Samsung Teases Future Tech: Foldable Display, 4K Phones, 64-CPUs, 16MP Isocell & More

[dgstorm]

Samsung must be excited at the amazing ideas they are working on because they recently shared a series of infographics to show off their newest near future tech. The above infographic is just one of several that Sammy showed off. It's an example of their planned foldable display tech which we shared some concept pics of a couple days ago. That's not all they have planned though. Here's a quick bullet-point list with some of the tech they are working on:

• Foldable Display - goes beyond just flexibility and bending
• 560ppi HD Displays and later 800ppi 4K Resolution Displays - Samsung is planning displays which can achieve astounding levels of resolution and pixel density
• 16MP Isocell sensors - Samsung wants to seriously up the ante in the digital camera department for smartphones
• 64-bit Custom ARM processors - of course we have heard about this one already but it will interesting to see what they can do with it
• More efficient uses of power in CPUs, NFC and more - who doesn't want better battery life?

That's just a brief glimpse of Samsung's plans. Most of this tech isn't too far off either. While most of it won't come about until 2015-2017, some of it will be available next year. Here's a link to six of the infographics from Samsung: http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...ear-future-tech-infographics.html#post2486642

Source: AndroidAuthority

 

[tgyberg]

Love it! My inner nerd: :icon_ banana:

 

[kodiak799]

Foldable displays are really interesting...You could have a standard 4.7" display that unfolds into a 7" tablet - even bigger if you think a tri-fold concept that would get you up to 9" diagonal.

 

[johnomaz]

4K resolution...um...wow. I mean sure, its a great marketing feature but 800ppi on a phone. Thats overkill and a half.

 

[Iggy08]

4K resolution...um...wow. I mean sure, its a great marketing feature but 800ppi on a phone. Thats overkill and a half.

I thought 720p was the max anyone would need on a 5" or smaller phone. I thought the resolution on my Droid Razr HD was great, and hearing about 1080p phones made me shake my head. But I got my Nexus 5 Tuesday, and all I can say is wow. The difference was immediately noticeable to me. The display is gorgeous and text is very easily readable even when it's small. I've learned to bite my tongue until I see it for myself.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[tgyberg]

I thought 720p was the max anyone would need on a 5" or smaller phone. I thought the resolution on my Droid Razr HD was great, and hearing about 1080p phones made me shake my head. But I got my Nexus 5 Tuesday, and all I can say is wow. The difference was immediately noticeable to me. The display is gorgeous and text is very easily readable even when it's small. I've learned to bite my tongue until I see it for myself.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Yea same when I saw the Note 3, it was a wow!

 

[xeene]

4k display on the phone? Why? So it can drain the battery faster and make apps load slower? Human eye can't tell the difference between 300ppi or 800ppi from 2 feet away. Why stress the device for no reason?

In my opinion samsung is concentrating on the wrong field. Figure out your battery problems and fix your pathetic radios. Then star worrying about numbers which make no difference.

 

[Iggy08]

4k display on the phone? Why? So it can drain the battery faster and make apps load slower? Human eye can't tell the difference between 300ppi or 800ppi from 2 feet away. Why stress the device for no reason?

In my opinion samsung is concentrating on the wrong field. Figure out your battery problems and fix your pathetic radios. Then star worrying about numbers which make no difference.

That's 2 feet bro, I look at my phone from like 1 foot max lol. In all honesty, you probably can't tell the difference in number of pixels, but I'm sure you would be about to see the difference in quality. Go compare a 720p phone with a 1080p in person and you will understand what a difference it actually makes.

Like I had said, I was not a believer until I saw it myself.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[tgyberg]

Must see 4k!

 

[FoxKat]

I am not disagreeing with the masses here that want "better quality" in image displays, but really...800 PPI, or even 560 PPI??? I'm sorry, but in terms of actual full-color pixels, even 560 PPI it is definitely overkill at even the 1' distance remarked, unless they are speaking of individual color sub-pixels.

