As far as the display goes, we’re extremely excited to see new Android phones taking higher resolution screens. With the added real estate the qHD provides, we were able to get a lot more utility out of Gmail, the browser, and a handful of other content-heavy applications, and text and images looked crystal clear on the display. There were some issues with Android applications that don’t properly take advantage of increased resolution, but they were few and far between — for the vast majority of software we used, the display worked beautifully. Touch response was also excellent, though we can’t say if that’s due to the screen technology at play here, or that super fast CPU. One item of note — the display is difficult to see in bright daylight, and the automatic brightness adjustment didn’t quite do the trick.
The Motorola Atrix 4G has a 4-inch TFT LCD with a pixel format of 960×540. I dislike meaningless jargon as much as the next guy so I’ll try to unpack this useless term: qHD. The q stands for quarter and HD refers to 1920×1080. Put two together and you get quarter HD. Halve the horizontal and halve vertical and you get a quarter: 960×540, exactly one quarter of HD. Now the funny thing is when anyone wants to refer to a pixel format of 1920×1080, they usually say Full HD and/or 1080p, not HD. So technically and more correctly it should be qFHD, another ugly jargon. Using the term qHD only makes things more complicated; I hope it goes away.
The 960×540 pixel format on the Atrix 4G translates into a resolution of 275PPI, which is lower than the class-leading iPhone 4 (326PPI), but still quite high. Using a looser definition of Retina Display would this qualify? I think so. Like Topolsky has already mentioned the text and images are crystal clear. I’m glad to see other brands besides Apple and Samsung put more emphasis on great displays. That’s great, but:
I’m not an Android app developer, but if I were one I’d be pulling my hair out! There are too many different pixel formats to support. I’m surprised that there aren’t more apps that don’t fully support the higher resolution LCD on the Atrix 4G. And it’s not like 480×270 was the default pixel format before and now all developers have to do is double the pixels vertically and horizontally. I think display pixel format fragmentation on the Android platform is going to get worse. And that’s one of the reasons why I don’t think Apple will be coming out with a smaller iPhone with a different pixel format. iOS developers want to develop and deploy apps as quickly as possible. Having to code for a different set of pixel formats not only make the development process more difficult, it takes longer to push it out, and adds a lot of burden on customer support.
The screen is 4.8 inches and 1024×480. Really now.
Yes, really. That’s a 21:9 aspect ratio, similar to the 21:9 TVs from Philips. This isn’t the first time a mobile phone brand has incorporated this particular ultra-wide aspect ratio. That honor would go to LG for its BL40 New Chocolate. Even Toyota has fitted a 21:9 display in its Sienna. So this isn’t anything new. Now, a 21:9 display has certain expectations that go with it. Foremost is the expectation that watching feature films will be most excellent, at least better than the regular 16:9 smartphones out there.
The 1024×480 pixel format leads to a resolution of almost 236PPI, so that’s a very good start. The high resolution will certainly lead to both sharp and smooth images in movies. Most movies that come in DVDs aren’t 16:9 but wider. You’ve most likely noticed that there are black horizontal bars while watching DVDs even on your 16:9 HDTV. That’s why. On the Acer Iconia Smart you should have no horizontal bars and that’s a major plus. You won’t have to double-tap on the display to fill the screen. On the flip side, there are a lot of TV content that is formatted 16:9. In this case the regular smartphones will look better with the Iconia Smart having vertical black bars!
The Acer Iconia Smart with its ultra-wide 21:9 4.8-inch LCD will be superb when watching feature films, but not so much when watching TV content in HD. I hope Acer saw it fit to use an IPS LCD to make the point clear that the Iconia Smart was designed for discerning on-the-go movie buffs. You guys do exist, right?
Coupled with the spectacular screen, a four-inch Super LED with a 800 x 480 resolution [...]
What the heck is a Super LED? I hope HTC isn’t trying to do a Samsung, who fooled a lot of people into thinking that a LED TV is something completely different than a LCD TV. There really is no such thing as a LED TV unless you want to call those huge LED billboards a TV. Same goes for Super LED: no such thing for use in a smartphone.
According to the press release by HTC that Engadget swiped in its entirety the Incredible S uses a Super LCD. I believe all LCD-based high-end smartphones have LED as a light source. So don’t let anyone fool you with a nonsensical term like LED TV. Or Super LED.
According to component suppliers and reported by DigiTimes, Apple has cornered 60% of global glass capacitive touch panel capacity resulting in a tight supply situation for competitors like HP, Motorola, and RIM. I don’t know the specifics but it wouldn’t be surprising if Apple is using its huge cash reserves to secure these touch panels ahead of new product announcements.
