Laptops & Desktops

John Morris & Sean Portnoy

Samsung to unveil 10.1-inch tablet display with 2,560x1,600 resolution

By | May 13, 2011, 3:48am PDT

Apple has touted its Retina Display tech for its latest iPhone, but it hasn’t brought it to the iPad — yet. Samsung is ready to show off a new tablet-size LCD that has the resolution necessary to be given the Retina Display label, though it’s unclear whether the display would be used by Apple or Samsung itself.

The 2,560×1,600, 10.1-inch LCD will be unveiled at an industry conference next week. That resolution (which equates to 300dpi) goes far beyond the 1,024×768 resolution of the current iPad as well as past the 1,920×1,080 needed to display 1080p video. Samsung also claims that it uses substantially less power, which could help boost a device’s battery life.

Before iPad fanboys get too excited, however, there does appear to be one major sticking point with the LCD that Apple won’t be keen about. Samsung is using its PenTile technology to lay out subpixels, which has already been used in devices like the Nexus One Android phone. But Apple prefers panels that use in-plane switching (IPS) technology, meaning that this probably won’t be the screen used whenever a Retina Display iPad is finally released.

That won’t stop Samsung from offering the display to other tablet makers, or to use it for its own Android-based slates. The company says the LCD will be commercially available toward the end of the year, so we’ll see if it winds up in any new tablets available for the holiday shopping season.

[Via TUAW]

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Sean Portnoy is a freelance technology journalist.

Disclosure

Sean Portnoy

Sean Portnoy is a freelance technology journalist; currently, all work that Sean does is on a contractural basis. Sean has also written corporate communications documents for CA.

Sean does not accept gifts from companies he covers. All hardware products he writes about are purchased with his own funds or are review units covered under formal loan agreements and are returned after the review is complete.

Biography

Sean Portnoy

Sean Portnoy started his tech writing career at ZDNet nearly a decade ago. He then spent several years as an editor at Computer Shopper magazine, most recently serving as online executive editor. He received a B.A. from Brown University and an M.A. from the University of Southern California.

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RE: Samsung to unveil 10.1-inch tablet display with 2,560x1,600 resolution
PacoBell 15th May 2011
ConceptVBS: I hate your spammy multi-posts. Please go DIAF. How's that for psychology 101?
It's nice that it uses less power.

But there is still the issue of having to drive all of those pixels which means more GPU, less battery, and more heat.

Still, sign me up. happy
@SlithyTove: ... since it is a PenTile matrix.

And yes, Apple will not order these matrices since it wants IPS technology (and "honest" resolution), as with iPad 1/2 (and iPhone 4), for which Samsung does not have license from Hitachi.

Apple will get displays from IPS licensees like LG Display and couple of other Chinese/Taiwanese companies: 9.7" 2048x1536.

Apple purchases from Samsung only TN displays for MacBooks and small iPods.
@denisrs
Apple also buys processors & memory
As well as iPad 2 screens
@SlithyTove

Sign me up if its on anything but an Apple product.
@rob.sharp@...
I had the AMOLED screen on my galaxy S and I now I have the iPhone 4... believe it or not the iPhone 4 has a better screen. Sign me up if it's from Apple LOL.
@Hasam1991
Before you make that claim, place the two screens side by side.
you'll notice the colours are brighter on AMOLED (iPhone colours look almost bland beside the Galaxy S)
the blacks are darker on the AMOLED (iPhone looks white beside the Galaxy S)
AMOLED performs much better in bright light.
and the veiwing angle for AMOLED is greater. (once again the iPhone looks almost white when at extreme angles)

the iPhone has a really good screen but it's just not as good as Super AMOLED let alone Super AMOLED Plus
0 Votes
+ -
Get == pay for
Robert Hahn 13th May 2011
Let's not kid ourselves: this thing will not be cheap. I'd be surprised if the first products with it don't cost $1500 or more.
Tablets, smablets; put it in a 17" laptop.
Dude, your getting IPS and Pentile are two different technologies that has nothing to do with each other.

IPS is a LCD crystalline technology that focuses on the liquid crystals themselves.

Pentile is a dot matrix arrangement of the PIXELS of the LCD, not the liquid crystals like the IPS.

Pentile vs RGB

and

IPS vs PLS vs PVA

Study the technology before writing. Please. There is just too many misinformation out there and your not helping.
There are currently the following LCD displays on the market:

Pentile IPS display
Pentile PLS display
Pentile PVA dipsplay

RGB IPS display
RGB PLS display
RGB PVA display

To the author, I hope that clarifies some of your misunderstanding.
To the author,

If you cant distinguish the difference between IPS and Pentile, I'm certainly sure you have no idea of what the benefits/cons of a Pentile or an IPS display is.
I expected more from a "technology journalist".

Perhaps, journalists should have an engineering degree before taking on the title "technology journalist" after their names.
@ConceptVBS

Uh... why not edit your first post and include all your looking down your nose into a single worthless post instead of four.
@Hallowed are the Ori

Because people dont want to read a whole glob wall of words.

Breaking it into pieces makes the reader want to read it more.

Psychology 101.
ConceptVBS: I hate your spammy multi-posts. Please go DIAF. How's that for psychology 101?
The bigger the better.
However that density of displays should come to laptops first!!!
It sounds like the technology of the IBM T221 is now becoming a consumer item.
0 Votes
+ -
hmm
Hasam1991 13th May 2011
Well I'm going to carry around my 55 inch LED TV with a UPS, beat my tablet samsung!!
0 Votes
+ -
and that the battery lasts so long, is that the resolution is low. It's far far easier to drive a low res screen with all the cool graphic effects on these tablets. My 24 inch computer monitor is only 1920x1200 and it takes a pretty power hungry graphics card to run it. The resolution they are talking about has nearly twice the pixels of that 24 inch monitor. Even if you have a mobile graphics chip that can drive that many pixels, I can hardly imagine that battery life won't be a big problem. But it would be cool. And yeah, I would love to to simply get that kind of resolution on my big desktop monitor. I'm not sure why resolution of the vast majority of monitors is so stalled out around the 1920x(x) range.
@ArtInvent

You must be new.

The power of modern day GPU's are getting faster and faster. You can do more with higher resolution with upcoming dual core GPU's than the years past single core, low resolution GPUS.

Get with the times buddy. Single core is so last year.
300dpi for a handheld video device is a complete waste of money, energy, and the earth's natural resources.

How we consume a video display is different from how we consume text on paper.

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