Gadgetory

hey guys this is Austin so we're all surrounded by screens whether they're in our pockets on our desks or in our living rooms you've probably heard phrases like 4k and retina display thrown around but how good these screens need to be surely everything has to be good enough at some point right the easiest way to compare screens is the resolution basically all modern displays are made of pixels which are individual dots that can be whatever color they need to be to make up an image one pixel isn't all that important but put a lot of them on screen and get yourself a pretty convincing image when someone says something is 720p or 1080p what they're talking about is the resolution how many pixels it has so take this video for example if you're watching it in full quality the resolution is 1920 by 1080 pixels this is known as Full HD and is what you'll find on most TVs and even some phones these days most people are perfectly happy with HD it's nice and clear with plenty of detail so what's the point of going beyond it I mean it's not like you can see the difference with higher resolutions except when you can let's take the iPhone for example when it was launched Apple made a huge deal about the fact that it had a Retina display screen so pixel dense that your eyes just can't make out the individual dots unfortunately it's not quite that simple and there's an easy way to see why so grab your phone and hold it out at about arm's length from your face now take a close look at the screen can you make out the pixels probably not start pulling it closer and closer though and you'll eventually be able to notice that things get a little pixelate that's because resolution is only part of the story the size of the screen makes a big difference in how detailed it needs to be well we all basically take for granted that holding our phones at arm's length means everything is nice and sharp if you look at a TV with the same resolution that clothes it's going to be a pixelated mess if you take a 60-inch TV with the resolution of 1080p it comes in at 36 pixels per inch where that same HD resolution on a 5 inch smartphone delivers over 440 PPI there's nothing too crazy here of course if you take the same resolution and stretch it out over a bigger screen it's going to be less detailed Carlton Bale has an excellent post on his site which breaks down how far away you have to sit from a TV to see the Frances in resolution for my 60-inch TV I said about eight feet away which is just on the edge of where you can start to see the advantage of moving to a higher resolution like 4k most people won't get the full advantage of 4k unless they have a very big TV that they're sitting fairly close to however the difference is much more noticeable on a computer coming back around to Apple they judge a Retina display on a tablet or laptop as not being able to see pixels at 15 to 20 inches away move over to a desktop display though and typically you'll be sitting less than 2 feet away at these kinds of distances even a 4k monitor isn't detailed enough to fool your eyes phones aren't quite so simple however we've had very high resolution screens for a while however since we keep our phone so close to our faces they kind of have to be even though the original Retina display on the iPhone is mostly good enough there are definitely cases where you can take advantage of a higher resolution screen put it side-by-side with the 1080p display on the HTC One m8 and 1440p panel on the LG g3 and up close I can make out the difference between all three it's subtle but with fine detail the One m8 is noticeably sharper where the g3 is so ridiculously pixel dense that even with the phone all the way up to my face I still can't see the pixels personally I think 1080p is ideal for most phones as a PPI of over 400 really does seem to be the sweet spot even apples number to be bumping up the Retina display to this range for the next iPhone so while most screens these days are pretty good we're still not quite there yet anyway if you guys enjoyed and you want to see more videos like this definitely be sure to subscribe to the channel and I will catch you guys in the next one