Why the lack of displays w/ higher resolution than 1080p?

[jhokie]

I only see this in monitors 27 inches and higher. This would allow those of us without the money or space to run an eyefinity setup an avenue to increase our display enjoyment in another way.

Why not 2560x1440 in a 24 inch or smaller screen? Why not even higher? People buy into iphone 4 300 DPI garbage like they can even see it, so why are we still using PC monitors with ~100 dpi?

We would need less AA (of course some will always be needed), so it wouldn't even be that much of a framerate hit to run games at these higher resolutions. I want to game on a 150+ dpi screen, and I think it would make a large difference in image quality. Let's discuss this.

 

[DoubleTap]

Companies are in the business of selling monitors and to sell a higher dpi, smaller sized monitor would be difficult as it would be more expensive than even slightly larger, lower dpi models so they are going to miss out on the uninformed, price sensitive market and my guess would be that it's still going to be expensive enough that those who care would probably rather pay a bit more for the larger screen.

Samsung does make a 23" that is 2048x something - it's just a but higher than 1080p but allows for side by side 1024 windows....

 

[suiken_2mieu]

I've wondered this myself. And i believe it all comes down to cost. A lot of the panels used in monitors are used for TV's as well. So if you have a panel with higher res that cant be used as a tv as well, the price will go up because all it can be used for is a monitor. I would have rather slowly went up in resolution than this giant step i made (from 1440x900 to 1920x1080 to 2560x1600), but the product was just not available at the time.

 

[wagoo]

A lot of us feel the same way. See this thread also.

Personally I think we'll only see a serious drive for higher DPI from manufacturers when quad-hd TVs start to be released.

 

[Sycraft]

Main reason is that DPI scaling is still a problem. OSes didn't properly support it until Vista. Ok so modern OSes support it and they are growing to be the majority. Well and good, however apps have to get on board. They have to be programmed to listen to the system's DPI settings. If not, things break. Right now you see 4 kinds of apps:

1) Apps that listen properly. All the modern MS stuff is like this. They scale perfectly to whatever size needed. This is where we need to go.

2) Apps that listen, but not all the time or quite correct. Firefox is like this. Some things scale properly, however the actual webpage rendering doesn't. Yes, you can have FF itself scale it separately, but it doesn't set its' "normal" scale to the proper level it should per the OS. These are a minor problem.

3) Apps that ignore it completely. They don't scale at all, they always render the same size. Winamp, at least with its old UI, is like this. This is an increasing problem with increasing DPI. If you have a monitor that is 3x the DPI of a normal one, those things will be tiny and impossible to use.

4) Apps that ignore it for some parts, and use it in others, like text, and break badly. These are a major problem. Their UI elements will stay small but text will scale so it'll go out of its box and be unreadable and so on. They look bad and can be unusable without a whole lot of scaling.

So until apps get to the point that most support scaling, higher DPI monitors are a problem. I mean you can change the scaling mode to just do pixel increases, that'll work, but then you lose the reason of having high DPI.

Resolution independence is just a new thing, and programmers are lazy. Perhaps Windows 8 will help if it introduces a compatibility mode so that proper apps DPI scale and apps that won't work get pixel scaled. That could allow for it to be used more.

Another problem is, of course, cost. Each pixel requires transistors, and so the more of them you have, the more the cost. 300 DPI is not too expensive on a tiny screen where the rez is only 960x540, that is only about 500k pixels. However if you want 300DPI on, say, a 24" monitor that is around triple the current resolution, actually a little more, so like 6000x3750 which is 22.5m pixels. Gonna up the cost of a monitor a lot.

 

[Snowdog]

Main reason is that DPI scaling is still a problem. OSes didn't properly support it until Vista. Ok so modern OSes support it and they are growing to be the majority. Well and good, however apps have to get on board. They have to be programmed to listen to the system's DPI settings. If not, things break. Right now you see 4 kinds of apps:

Actually most of what I see when testing is
5): Apps that do a blurry zoom
Example (see right side with Opera):
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/9933/win7scale.png

So instead of nice high res fonts (the main point of high DPI), you get low res fonts with a blurry zoom in on them.

It is a total mess.

 

[2yen]

I totally agree.