I've said before that if you were to poll all those out there and determine the PPI of their computer monitors, you'd find they're maxing out at about 160 PPI. Granted, they're at a greater viewing distance in most cases, of about 18", but still that doesn't equate to 560 PPI at 8".

From Wikipedia;

The maximum angular resolution of the human eye at a distance of 1 km is typically 30 to 60 cm. This gives an angular resolution of between 0.02 to 0.03 degrees, which is roughly 0.6 arcminute per line pair, which implies a pixel spacing of 0.3 arcminute.[SUP][5][/SUP][SUP][6][/SUP][SUP][7][/SUP] 20/20 vision is defined as the ability to resolve two points of light separated by a visual angle of one minute of arc.[SUP][8][/SUP] That's about 300 pixels per inch for a display on a device held 10 to 12 inches from the eye.

So what that is saying is that a 300 PPI display should look no less sharp to a 20/20 eye at 1' than a 560 PPI display. Now, that is making an assumption that the 300 pixels per inch are full-color pixels (i.e. 3 sub-pixels of colors, or 900 sub-pixels per inch). Using the RGB or CMY color schemes to achieve full color, and considering if each individual color pixel whether Red (Magenta), Green (Yellow), or Blue (Cyan), were actually counted as an individual pixel and not as a part of a 3 or 4 pixel subset, it would then mean that sub-PPI might need to be as high as 900 or 1,200 PPI to achieve a net result of 300 PPI in pixel subset resolution.

It has also been argued that this 300 PPI number may be low given other variables. Many argued that the Apple's "Retina display" at 326 PPI was still lower than human visual acuity, so the argument for 441 PPI as in the Samsung Galaxy S4 can be made perhaps...but still not 560 PPI or better, again on 5" displays at even 8-12".

Also, sharpness and color saturation and purity are two entirely different things. To achieve greater color range and intensity requires more individual color pixels (and even varying shades of each color). Samsung's S4 uses a different pixel arrangement than other displays called "Diamond pixels" to achieve greater image quality (see below).


View attachment 67632

By using the eye's varying levels of sensitivity to certain colors as a guide to pixel size and arrangement they've increased image quality without needing to go to such extremes in pixel count. The human eye sees Green (about 495–570 nm) best with maximum sensitivity at about 500 - 555 nm, and sees both Red (620–750 nm) and Blue (450–495 nm) far less easily. Of the three colors, Blue is the most difficult for the human eye to see (see below). Notice how wide the band of Green range is (Blue-Green to Yellow), how much smaller the pure Red range is (Orange to Magenta), and how tiny the Blue (Blue to Violet), range is?

View attachment 67633

To create a laser that's easily visible in the Green range only requires minimal power. To get a Red one to the same perceived brightness requires considerably more power, but to get a Blue one that looks even closely as bright requires massively higher power.

So Samsung made the Green sub-pixels smaller than the Red and Blue, but arranged the Green in rows and columns, and the Red and Blue in alternating, intermingled X patterns to achive a hybrid Pentile display giving greater color accuracy and still allowing the sharpest images. Really it's quite impressive, but not because it's 441 PPI - more so, because it's more natural in tonality and clarity - i.e. appearance.

 

[kodiak799]

The difference was immediately noticeable to me.

You sure what you're noticing isn't just improved contrast and brightness? I would guess the glass can make a difference, too, just like on tv's. Not to mention font tweaks/idfferences. I'm not sure how one would go about a legit apples-to-apples comparison.

 

[Iggy08]

I understand that you like to over analyze these things with your science and math, but what I'm saying is not that complicated. From my personal experience, I can see a huge quality difference between the Nexus 5 and Droid Razr HD. For anyone to make a statement before seeing and experiencing themselves seems foolish to me now that I have seen it for myself. Having said that, I'm not saying that we need infinite amount of resolution on our phones. I assume there actually is a limit to where we will no longer notice a difference. It could be 1080p on a 5" display, it could be 4k on a 4" display, all I can say is "don't knock it before you try it."

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Iggy08]

You sure what you're noticing isn't just improved contrast and brightness? I would guess the glass can make a difference, too, just like on tv's. Not to mention font tweaks/idfferences. I'm not sure how one would go about a legit apples-to-apples comparison.