Apple just started selling its CDMA iPhone 4 on Verizon Wireless and will most likely announce the next-generation iPad 2 soon (and the iPad 3) and another updated iPhone (read Wait For The Next iPhone: iPhone 4S) in June or July. Both the iPhone and iPad require glass-based capacitive touch panels. Yields for touch panels were a problem in 2010, but by securing roughly 60% of global capacity Apple is maximizing its chances to meet what will be enormous demand for its new iPhones and iPads in 2011.
It all started on Valentine’s Day. Yukari Iwatani Kane and Ethan Smith at The Wall Street Journal reported a Smaller iPhone sighting:
One of the people, who saw a prototype of the phone late last year, said it is intended for sale alongside Apple’s existing line. The new device would be about half the size of the iPhone 4, which is the current model.
Then Miguel Helft and Nick Bilton at The New York Times weighed in:
But contrary to published reports, Apple is not currently developing a smaller iPhone, according to people briefed on Apple’s plans who requested anonymity because the plans are confidential.
But then here’s something that got my head scratching:
More important, a phone with a smaller screen would force many developers to rewrite their apps, which Apple wants to avoid, the person said.
And John Gruber at Daring Fireball agrees with the NYT:
Anyway, a smaller iPhone would be stupid, if by “smaller” you mean a screen that measures less than 3.5 or so inches. The physical size of the UI matters more than anything else.
Picture this: a kid in elementary school wielding an iPhone 4. Kinda big if you ask me. If Apple is building a smaller iPhone, it would be for guys and gals with smaller hands. The physical size matters, which is exactly the reason Apple would build a smaller iPhone. A smaller screen would force app rewrites? No. What if the smaller iPhone had a pixel format of 480×320? The same as the iPhone 3GS, 3G and the original? No rewriting required at all. And guess what? Apple would classify it as a Retina Display. Pure genius.
But is Apple really working on a smaller iPhone? Who knows.
Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi, according to Eric Savitz at Forbes:
The analyst says Cook “appeared to reaffirm the notion that Apple is likely to develop lower priced offerings” to expand the market for the iPhone. Cook said the company is planning “clever things” to address the prepaid market, and that Apple did not want its products to be “just for the rich,” and that the company is “not ceding any market.”
The older-generation iPhone 3GS can be had for US$49. But that requires you to be chained to an expensive carrier subscription for two years. A LTE-only data iPhone could do the trick since the voice portion of the cost of owning an iPhone is the largest. Theoretically, a data-only iPhone would not require a separate voice plan. But a quick and simple solution would be to sell the previous-generation iPhone unlocked, for not too much, right now.
Sparrow is heralded as “The New Mail for Mac.” John Gruber on Sparrow 1.0:
Sparrow, the most interesting new Mac email client in at least a decade, hits 1.0. Get it on the App Store for $10. Not quite there for me, yet, but it’s close. The Gmail-specific features are very clever.
That’s some high praise. Sparrow is a Gmail email client that looks like Twitter on the Mac. The UI is sleek, simple, and lightweight at just 9.5MB. Affordable, too at US$9.99. Sparrow has almost all of the things I look for and would be joining my favorites: DropBox-syncing text editor Notational Velocity (5.2MB) and my default image editor Seashore (6.6MB). One or both of these apps had their digital fat liposuctioned by Xslimmer resulting in smaller file sizes.
Apple Mail is horrifyingly obese, which is why I’ve switched to Gmail on the web. It leaves only a few bread crumbs on my system, is simple, and works. Until it randomly decides to take an inordinate amount of time loading. I like Gmail, but it is void of any sexiness. So I decided to take a serious look at this interesting new Mac email client, Sparrow. I did download a beta version a little while ago, but for some reason I didn’t like it. I was willing to give it another go. Well, it didn’t take long to find out Sparrow won’t cut it for me. And here’s why, described by the very first customer review I read:
Great first impression, but some ongoing concerns… ★★★
by Jundan Tresko
Original 1.0 – I really like what Sparrow has done with my email — on the surface. There is great potential here. Digging a bit deeper, however, I am quite concerned about its footprint in the filesystem.Frankly, it is a complete mess. What do I mean by that? I mean that while only 130MB in total size there were over 30,000 files (yes, over thirty thousand) in Sparrow’s cache for my Gmail account, which itself only has 3400 messages in it (my Inbox has maybe a dozen). Every support file from every other application I have added together isn’t even as many as Sparrow just dumped in my Application Support folder. Even deleting the account and re-adding it after checking the ‘Download Messages on Demand’ option resulted in a cache of nearly 9,000 files (33MB this time). Either way this creates an absolute mess for maintenance tools and routines such as backups, among other things. It also stands out like a sore pimple in an otherwise tidy filesystem.