 

[mahdiy85]

whether or not you get blurry scaling now, i'm sure in the future things will get better, but there have to be higher dpi monitors first. you can get a 15" laptop at 1920x1080, so why not 24 or 22 @ 2560x1600? these would still have a lower dpi than the 15" laptop with 1920x1080 rez. a straight jump from <100 to 300dpi isn't what the thread author was talking about, but to something in the 150 range. i'd buy it, even if everything doesn't scale well. how is scaling on OSX?

 

[InternationalHat]

It's going to completely screw up the web. I don't think we're anywhere near ready for this.

Layouts are mostly made for pixel based dimensions, not everything is done relative nor necessarily should it be. When you get to a certain point you start having to look at vector graphics for everything too if you want to scale a layout which is a nightmare and that is not going to happen. It's too expensive and the tools aren't good, plus support for vector graphics is bad.

I'm against super-high dpi for now, we don't have a way to solve some pretty fundamental problems.

 

[mahdiy85]

that's true, but i don't think anyone wants things to stay the same for the next 10 years. websites get redesigned all the time anyway, and better design methods/tools will be common a while after higher dpi monitors start trickling in. they have to exist first.

 

[charlywiggin]

I agree, cant stand the load of 16:9 1080p crap.

 

[elvn]

..
.... Programmers are not all lazy... but many are underpaid, overworked, and undervalued. Why do more work for no appreciation (and for a tiny segment of users even worse). The whole country (usa) is going to end up like that imo... drastically underpaid and under-supported workers who just don't give a f*** because they are living on minimal crumbs with no benefits. But I digress
....
Web site creators can use percents for web page layouts instead of pixels. Also, with higher rez panels, you tend to keep the web browser on only part of the screen - utilizing the higher rez for a lot more desktop real estate for other windows rather than maximizing your browser.. At least that's what I do, unless its a page with very high rez large photos on it or something... I'm getting more vertical vs scrolling but I'm not making my browser wider most of the time.
..
... Other apps don't scale properly and on an extremely high rez screen that would be a problem. Maybe some type of scalable integrated VM window would do the trick, scaling that whole VM desktop (or having multiple VM like instance windows.. one for each app that you specify in the app's launch preferences) with pixel doubling, tripling, quadrupling.. just like scaling 720p to 1080p or 1440p with a movie player and your gpu.. With the multi core and HT "cores" available now and cheap ram it shouldn't be too demanding on some systems.
...
... Personally I like 16:9 aspect.. you can fit 16:10 inside of 16:9 and vise-versa perspective wise..... its just a screen ratio... its the resolutions that could be a little higher for desktops (I love my 2560x1440)... For movies 1080p is more than enough at normal viewing distances vs screen sizes.

 

[Snowdog]

whether or not you get blurry scaling now, i'm sure in the future things will get better, but there have to be higher dpi monitors first. you can get a 15" laptop at 1920x1080, so why not 24 or 22 @ 2560x1600? these would still have a lower dpi than the 15" laptop with 1920x1080 rez. a straight jump from <100 to 300dpi isn't what the thread author was talking about, but to something in the 150 range. i'd buy it, even if everything doesn't scale well. how is scaling on OSX?

Not really. You can develop DPI independent software without requiring high DPI monitors first. Microsofts own applications are already compliant. If MS had stated that a requirement for Win7 compatibility statement on windows software was proper DPI independence, we would be halfway there. This really is a case where the SW can come first.

Why higher DPI in laptops? Because people sit closer to the screens. I have sharp vision( >20:15 BCVA), but I like to sit almost 3feet from my desktop monitor. So when I tried a 30" 2560x1600 screen even that was bordering on too small a pitch at my preferred distance and that is only around 100 dpi. 150 dpi would have been completely unworkable.

 

[Blackbeard Ben]

It's going to completely screw up the web. I don't think we're anywhere near ready for this.

Layouts are mostly made for pixel based dimensions, not everything is done relative nor necessarily should it be. When you get to a certain point you start having to look at vector graphics for everything too if you want to scale a layout which is a nightmare and that is not going to happen. It's too expensive and the tools aren't good, plus support for vector graphics is bad.