Actually, I did notice a bit of washing out on the Nexus 5. But besides that it's a huge improvement. I say text is more legible because I'm speaking about going to websites where the font is all the same. I'm gonna keep preaching "don't knock it until you try it"

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[FoxKat]

I understand that you like to over analyze these things with your science and math, but what I'm saying is not that complicated. From my personal experience, I can see a huge quality difference between the Nexus 5 and Droid Razr HD. For anyone to make a statement before seeing and experiencing themselves seems foolish to me now that I have seen it for myself. Having said that, I'm not saying that we need infinite amount of resolution on our phones. I assume there actually is a limit to where we will no longer notice a difference. It could be 1080p on a 5" display, it could be 4k on a 4" display, all I can say is "don't knock it before you try it."

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

I appreciate what you are saying as well, and yes...I can be a bit over the top (sorry).

There's no disputing the information you are saying (and I certainly didn't intend for it to sound that way if it did). If it looks better to the eye...it is. All I am clarifying is that the difference you or others see may not be simply due to the higher pixel count. There are many other factors in displays that blend to result in either a good or not so good user experience. Contrast ratio (black levels), color saturation, dynamic range of color (16 bit, 32 bit, 48 bit), refresh rate (or frame rate), brightness, pixel arrangement (Pentile versus standard rows, versus any hybrid thereof), type of display (whether it be LED, LCD, OLED, etc.), type of glass used, coatings, etc.

It's almost the same as the rush to push the megapixel race in digital cameras. Nikon has proven so many times over that more pixels doesn't directly translate to better images. They've taken their engineering prowess and placed it where it does the most good. The best possible optics, when all other things considered are the first and most important parts of any image capture, and so the quality of the glass, the refraction index (how much light bends or diverts at point of entry or exit in the glass), how clear it is (which translates to allowing more light through), what coatings are applied which can either increase visibility or reduce glare, etc., all contribute to the amount and focus of light that reaches the image sensor. There are also lots that can be done on the back end, after the sensor which will have a huge impact on the final image. The software algorithms used to take that numerical data and convert it into light and colors can be very good or very poor, or somewhere in between. Obviously the quality of the sensor plays a role, and there is good reason for being in the 5-10 mp range for enlargements, but it's one factor of a plethora of factors that go into the mix.

So what I am saying is that when it all comes down to it, more pixel count may have an impact, but as you mentioned there is a point where the number of pixels per inch is past the limit of human perception at a specific distance. One thing is for sure...more pixels means more power and more data, which means more battery consumption and greater need for processing and graphic power, so with two identical devices side by side, one with a 1080p display and the other with a 720p display - all other things being equal the 1080p display device will be able to produce less frames per second than the 720p device. In that case, the 720p device can actually look better when watching a video with a higher frame-rate than the 1080p device is able to keep up with.

The only way to know for sure if one display is better for you than another is to see them both, in person, displaying the same images, and side by side. Nobody but you can tell you what your eyes can see and your brain can process, so nothing said in these posts is going to be 100% right for everyone, except that once the maximum resolution the eye can discern has been exceeded (again, all other things being equal), there is no added benefit to those higher pixel counts, and in fact there may be good reason to steer clear of them.

I have a Droid MAXX and had a Samsung Galaxy S4. I can say definitively that I am not in the least disappointed with the "quality of the image" on the MAXX, with its 720p screen at 294 PPI versus the 1080p screen at 442 PPI on the S4. Also the MAXX has a considerably slower processor with less cores, yet it is every bit as fast as the S4 was. Finally, the MAXX is only slightly larger than the S4 (length and thickness), but with the same screen size it has nearly twice the battery life per charge. I would sooner sacrifice the resolution of 442 PPI at 5" - effectively 2,073,600 pixels, and take 294 PPI at 5" - effectively 921,600 pixels or less than half the number of pixels (44.5%), and the resulting significantly lower need for computing power to perform equally, in order to get twice the battery life.