Display resolutions for a truly connected phone

When I sat down to think about what I would consider to be a connected phone, I came into the conclusion that the mobile phone that is well connected should also have a high resolution screen. I’ve had a Nokia N80 and it had such a great display. Using a phone with such a high resolution that produces crisp and sharp text and images is a contributing factor to a great connected phone. It was sad that Nokia never really followed up on having phones with a high resolution out on the market.

There are probably several factors that contributes to the hindrance of having a high resolution mobile phone out on the market at that early days of the Nokia N80. Most of the reasons are similar to the technological constraints that you would experience with designing a desktop computer.

CPU power – Similar to desktop computers, early mobile phone devices rely heavily on the power of the CPU to render the graphics and text. Since more pixels mean more processor speed required, early mobile phones have limited screen resolutions.

Memory – Higher screen resolutions mean larger memory storage. Since basic programming techniques require some buffer for screens especially when they are mobile games that need to perform sprites, it is understandable that smaller screen resolutions have to be more of the norm.

Software development – If you are a mobile application developer, you would surely be aware of the complexities of having to support mobile phones with a myriad of screen resolutions. It can be a reason for phone manufacturers not wanting to introduce higher resolutions because the developers might not be able to cope up with the new features at once.

Inventory – Another logical factor is the amount of displays with a certain screen resolution that sits in the inventory warehouses of the manufacturers. Introducing a new product entails manufacturing and maintaining an inventory of the part — in this case an LCD display. If there’s still a high amount of inventory for say a 320 x 240 pixel LCD, most manufacturers will try to deplete that inventory first before moving on to new things.

Battery – Not an issue with a desktop but it is certainly an issue with notebooks and most certainly with a mobile phone. Larger screen resolutions mean bigger power requirements. You can only allow as much space for a battery in a mobile phone.

Much of the factors above have now been overcome during the past years. We are now seeing 1Ghz mobile phone processors (Qualcomm, Marvell) with 500Mhz ones fast becoming the norm. Miniaturization has brought in more memory and extra space for batteries. Not to mention improvements in battery technology to allow more power at the same form factor. Inventory for the lower screen resolution displays are now being replaced with the newly manufactured high resolution / touch screen displays.

So I decided that as one of the minimum defining factors for a truly connected phone is one that should have at least a horizontal resolution of 320 pixels. I’ll probably change this at some point in the future but for now you won’t find me talking about any mobile phones that has anything less than a 320 pixel resolution.

To track my collection of connected phones, I started out a Web Directory category called “Connected Phones” and a photo album under Photo Gallery / Cell Phones. I’ll update them to include what I consider as a connected phone.