I'm against super-high dpi for now, we don't have a way to solve some pretty fundamental problems.

No one has forced you to buy high DPI monitors yet, and no one will. Not until low DPI monitors go out of production, that is.

These are fundamental problems for you. But not for everyone. If there are people willing to buy such monitors - and there's at least some demand from power-user groups - there is no reason to hold back technology just because you don't think it's fit for your use.

Let's say we start with a modest increase to 150 ppi as the OP mentioned. I'm working on my laptop right now at that (spacial) resolution. Actually, it came stock with Windows scaling at 125% or 150%, but I turn it down because it's a waste of space, breaks a few of my image viewing/editing programs (unfortunate scaling up of images at 100%), and makes it no harder for me to read text. I don't think I've ever had anyone short of my grandmother complain about things being too small on it. However, we do sit closer to laptop screens as a general rule - I'm about 18-22" average compared to 24-28" for my desktop. (I know others sit even farther away and may not like 150 ppi at all, but again, no one is going to force you to buy such monitors.) Regardless, the increased density a godsend for fitting things on screen and viewing images - having had my laptop for a year I have no complaints other than "more pixels, please". Well, I wouldn't mind more pixels in a smaller package either.

As for higher than 150 ppi - well, I've got a year's experience with that too on my T221. At 200 ppi on a desktop monitor things are in fact significantly smaller to the point where even I would appreciate some scaling. I left it off, however, because of the aforementioned image viewer scaling problems - that defeated the whole point of high ppi monitors.

As Sycraft mentioned, FF (and Chrome at least, maybe others) can do their own content scaling - I did that, leaving the browser interface at normal size and enlarging the web content only. It works very well, actually - I've never had a better browsing experience. Text looks like it's laser-printed, images/videos scale up properly (but obviously lose spacial resolution - not ideal but better than any alternative), and everything stays exactly how it should proportionally. Honestly, web content is not an issue whatsoever - just program GUIs - a much smaller problem, relatively speaking.

My point is: I've seen the future and there's no going back. It's too good.

There's obviously unsolved problems with scaling in OSes and programs, but there's no reason we can't use higher-ppi monitors right now. 150 ppi would be easy for many right now. This is one whole chicken vs. egg thing where both sides are using the lack of development of the other as an excuse for not putting effort into developing and producing solutions.

Well, that and a few other problems (which have already been mentioned). First is the difficulty of marketing smaller, higher resolution displays (which Apple has solved - give it a catchy name like "Retina" and spam ads about it) which gullible consumers don't understand. Unfortunately, no one ever markets monitors like TVs and phones. Apple could do it, and I wouldn't be surprised if they did. Well, after NEC and whomever else come out with high-ppi monitors (again) first.

Sycraft also mentioned cost - yes, yields. Yields for high density LCDs are very low - that's one of the biggest reasons why the T221 cost over $20,000 at first and stayed at $5000+ throughout its production. The same defect that might cause just one of two dozen phone displays to be thrown out could cause a whole monitor to be unusable.

However, we have overcome all of the practicality issues of the T221 - a single DisplayPort 1.2 connection can run a 3840x2400 display at 60 Hz, instead of the multiple DVI connections and spanning needed for the slow (41 or 48 Hz) refresh rate for the T221. Graphics cards are powerful enough now that pushing that many pixels in games isn't out of the question - and halving the linear resolution is always possible if needed. In fact, more or less every video card around now is capable of pushing such resolutions, unlike when the T221 came out and only a few Matrox and NVIDIA Quadro cards could.

 

[DoubleTap]

I agree that the programmers are not the issue - it's the product managers and marketing teams that are holding this back

 

[GuyClinch]

Just start buying the highest DPI display you can reasonably afford. Hopefully the manufacturers will catch on and start making more high DPI displays for the desktop. For me - I simply don't use applications that don't scale correctly.

I don't think Windows can ban non-compliant apps because they are famous for their legacy support. But for me personally I can avoid them. I intend to pick up a couple 110 DPI displays which is pretty much the best a regular person can do at this point.

It sucks that people are so hopped up about mobile that we are getting the bottom of the display barrel nowadays. But you can only fight back with buying power.

