Why has pixel pitch stopped shrinking?

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frisbfreek

Weaksauce
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Jul 13, 2004
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In the age of the CRT monitor, pixel size was variable depending on what resolution you wanted to run. You could have a 17" running at 1024x768 or 1600x1200, as long as you could stand the small text. But with all these LCDs coming out, pixel size seems fixed, at around .250 mm. How come manufacturers and panel makers aren't pushing for 18" LCDs with 1600x1200, or 20" LCDs with 2048x1534?

If you've ever seen an IBM T221 monitor or similar monitor (22" widescreen LCD but 3840x2400... pixel pitch is ~.125 mm, or half the size of pixels in a regular LCD!!), you would never want to go back to regular LCDs... at least I was in awe and great jealousy. Images and text were so incredibly crisp, you really couldn't tell there were actual pixels unless you stuck your nose right up to the monitor or used a magnifying glass.

I know there are currently limitations to graphics bandwidth (even dual-link DVI can't handle 3840x2400 at 60 Hz, but maybe HDMI can?), and the obvious $$$ factor, but besides that, are there other reasons for stagnant pixel sizes? I hope it's not because people don't want their Windows icons to be too small...
 
I think the whole native res thing might have something to do with it. They can tweak the panels all they want but in the end running a non-native res is gonna look like shit. Most new high end games cannot be run over 1280 res on a reasonable system (3ghz/GeForce 6800). So for that reason, in regard to games and getting decent FPS, the pixel pitch is fine for now.
 
I'd suggest it's a combination of things. One is that the native resolution makes them want to stick to something most DVI cards can run, as saltiness said.

The other, which people on anand, [H], etc don't seem to realize, is that for most people, current pixel pitches at native res are reasonable. They don't want their stuff to become smaller on their desktop. So unless some sort of dynamic scaling of everything on screen becomes prevalent (say, automatically upping the text size in MS Word, upping the icon size on the desktop) then you won't see higher pitches. They're selling to the majority of buyers, and most buyers don't like to squint.
 
Some laptops today have 17" displays that are running native resolutions of 1920x1200. That is a closer pixel pitch than is currently available on mainstream desktop LCDs.
 
There are also 15.4 inch screens running at 1920x1200 :)

Kinda crazy but neat and some people do appreciate it. My i8600 runs 1680x1050 at 15.4 inches and I think this is right about the perfect DPI.. I'd love to see a 20-24 inch screen at this DPI.
 
Maad said:
There are also 15.4 inch screens running at 1920x1200 :)

Kinda crazy but neat and some people do appreciate it. My i8600 runs 1680x1050 at 15.4 inches and I think this is right about the perfect DPI.. I'd love to see a 20-24 inch screen at this DPI.
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I forgot about the 15.4 inchers with the same resolution. I'd also love to see a 24" desktop with that DPI. It would supplant a 30" ACD as my top display choice. I don't think we'll see this anytime soon, though.
 
Exactly... there are laptop monitors with smaller DPI but that's only because of the size constraint. I would really like to see some desktop LCDs with a smaller pixel pitch... it's pretty hard to dismantle a laptop monitor to use with a desktop. I don't know about others but I for one am crazy about desktop real estate... the more pixels the better. Too bad I don't have $7000 to spare (although I've seen T221's on Ebay for $3000) ... and $3000 for the 30" ACD is probably out of my budget too.
 
I read that there is no demand for higher-res 19-inch. The market is completely satisfied with 1280x1024 19-inch. That's not my opinion. It's manufacturers's. Want 1600x1200? Buy 20-inch.
 
Of course part of the reason that laptop displays have a higher resolution is because bigger is better. However, I believe the other part of the reason is that you sit close to the laptop screen. On a desktop, you usually sit further away and the resolution needs to be lower.
 
saltiness said:
Probably at an eye-rending 60hz though.
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Yeah, and it's not like a 17" CRT has enough physical pixels to display that resolution properly.
 
Maad said:
There are also 15.4 inch screens running at 1920x1200 :)

Kinda crazy but neat and some people do appreciate it. My i8600 runs 1680x1050 at 15.4 inches and I think this is right about the perfect DPI.. I'd love to see a 20-24 inch screen at this DPI.
Click to expand...

1680x1050 is very nice on the widescreen 15" laptops. My gf has one, and her first screen busted and dell tried to replace it with a 1280x800 screen - as soon as they turned it on, I was like hey WTF that looks like crap.
 
I don't think 1856x1392 on a 17in CRT would be very popular, but should be fine running at 60Hz while playing games. I can't imagine you'd want to run anything more than 1280x1024 in everyday use though, same for 60Hz.
 
I guess my point before was that I would still like to see the pixel pitch get smaller. At least my 22 year old eyes can still be able to see individual pixels... basically anyone that needs antialiasing can tell.

I feel like we've gotten to a point where people think ~.25 mm dot pitch is "optimal" and that anything smaller is bad. But we should be moving away from this. For example, sure, 10 point font at 100% zoom will look pretty small on a screen with a dot pitch of .17 mm (like 1920x1200 on a 17" laptop LCD). But if you have the same size font on the same screen at 150% zoom, it's [about] the same physical size as 10 point font at 100% zoom on a .25 dot pitch monitor. But wouldn't it look better?

Here's an exercise to somewhat demonstrate what I mean. Measure about how far you are sitting from your monitor... maybe 3 feet? Ok, now open up your usual text editor, and type something. Look at the text at 100% zoom, and remember what it looks like. Now, change the zoom to 150%, but move back from the monitor so the distance is about 1.5x what you were viewing at before (4.5 feet). Can't you tell the nuances of the font a little better? If you want to extend the analogy, put it to 200% zoom and view it at 2x the distance (6 feet). The text might look bigger than you think since it's huge in relation to everything else, but that's what it would look like with a smaller pixel pitch!

If you keep doing that exercise above, at what point can you not tell the difference between two zooms? 200%? 300%? I think we can move towards at least halving the .25 mm/pixel standard. Maybe there will be more of this movement when Vista and its custom GUIs (i actually haven't looked too much into this though) comes along.
 
CRT monitors can take a high resolution, but that doesn't mean it can display all the pixels that comprise of that resolution.
 
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