Is this sort of file clutter considered acceptable application behavior by other users? I am too obsessive to not be bothered by such things. Anyways, while I won’t hold my breath for the developers to change this, I do hope that it isn’t how Sparrow will always be.
Bit barfing. That’s what I’ll call it. Sparrow seems to be good at barfing massive amounts of bits: 30,000 cache files?!? Sparrow might be sexy on the outside, but looks like its damn fugly on the inside. It isn’t just Sparrow though.
I think most Mac applications, except for a few including the two mentioned above, are fugly inside: bloated, inefficient code, that lead to an explosion of files. Have you looked at the files that iPhoto, iTunes, or Mail use? There are many and they consume a huge chunk of your drive. I don’t use iPhoto anymore, instead I use Image Capture (1.1MB) to neatly file my photos and videos. This saves a ton of gigabytes. iTunes? I use it only for syncing Contacts, Apps, and the occasional massive iOS update. I’ll stick to Gmail on the web until Sparrow figures out a way to get its pretty face running without having to blow up 30,000 files everywhere.
What we need is a Steve Wozniak for software. Woz, a circuit minimalist, designed only what was necessary. We need his expertise for bit barfing software. My rating for Sparrow? Just one ★ for looking sexy.
OLED-Info: On the left is an “Ordinary AMOLED Display” and on the right is a “Super AMOLED Plus”. It’s funny that Samsung is hating on its own. Not long ago the very best that Samsung had to offer was the Super AMOLED display (on the left) that went into all the different variations of its bestseller the Galaxy S smartphone. Super AMOLED marketing was everywhere. Now, it’s been relegated to just an ordinary AMOLED display.
The ordinary AMOLED display that Samsung is referring to isn’t ordinary at all. It used a smart sub-pixel structure and software algorithm to overcome some of OLED’s limitations while allowing for very good resolution, comparable to high-end LCDs.
If you look closely you can see the PenTile Matrix sub-pixel structure had large reds and blues. I don’t know about the reds, but the blues were big for a very important reason. Blue OLEDs are not as efficient as the red or green. What that means is that the blue OLEDs need to be driven harder to generate enough blue light. The problem with that is that OLEDs experience accelerated aging, or brightness declines.
The brilliant folks at Nouvoyance (formerly Clairvoyante) solved the problem of differential aging by making the blue OLEDs larger and combining the unique sub-pixel structure with some nifty software algorithms. The PenTile Matrix sub-pixel layout allowed Samsung to boast of its Super AMOLED display and sell a bunch of Galaxy S phones and its derivatives. Now the battle-tested technology is shunned as merely ordinary for the new kid on the block.
There was one little catch though. Compared to the very best, like the IPS LCD in the original Droid, text wasn’t as clear on the PenTile Matrix-based Super AMOLED display. Now Samsung has rectified the situation with its new Super AMOLED Plus. This new OLED display uses the typical RGB (Red Green Blue) sub-pixel structure, called Real-Stripe, that you find in almost all LCDs. As you can see in the image above, Real-Stripe results in a higher resolution, providing better details in both images and texts. That’s nice, and solves the problem of resolution. But then you get back to the original problem of differential aging due to the less efficient blue OLED.
So, did Samsung improve the efficiency of blue OLEDs? Or is Samsung betting that you’ll never get to experience this particular problem since you’ll be upgrading to new versions every year or two? I’ll keep you posted.
I didn’t know Mike Daisey until very recently because of a monologue that is currently showing at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre titled The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. According to his blog:
Mike Daisey has been called “the master storyteller” and “one of the finest solo performers of his generation” by the New York Times for his groundbreaking monologues which weave together autobiography, gonzo journalism, and unscripted performance to tell hilarious and heartbreaking stories that cut to the bone, exposing secret histories and unexpected connections.
I started watching the following two videos of his interview on TechCrunch (more videos have been added) with enthusiasm. And it is with a heavy heart that I write this post. You see, Daisey went to China. To Foxconn, where Apple products are made. What he saw there were teenaged kids and others working in terrible conditions building the beautiful iPhones and MacBook Pros that we oooh and aaah over. Not everything is revealed in these two interviews, but he shares enough to break my heart.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Why must there be sacrifices to the human condition to build beautiful high-tech devices? Like Daisey, I too have a deep appreciation for Apple’s simplicity and elegance in hardware and software design. But he is making me think about whether or not I should vote for the continued violence forced upon these workers by buying another Apple product. I am certain it isn’t just Apple, but it makes it all the more depressing because Apple, and Steve Jobs in particular, has been the center and darling of a high-tech renaissance that transformed the music, mobile phone, and now computing industries for the better, for us.
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