 

[Snowdog]

These are fundamental problems for you. But not for everyone. If there are people willing to buy such monitors - and there's at least some demand from power-user groups - there is no reason to hold back technology just because you don't think it's fit for your use.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that. But the question was posed as to why there aren't some/more high PPI monitors.

It is because of all the scaling issues and the relatively small portion of the buying public that would be will to pay much more for a high DPI screen and put up with all the issues.

Until the issues are resolved enough that some large enough portion of the population is interested in such screens, no one is going to enter the money losing venture of producing them.

 

[daveswantek]

I agree that the programmers are not the issue - it's the product managers and marketing teams that are holding this back

I was a software engineer for a very long time and I can tell you for a fact that this is true. There was many a time when I was told "Just get it done any way you can". HTML made things a lot worse, because it allows a lot of mistakes and varies way too much from one browser to another. CSS helps, but the hole mess needs to be replaced completely with something vector based. MS and Adobe are both trying to do this with Flash and Silverlight respectivly, but they are both proprietary. HTML 5 is sort of proprietary, because only certain companies are pushing it.

MS will tighten the requirements as Windows progresses. It is too bad Vista was so poorly recieved, (mostly due to driver problems), because this will make MS less willing to make big changes and they really need to.

 

[gibber]

...Samsung does make a 23" that is 2048x something - it's just a but higher than 1080p but allows for side by side 1024 windows....

Is that still available? I bought one about six months ago and LOVE it. I MUCH prefer it over my slightly larger 24" 1920 x 1080 monitor. I was soooo annoyed recently when I was monitor shopping and all I could find at anything near a reasonable price was monitors with a LOWER resolution than the one I'd bought six months ago! A real big WTF!?! Ugh.

Another thing that's super annoying is how hard it is to find nice big high-res 4:3 aspect monitors at anything less than 10 times a reasonable price.

 

[daveswantek]

Another thing that's super annoying is how hard it is to find nice big high-res 4:3 aspect monitors at anything less than 10 times a reasonable price.

These could be very useful in a multimonitor setup. Perfect for sidecars.

 

[gibber]

...Another problem is, of course, cost. Each pixel requires transistors, and so the more of them you have, the more the cost. 300 DPI is not too expensive on a tiny screen where the rez is only 960x540, that is only about 500k pixels. However if you want 300DPI on, say, a 24" monitor that is around triple the current resolution, actually a little more, so like 6000x3750 which is 22.5m pixels. Gonna up the cost of a monitor a lot.

Ok, but, why not at least give us the option of buying something like 2400 x 1500 (16:10 ratio) 24" - 26" monitors without charging 5x the price???

 

[Blackbeard Ben]

I don't think anyone is suggesting that. But the question was posed as to why there aren't some/more high PPI monitors.

It is because of all the scaling issues and the relatively small portion of the buying public that would be will to pay much more for a high DPI screen and put up with all the issues.

Until the issues are resolved enough that some large enough portion of the population is interested in such screens, no one is going to enter the money losing venture of producing them.

I don't agree at all.

You could say that the reason that we're not all using high ppi monitors is because there isn't complete support for scaling, yes. No one is going to deny that that is one of the biggest reasons.

But why isn't there even one consumer desktop monitor with higher than 110 ppi? We know people can handle 150 ppi on laptops - the 15.4" 1920x1080 wide gamut panel is widely popular among multiple manufacturers despite its expense. Even 110 ppi monitors are rare - when looking at current production monitors and without going to $800 27" 2560x1440 displays, you're going to peak at 102 ppi for a 21.5" 1920x1080 screen.

The problem is that we've been stagnated ever since HDTVs became "the next big thing". People still see "Full HD" and think that's an improvement for monitors. Well, in terms of the average desktop monitor it's an improvement over the past, but remember that the first consumer 1920x1200 LCD monitors came out A DECADE AGO. In no other aspect of consumer computing has so little progress been made in terms of absolute performance than with monitors.

My point is that there is a niche market there already that is willing to use higher ppi monitors right now. For one thing, the military, engineering firms, hospitals, and doctors' offices would kill to have the performance they spend $7,500 on (a greyscale NEC MD205MG-1, for example) for $2,000. Then there's the enthusiast market that would open up as a result. But just in the military and medical fields right now - if one of these manufacturers could make a larger high ppi monitor at a consumer price level, they would, because they could crush all their competitors for the high-end market. But they can't, and it's almost certainly because of yields. The same reason the T221 is out of production now.

