4 ms·

Why?

by regularfry 13y ago

Why?

mbreese 13y ago
Because we are all spoiled with high resolution, capacitive touch displays.
- drdaeman 13y ago
  Wonder if hybrid touchscreens are possible without sacrificing display quality too much. Capacitive for multitouch finger-based input, resistive for non-multitouch pixel-accurate stylus input.
vidarh 13y ago
My current phone is 4.7", capacitive, with 1280x720. My next phone will likely be 5" or more, with 1920x1080. The perceived improvement in readability etc. in going up my current phone was fantastic - I've pretty much stopped using my tablets because I can now comfortably do so much more on my phone. Using a phone that small with a resolution that horrible would be like being forced to wear glasses with mud smeared all over them. And have to pay extra for the privilege.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  What an exaggeration. I have a device with the same resolution 800*480 as well as a Galaxy S3 with much higher pixel per inch resolution, and honestly I don't see much difference and both are very comfortable to use. That's marketing effect at work.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    Well, I do notice. I have a 800*480 ZTE Open too, and when I got it, it was a shock to see just how horrible it was to read stuff on a screen like that again.
  - zokier 13y ago
    Especially with such a small display. 800x480 at 3.5" screen is 266 PPI, the parents 720p at 4.7" is 312 PPI, only 17% more.
    - vidarh 13y ago
      It's not just the PPI, it's also the display size that makes a major difference in readability - being able to comfortably use bigger and crisper text and still have a decent amount of content on screen. I didn't believe it'd matter much either, until I got my higher res phone a year ago. Now I can't stand a smaller, lower res screen. I recently got a 800x480 ZTE Open as well, and it reconfirmed just how much difference it makes - the latter is just awful to read on.
kristofferR 13y ago
Because it is using a blurry and resistive (barely responsive to finger touch) monitor, making the experience of using the device way worse than the modern High PPI monitors used in other mobile devices on the market today. The use of the term "TFT Display" is also a sign that they're not using any of the more modern types of panels like IPS. If they did they would have said so.
- akr 13y ago
  That is simply not true in my experience. The N900 screen is neither blurry nor barely responsive to finger touch. But the hardware is / was not the most interesting point about the N900 anyway.
  - mbreese 13y ago
    I had an N770 with a resistive screen. It was responsive to fingers, but the buttons had to be big, and there was a glare from the digitizer.
    - akr 13y ago
      I don't have any experience with Nokia devices other than the N900 so I can not comment on the N770. But I remember reviews from the time the N900 was released were the touchscreen was not really praised but commented on as much better than other resistive screens. Also there are 4 years between the N770 and the N900. There is definitly no glare on my N900 screen - to the contrary, it is readable even under direct sunlight (without any backlight) because it is transreflective.
tinco 13y ago
Resistive touch screens is why smart phones never really took off in the main stream before the iPhone (which for some reason introduced capacitive touch screens on smart phones). Basically it is a terrible technology for small devices and barely usable without a pen. The only advantage is with a pen it is actually way more accurate than a capacitive screen allowing for for example handwriting recognition. On my orange m500 (which was a rebranded htc) I could write text messages so fast, I think faster than I do on touch screen keyboards now. But yeah, wouldn't trade a cap screen for a resistive screen for the world.
- agwa 13y ago
  > Basically it is a terrible technology for small devices and barely usable without a pen. That's only true of old and crappy resistive screens. The N900's resistive screen works great without a stylus, but the stylus is there if I need ultra-precision, which of course you can't get with a capacitive screen. The N900's screen doesn't support multi touch, although even multi touch resistive screens are technically possible: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/19/stantums-mind-blowing-multitouch-interface-on-video/ http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/19/stantums-mind-blowing-mul...

Why?

mbreese 13y ago

Because we are all spoiled with high resolution, capacitive touch displays.

drdaeman 13y ago
Wonder if hybrid touchscreens are possible without sacrificing display quality too much. Capacitive for multitouch finger-based input, resistive for non-multitouch pixel-accurate stylus input.

vidarh 13y ago

My current phone is 4.7", capacitive, with 1280x720. My next phone will likely be 5" or more, with 1920x1080. The perceived improvement in readability etc. in going up my current phone was fantastic - I've pretty much stopped using my tablets because I can now comfortably do so much more on my phone. Using a phone that small with a resolution that horrible would be like being forced to wear glasses with mud smeared all over them. And have to pay extra for the privilege.

ekianjo 13y ago
What an exaggeration. I have a device with the same resolution 800*480 as well as a Galaxy S3 with much higher pixel per inch resolution, and honestly I don't see much difference and both are very comfortable to use. That's marketing effect at work.
- vidarh 13y ago
  Well, I do notice. I have a 800*480 ZTE Open too, and when I got it, it was a shock to see just how horrible it was to read stuff on a screen like that again.
- zokier 13y ago
  Especially with such a small display. 800x480 at 3.5" screen is 266 PPI, the parents 720p at 4.7" is 312 PPI, only 17% more.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    It's not just the PPI, it's also the display size that makes a major difference in readability - being able to comfortably use bigger and crisper text and still have a decent amount of content on screen. I didn't believe it'd matter much either, until I got my higher res phone a year ago. Now I can't stand a smaller, lower res screen. I recently got a 800x480 ZTE Open as well, and it reconfirmed just how much difference it makes - the latter is just awful to read on.

kristofferR 13y ago

Because it is using a blurry and resistive (barely responsive to finger touch) monitor, making the experience of using the device way worse than the modern High PPI monitors used in other mobile devices on the market today. The use of the term "TFT Display" is also a sign that they're not using any of the more modern types of panels like IPS. If they did they would have said so.

akr 13y ago
That is simply not true in my experience. The N900 screen is neither blurry nor barely responsive to finger touch. But the hardware is / was not the most interesting point about the N900 anyway.
- mbreese 13y ago
  I had an N770 with a resistive screen. It was responsive to fingers, but the buttons had to be big, and there was a glare from the digitizer.
  - akr 13y ago
    I don't have any experience with Nokia devices other than the N900 so I can not comment on the N770. But I remember reviews from the time the N900 was released were the touchscreen was not really praised but commented on as much better than other resistive screens. Also there are 4 years between the N770 and the N900. There is definitly no glare on my N900 screen - to the contrary, it is readable even under direct sunlight (without any backlight) because it is transreflective.

tinco 13y ago

Resistive touch screens is why smart phones never really took off in the main stream before the iPhone (which for some reason introduced capacitive touch screens on smart phones). Basically it is a terrible technology for small devices and barely usable without a pen. The only advantage is with a pen it is actually way more accurate than a capacitive screen allowing for for example handwriting recognition. On my orange m500 (which was a rebranded htc) I could write text messages so fast, I think faster than I do on touch screen keyboards now. But yeah, wouldn't trade a cap screen for a resistive screen for the world.

agwa 13y ago
> Basically it is a terrible technology for small devices and barely usable without a pen. That's only true of old and crappy resistive screens. The N900's resistive screen works great without a stylus, but the stylus is there if I need ultra-precision, which of course you can't get with a capacitive screen. The N900's screen doesn't support multi touch, although even multi touch resistive screens are technically possible: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/19/stantums-mind-blowing-multitouch-interface-on-video/ http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/19/stantums-mind-blowing-mul...