Samsung hints Retina Display-worthy tablet LCDs around 2013
updated 09:00 pm EDT, Wed March 23, 2011
Samsung to have 300DPI tablet LCDs by 2013
Samsung in a Display Strategy preview on Wednesday gave a timeline for when its own tablet-sized LCDs could reach the densities many would expect for one of its tablets or an ultra-sharp iPad. the company expects displays with 200DPI to 300DPI roughly around 2013, halfway through its current roadmap. In the presentation, Engadget and others were also told the screens would be thinner and get an extra two hours of battery life on a device the size of the seven-inch Galaxy Tab.
It might include glasses-free 3D at that stage, Samsung said, but it wasn't leaping into the market as readily as a company like LG, which already has glasses-free 3D on the Optimus 3D smartphone.
By 2015, Samsung expects even a Galaxy Tab-class device to have 300DPI to 400DPI, reaching the true "pixel-free" look of the iPhone 4's Retina Display, which hits 326DPI. Future LCDs would get slimmer still, add pen support, and would extend the life of a Galaxy Tab to 10 hours assuming it didn't change in any other way.
The long timeline may dampen the hopes of those who had thought Apple might have such a screen quickly, but it doesn't necessarily rule it out for the iPad 3 or the future. Apple's larger 9.7-inch screen may affect the timeframe as well as its suppliers. Samsung is one of the iPad screen producers, but most iPad displays so far have come from LG Display, which beat Samsung in phone pixel density by about a year with the iPhone 4.
Regardless of the tablet, the challenges for getting displays this dense have been common ones of cost, production yields large enough to meet demand, and having both the processor and graphics cores powerful enough to smoothly drive a very dense display.