 

[Snowdog]

I don't agree at all.

You haven't really presented any counter argument to the simple, obvious reason that there isn't a big enough market to make it profitable. Business is interested in profit. That is all.

109 dpi screens are already an expensive niche. Unless this niche takes off, there isn't going to be much push to drive higher DPI that is even smaller and more expensive niche. That is just obvious logic.

If everyone clamoring for high DPI screens buy a 109 dpi screen and there enough of you, then someone will push higher. If 109 DPI screens are unprofitable (outside of supplying Apple) then you are in for a long wait.

Better scaling would go a long way toward growing the niche.

 

[isp]

Actually most of what I see when testing is
5): Apps that do a blurry zoom
Example (see right side with Opera):
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/9933/win7scale.png

So instead of nice high res fonts (the main point of high DPI), you get low res fonts with a blurry zoom in on them.

It is a total mess.

If you're not against using firefox then I believe there's an addon named "Default Zoom Level" that will work for you. I realize you may have this problem with other apps too though.

Comparison

 

[nobody_here]

I agree, cant stand the load of 16:9 1080p crap.

Yeah...the horror....you think it looks bad on a 23" monitor, try watching 1080p on a 55" HDTV!

 

[Bbq]

because TEN EIGHTY PEE FULL HD

 

[Snowdog]

If you're not against using firefox then I believe there's an addon named "Default Zoom Level" that will work for you. I realize you may have this problem with other apps too though.

Comparison

I no longer have a higher DPI monitor, so not an issue and Firefox was only in there for a comparison showing different types of breakdowns.

Much worse were most of my image viewers was blurry zoom images rather than show their native resolution.

IMO Scaling is FUBAR in most windows 3rd party applications.

 

[mahdiy85]

blackbeard is totally right. there is a large enough demand for this, and it's going to increase as people like myself see the clarity on their phones and want the same thing on their desktop monitors. i'm pretty sure it's easy for the lcd guys to manufacture a 22-24" monitor at 2560x1600. and i'm sure a lot of people would be interested. who cares about scaling for gui elements at that dpi, and not everyone uses ms windows or has the browser full screened anyway, y'know

 

[Blackbeard Ben]

You haven't really presented any counter argument to the simple, obvious reason that there isn't a big enough market to make it profitable. Business is interested in profit. That is all.

109 dpi screens are already an expensive niche. Unless this niche takes off, there isn't going to be much push to drive higher DPI that is even smaller and more expensive niche. That is just obvious logic.

If everyone clamoring for high DPI screens buy a 109 dpi screen and there enough of you, then someone will push higher. If 109 DPI screens are unprofitable (outside of supplying Apple) then you are in for a long wait.

Better scaling would go a long way toward growing the niche.

Hundreds of thousands of medical, military, engineering, and photo editing workstations aren't a big enough market? There's far more niche displays out there - look at the available high-end market - it exists, and it's very, very expensive.

Again, these thousands of businesses that need high-ppi monitors would love to save thousands of dollars per unit by getting a consumer display that met their needs, but there isn't one. If NEC, Eizo, LaCie, etc. could make one to fill those needs at a lower price point, they would if they could get a leg up on their competitors.

Yet we're stuck in the stone age because we can't.

You also seem to ignore the axiom that hardware development inevitably precedes software development - this has always been true, and as long as we continue developing both hardware and software it will remain true.

Why isn't there widespread support for vector-based GUIs in all of our programs? Because there's been little to no need for it, because everybody has been using displays with roughly the same stone-age pixel density for years and there's no sign of that changing. If there were more high-density displays, there'd be more people clamoring for such a feature - but without them, demand for scaling is limited to those who have trouble reading text in a typical novel...

Only now, with high density mobile displays have people realized what monitors can be like - and as yields for such displays improve and demand goes up, we'll eventually see higher-ppi monitors. It most definitely won't be because we all of a sudden have properly scaling software, but that will certainly help wider acceptance of such monitors.



