It's been a long time in coming, but 2013 looks to be the year when full HD 1080p displays on smartphones finally hit the mainstream.
The announcement of the 1080p HTC J Butterfly in Japan last week caused a serious flutter in the mobile tech press, but that's just the start, with both Samsung and LG reportedly lining up full HD smartphones of their own to launch in the first half of next year.
That's the word from Korean daily MK News, which quotes its industry sources as saying the two Korean electronics giants are hard at work on 1080p smartphones to make sure HTC and Sony with the forthcoming 5in Odin doesn't have this emerging smartphone market all to themselves for too long.
And yes, I haven't forgotten the Oppo Find 5, which got there before all of the above, and there may well be others too, but I'm talking major smartphone players on the global stage here.
Back to MK News, though, and the publication reckons Samsung's effort will stick with the company's stock AMOLED technology, while LG will springboard from the LCD-based 1080p prototype it demo'd a while back.
With further details thin on the ground at this point, it's too early to gauge the accuracy of the claims. But there's every chance the rumours are indeed true given the LG prototype and Samsung's traditional strength in the display department.
The MK News report says nothing on actual screen sizes, but we're definitely talking 5in and up here – anyone else thinking Samsung Galaxy Note 3?
Of course, some will argue (and some recently have) that delivering a 1080p resolution on a smartphone-sized display is a pointless exercise, as the pixel density is so high the naked eye won't notice any difference over a 720p screen.
But even if that's true, the prestige factor associated with full HD, not to mention its familiarity thanks to the TV market, means there's still plenty of scope for spinning the technology as a hero feature on the next generation of top-end smartphones, regardless of whether you can actually tell the difference or not.
Via The Verge
