Current Events > Why did Samsung downgrade the resolution on their phone screens?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like I'm looking at helping my dad replace his S9 this year, and it's kind of weird to see that Samsung went from a 5.8", 1440p, 568 PPI screen on the S9 to a 6.1", 1080p, 422 PPI screen on the S23, and I think the S23+ has an even worse PPI because it's also still just 1080p?

Like obviously the phone itself is a huge upgrade, and the screen's now 120 Hz, but that part of it seems kind of weird?

It was probably a power draw compromise. People expect their phones to last all day while also being very thin which means limited battery life. As onboard processors get more powerful they're going to have to find more and more ways to reduce power consumption, and my completely blind guess on this is that reducing the resolution was probably one way to do that. My second guess would be that they trialed the change with a focus group and found most, if not all, people couldn't tell that the S23 was lower resolution.

There's more to a screen's quality than just its resolution. The S23's screen, regardless of its resolution, is going to be much brighter and more color accurate in addition to being power efficient.

I run the default FHD display on my S23 Ultra and have never cared to increase it to QHD.

I don't know stats but I recently upgraded from an S8 to an S23 and when I turned my old phone on to check something I was shocked at how much nicer the picture was immediately.

Not really related, but I also got my first smart watch (Galaxy 6 I believe), and the battery life is ASS no matter what I do. I have friends with Apple watches that last days.

Meanwhile, I'll be replacing my phone soon. I'm worried about going down from my current 765 to 643 ppi. >_>

jdb78 posted...

Not really related, but I also got my first smart watch (Galaxy 6 I believe), and the battery life is ASS no matter what I do. I have friends with Apple watches that last days.

I used to wear an older Samsung watch. Turning on airplane mode made it go from lasting 1 day to almost a week. Also make it so it only turns on when it's facing you.

Well, Samsung sure as hell isn't going to cut back on their massive amounts of bloatware, so how else are they supposed to conserve battery?

only thing i notice going from high to low res on my phone is the screen real estate difference (text on ebooks become larger so i have to adjust them smaller)

cant tell a difference in quality of the text tho after adjustment tbh. id fail a blind test for sure.

2220 x 1080
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/cdbc4dfc.jpg

2960 x 1440

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d16efef7.jpg

both resolutions are above 300 ppi (considered the point of diminishing returns by many) on my phone. is 385 vs 514.

Stuff like this is done to get you to buy the higher tiers.