By the way, stop referring to "DPI". DPI is a printer-only measurement and has nothing whatsoever to do with anything on the user end, including monitors. "PPI" is the correct term, because digital images are stored and displayed on monitors in RGB pixels, not in printer dots.

 

[Antipode]

blackbeard is totally right. there is a large enough demand for this, and it's going to increase as people like myself see the clarity on their phones and want the same thing on their desktop monitors. i'm pretty sure it's easy for the lcd guys to manufacture a 22-24" monitor at 2560x1600. and i'm sure a lot of people would be interested. who cares about scaling for gui elements at that dpi, and not everyone uses ms windows or has the browser full screened anyway, y'know

Clearly your gut feeling is right and the people who are making business decisions at Samsung, LG, Sony, Dell, etc are wrong.

I don't think you understand what scaling is if you're using "browser full screened" as your argument.

 

[Snowdog]

Hundreds of thousands of medical, military, engineering, and photo editing workstations aren't a big enough market? There's far more niche displays out there - look at the available high-end market - it exists, and it's very, very expensive.

Really who needs these displays? Who will find a 2560x1600/1440 display inadequate because it is too large?? That is pure nonsense.

You also seem to ignore the axiom that hardware development inevitably precedes software development - this has always been true, and as long as we continue developing both hardware and software it will remain true.
.

Already addressed this previously. The OS is already done, and MSs own applications are already done. So it proves the axiom wrong in this case. If MS had stated that to claim Win7 compatibility you need to be DPI independent, many more applications would be ready. Software can come before hardware and in some case it only makes sense that it does.

Also you shouldn't get all anal about DPI/PPI, they are used pretty much interchangeably. Go into Windows Scaling where you can choose 125% or 150%, you can also choose custom font size (DPI).

 

[mahdiy85]

Clearly your gut feeling is right and the people who are making business decisions at Samsung, LG, Sony, Dell, etc are wrong.

I don't think you understand what scaling is if you're using "browser full screened" as your argument.

i'm sorry you didn't understand what i was trying to get across. those used to a full screen browser on a normal resolution monitor probably won't like the appearance of a full screen browser on a higher resolution monitor. also, if you're the type to keep things windowed up for efficiency, you would probably appreciate more pixels.

regarding the wisdom of the monitor makers, things will only change when it's no longer as profitable to keep up with the usual. it probably won't be long, however, since more and more people want higher res in the same size.

i really don't understand why some of you lot don't like the idea.

 

[suiken_2mieu]

Really who needs these displays? Who will find a 2560x1600/1440 display inadequate because it is too large?? That is pure nonsense.

~SNIP~

Well I know if I could upgrade within reasonable cost and I had the means, I'd go for something like 3 to 5 QuadHD 32", But I think I'm in a niche.

 

[alienate]

By the way, stop referring to "DPI". DPI is a printer-only measurement and has nothing whatsoever to do with anything on the user end, including monitors. "PPI" is the correct term, because digital images are stored and displayed on monitors in RGB pixels, not in printer dots.

Omfg.

 

[Snowdog]

Well I know if I could upgrade within reasonable cost and I had the means, I'd go for something like 3 to 5 QuadHD 32", But I think I'm in a niche.

That is more like want, than need.

There was a claim that hundreds of thousands of professionals need these screens.

To be clear, most people are talking about 22-24" 2560x1440 screens.

I'd like to know one single use case where 22-24" 2560x1440 screen fills a need that 27" 2560x1440 screen wont. Making your text more pretty is not a need.

regarding the wisdom of the monitor makers, things will only change when it's no longer as profitable to keep up with the usual. it probably won't be long, however, since more and more people want higher res in the same size.

i really don't understand why some of you lot don't like the idea.

It isn't like we are saying don't build them, we are pointing out some of the reasons they aren't building them. Even if they were available, how many people would choose a 22" to 24" 2560x1440 screen over a 27" version in the same resolution? Why would they? Have you seen how small a 27" 16:9 screen already is, it is scarcely taller than my 24" 16:10 screen. With a bigger screen you get much more use of that real estate from the extra resolution.

 

[Blackbeard Ben]

That is more like want, than need.

