Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung gazed into its crystal ball today, and what did it see? The pixel density of tablet screens drastically increasing. Yes, while Apple may not have managed to cram a screen into the iPad 2 worthy of the Retina moniker, it sounds like Samsung Semiconductor may be working on just such a thing, as the company projects that it will have tablet displays with 300 to 400 pixel-per-inch resolutions by 2015. Presently, the Samsung Galaxy Tab has a seven-inch, 1024 x 600 panel, which translates to only about 170ppi, but Samsung suggests that tablets of the exact same size might stretch well beyond 1080p desktop resolutions as pixel density increases, and yet still manage a respectable 8 to 10 hours of battery life. Samsung also said that while it’s still waiting to see if consumers adopt stereoscopic 3D, it might be interested in joining the throng, perhaps bringing a glasses-free tablet display to market in the years to come. Curious what else the future might hold, according to Samsung? Take a peek at our gallery below.

Samsung sees a Retina Display in your tablet future, and perhaps glasses-free 3D originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You can’t have a 9.0 magnitude earthquake without breaking a few factories, particularly ones that produce fragile liquid crystal screens, and this week Toshiba, Hitachi and Panasonic are each reporting damages that have forced them to close LCD production facilities affected by the tsunami and quake. Panasonic isn’t sure when its plant in Chiba prefecture might resume carving up the glass sandwiches, telling Bloomberg that “there has been some damage, though not a fire or a collapse,” but both Hitachi and Toshiba will reportedly halt some assembly lines for around a month to deal with damages. It’s probably still too soon to talk about panel shortages — though they seem likely soon — but we’ll let you know how things progress.

Toshiba and Hitachi LCD plants damaged, will shut down for a month originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Mar 2011 16:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dr. Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate Technologies has made it his mission to suss out the best smartphone, tablet, HDTV, and multimedia displays from the worst with his Display Technology Shoot-Out series. Here, he tackles the differences between iPad 2 and iPhone 4 screens. More »

IDisplay turns you Android tablet into a monitor for you Mac or PC

IDisplay, the not-so-well loved iOS app to turn a tablet or phone into a secondary display, has come to Android. Now, with this app and an Android tablet or phone (v2.1 or better), you can extend your display.

It works like this. By the app from the Android Market, and grab the companion app for your Mac or PC. Install both, and fire them up. Your computer should show up on the tablet. Just tap it and you’re done. The tablet’s screen will turn into a tiny external display for your desktop or laptop.

You can either mirror the entire display, or choose to extend it and place small, oft-used windows like Twitter or your notifiers off to one side.

The reviews of the iOS version on the App Store are mixed — some love it, some can’t even get it to work, or so they say. I use Air Display or DisplayPad on my iPad, and they’re great for blogging with a laptop at something like CES, especially if you are used to working with a bigger screen. IDisplay costs $5, and is available now.

iDisplay product page [Shape Services]

See Also:

• App Turns iPad into Second Monitor for Mac
• 10 Stellar iPad Apps That Will Blow You Away

Apple’s 3.5-inch Retina Display is certainly sharp, but large-screen smartphones like the Droid X are missing out on all the 326 ppi goodness. Not if Hitachi has anything to say about it. The same display technology that powers the iPhone 4 is about to get super-sized.
The company has produced a 4.5 inch, 1280×720 (720p) display aimed directly at the smartphone market. Citing the number of people watching “high-definition video” and reading “photo-quality books” on phones as reasons for the increase in pixels, they plan to put them into production around October and show them off at the Society for Information Display in Los Angeles this summer.
At 329 pixels per inch, these displays slightly outpace the density of the iPhone’s screen while adding an inch to the size. Like Apple, Hitachi claims their new screen is “close to the limit of the human eye.” Not only is the resolution excellent, but the display will use IPS technology, which promises great color reproduction and viewing angles compared to other LCDs. If Hitachi sticks with their planned release date, you can expect smartphones this holiday season will come with quite a lot of pixels.

[via Boy Genius Report, Hitachi]