There was a claim that hundreds of thousands of professionals need these screens.

To be clear, most people are talking about 22-24" 2560x1440 screens.

I'd like to know one single use case where 22-24" 2560x1440 screen fills a need that 27" 2560x1440 screen wont. Making your text more pretty is not a need.



It isn't like we are saying don't build them, we are pointing out some of the reasons they aren't building them. Even if they were available, how many people would choose a 22" to 24" 2560x1440 screen over a 27" version in the same resolution? Why would they? Have you seen how small a 27" 16:9 screen already is, it is scarcely taller than my 24" 16:10 screen. With a bigger screen you get much more use of that real estate from the extra resolution.

As for the bit about scaling support preceding higher PPI monitors - well, are you reconsidering your position on how there aren't high-PPI monitors because the software support isn't there, or are you conceding that the scaling isn't useful at all so the hardware (150+ PPI laptop screens) has come first anyway? Need I remind you that the T221 has been out for A DECADE? It only took, what, eight years after that to get decent scaling support? That's what I call hardware preceding software. Same case with 64-bit processors, wide gamut displays, and any sort of content-delivery system you want to talk about.



The need for these displays is for the highest possible resolution to view CAT scans, MRIs, and X-rays so that doctors have the best possible view to make diagnoses with. Similarly for photographers - having the best possible photo display, for engineers to give them more work space and better rendering views, and for monitoring applications - all where data density is as important as the total number of pixels. Higher density means sharper, more print/transparency-like viewing, which is essential.

Contrary to what you might want to believe, not everyone has the desk space for large monitors - few people want a 27-30" or even bigger behemoth sitting on their desk, and as far as fixed workstations go, space is at a premium. Any time you can fit more data in the same space, it's a huge advantage when that space is at a premium.



THE reason - THE reason these displays aren't being built is the yield problem. That's it. That's why the 15.4" 1920x1080 wide-gamut panel in my laptop was on backorder for half a year, and why it costs hundreds of dollars more than lower resolution displays. And since yields go down exponentially for larger displays at a given pixel density, to make a larger monitor the cost is going to go up exponentially. Not only is a 30" monitor four times larger in area than a 15" monitor, it's going to have four times as many defective panels in production - so the costs skyrocket like crazy.

The T221 was a huge hit shortly after it came out, since it cost so much less than any of its competitors and had far superior performance. But because IBM never got over the yield problem - and most everyone who wanted one had bought one (and there were no coming improvements) - production ended. It didn't help that connectivity just wasn't there for plug-and-play performance like it could be today with DP 1.2 and modern video cards.



And yes, the DPI vs. PPI distinction is important. They're different terms that have their own specific meanings, and DPI has long been misappropriated for what "PPI" actually means for everything except the advertised DPI of printers... That's the only appropriate use of DPI. So instead of people using the right terms, we have people abusing them and confusion often resulting from people thinking that printing something at 300 DPI is the same as printing something at 300 PPI - when that couldn't be further from the truth.

 

[Snowdog]

As for the bit about scaling support preceding higher PPI monitors - well, are you reconsidering your position on how there aren't high-PPI monitors because the software support isn't there, or are you conceding that the scaling isn't useful at all so the hardware (150+ PPI laptop screens) has come first anyway?

Not quite sure what you are on about here, so I will reiterate:

Current scaling in windows is all over the place, it is a complete mess for third party apps, I have little doubt that better scaling would get a lot more people interested in higher DPI screens. I would not buy a higher DPI screen until scaling is better. I have seen several other people say the same thing.

Laptops were already covered. You sit closer so a higher DPI is more comfortable.

Need I remind you that the T221 has been out for A DECADE? It only took, what, eight years after that to get decent scaling support? That's what I call hardware preceding software. Same case with 64-bit processors

The T221 has nothing to do with scaling work done in windows, it is an extreme niche display that really is irrelevant to the mainstream. You are also conflating unrelated things. You absolutely NEED a 64 bit processor to run 64 bit software, scaling can be run on any display and its main use for years has been running it on normal display by people who aren't comfortable with smaller text due to vision/comfort issues.

The need for these displays is for the highest possible resolution to view CAT scans, MRIs, and X-rays so that doctors have the best possible view to make diagnoses with. Similarly for photographers - having the best possible photo display, for engineers to give them more work space and better rendering views, and for monitoring applications - all where data density is as important as the total number of pixels. Higher density means sharper, more print/transparency-like viewing, which is essential.

Contrary to what you might want to believe, not everyone has the desk space for large monitors - few people want a 27-30"

This is of course complete nonsense. If you have 22" 2560x1440 screen it will not be better for these activities, in fact the 27" 2560x1440 version would be better because it would make everything easier to see.

As I pointed out before the 27" screen mentioned above is quite small. You are really grasping at straws suggesting it is too big, and there is a big need for 22" versions.

THE reason - THE reason these displays aren't being built is the yield problem. That's it. That's why the 15.4" 1920x1080 wide-gamut panel in my laptop was on backorder for half a year, and why it costs hundreds of dollars more than lower resolution displays.

Pure conjecture. Where is the evidence of a yield problem. It could simply be a case of missed projection on what was considered a niche product.

The T221 was a huge hit shortly after it came out, since it cost so much less than any of its competitors and had far superior performance. But because IBM never got over the yield problem -

Do you have anything to back that up? I seriously doubt it was a huge hit. It was $17000 when it first came out. You really think people were lining up to buy $17000 monitors?

and most everyone who wanted one had bought one (and there were no coming improvements) - production ended.

Everyone who wanted one, had one. Sounds like a real big market.

 

[tk-don]

The T221 was a huge hit shortly after it came out, since it cost so much less than any of its competitors and had far superior performance. But because IBM never got over the yield problem - and most everyone who wanted one had bought one (and there were no coming improvements) - production ended.

Regardless of price, what competitors? IBM joined with Chi Mei in a Display Business Unit with the sole purpose of doing LCD panel research, since yield and quality had been absent from the market. No-one had been experimenting with LCDs with that kind of densities before, and - afaik - no-one except them and Hitachi experimented and tried to improve IPS technology.

Production ended because the joint venture company "Idtech" in Japan (former display business unit) ended and property was sold off to Sony in 2005. Generally, the PC business sector of IBM had performed very poorly, so all of it was sold. Some parts were dropped. Idtech was one of these. The last year until closing date, the production was also moved from Japan to one of Chi Mei's factories in the Philippines to keep up with demand.
The joint venture went bad because the LCD had become a commercial high-volume product, which they couldn't compete with (and this wasn't the point of it either).

The fate of Hitachi looks a bit similar. They have left the PC monitor panel industry completely because others are better at producing an equivalent panel at a lower cost.

THE reason - THE reason these displays aren't being built is the yield problem. That's it. That's why the 15.4" 1920x1080 wide-gamut panel in my laptop was on backorder for half a year, and why it costs hundreds of dollars more than lower resolution displays.

These type of densities (133-150 ppi) have been close to perfected long ago, especially since a few pixel defects are tolerated by the manufacturers. The reason it was on backorder would likely just be because a lot of people bought the same laptop configuration and the panel manufacturer had some other large order to complete first. Alternatively, they may prioritize orders according to their size. Smaller and thus usually special custom orders receive little priority. That's the reason someone like e.g. Lenovo can't just bring 4:3 screens back or IPS at high densities.

 

[rudy]

Another reason you do not see higher density displays is because LCD manufacturers still have alot of garbage to feed us. Notice they very slowly move up features. Watch the TV market. After most people have 120hz 1080p IPS panels that are reasonably fast they will then start pushing higher resolution because they need something new to sell us. But as long as they have things yet to sell us they are never going to do that.

 

[Mr.Pixel]

Actually, I'd argue that >250ppi displays could improve useful panel yields. For a desktop-sized monitor at this resolution I would be willing to accept several dead pixels (not stuck-on pixels), because the increased resolution would make these missing pixels close to unnoticeable.

On a different note, after we get scaling support on OS's using a single display we also need to consider how to handle using multiple monitors with varying pixel sizes. It would be awkward to use a 150ppi primary display and a 100ppi secondary display. If both screens were a much higher resolution then scaling the image on one to match the other would result in fewer artifacts, and this effect would become even smaller as the resolutions increased.