Ok, so I have had the Lumia 920 and the 810 for a while now. After spending some good time with both doing everything from reading eBooks, web browsing, browsing photo galleries, playing games, watching both streamed videos and locally stored HD videos, writing emails, and browsing maps, I've come to the conclusion that such high PPI screens are overrated. Can I tell the difference? Yes I definitely can. BUT.......
Does the 800x480 screen reduce my enjoyment of any of the above activities? No it doesn't.
Does it make my eyes strain or make things harder to read? No. Diagonals are more jagged but it is no harder to read and identify the words.
Do games look better? Yes they do. Again, diagonals are more jagged, but I still don't have difficulty identifying or aiming at anything. HD also needs more 3d horsepower (and more battery) to run. I'm sure there are some instances where we lose out on frame rates just because of all the extra pixels. I'd rather have frame rates personally.
Photographs? Well, I am extra picky about this as I am a professional photographer full time. What surprised me though is that I still think that photos look totally fine on the Lumia 810. Better on the 920? Yes, but it doesn't mean the 810 is not VERY pleasing to view photos on. If you didn't have a 920/8x/whatever to compare to, you would probably really enjoy looking at photos on the "low res" screens. I mean, small to medium sized professional prints are typically printed at 200-300 ppi, and still are not as clear and detailed as the beautiful screen on the 810. So I determined that I definitely don't need a "retina" type screen for photo enjoyment. It's there and I'm not complaining, but I certainly wouldn't consider it as important. If it was gone I wouldn't miss it.
As for video, well, honestly, on a 4.3-4.5" screen, 480p vs 720p is very hard to notice the diff unless you are specifically looking for diagonal lines in the background. My business also provides some pro video services, and anyone in pro video knows that 99.99% of Hollywood movies use what's called the 180 degree shutter technique. I won't explain it but its purpose is to blur any kind of movement, whether it be objects or actors moving, or the camera panning or moving. This is why the footage is not usually crystal clear when you pause a video, unless its a VERY slow moving scene. So on such a tiny screen, I am really not feeling the need for HD resolutions in video files, especially knowing all movement is purposely blurred, and the pixels are too small to make out fine details, especially with typical Hollywood fast-cut editing you have no time to appreciate razor sharp edges. When I deliver mobile-optimized video files to clients, 480p is as high as I go. 720 and 1080 make a diff on large screens, but we're talking like 4-5 inch screens here! Again, I find it a waste of space and battery to have HD bids on my 920. In fact, 360 lines looks absolutely fantastic on my 920. The conversion/rendering quality plays a larger role in overall viewing pleasure than the sheer resolution IMHO.
Web browsing, well, you can certainly notice a difference when you are looking at a page at full width in portrait orientation. But the thing is, the text is too darn small to read comfortably unless you zoom in to a specific part of the page. And once you zoom in and the text is larger, there is NO problem whatsoever reading it at 800x480. Full width view is more of an overview, rather than a true reading format. And if a site is designed and optimized for mobile, then there is no real PRACTICAL benefit from the HD screen. Text looks fine, and as mentioned, photos look great too. So in a nutshell, when text is displayed at a readable size, it's still quite COMFORTABLY readable at 800x480. This goes for web, readers, email, or whatever other text based stuff.
When it comes to maps, I use Nokia maps and Drive. Vectorized maps will have LOTS of diagonals which is where the high res screens shine. But again, we are talking PRACTICAL differences, and having slightly jagged diagonals isn't going to prevent you from finding your destination. In fact, all the dedicated GPS units use lower res screens, its only the most expensive models that have finally moved up to 800x480, and there's only a couple, and they cost more than a Lumia 810. So I'd say the high res gives no *practical* benefit when it comes to mobile mapping for the typical user.
To be honest, the HD screen is one of the reasons I got the Lumia 920, but if I knew what I know now, I probably would have just sprung for the 810 only. The pureview camera is the 920's saving grace so I'm still happy I bought it, but the HD+ screen is definitely not a selling point to me anymore at all.
Now with people begging for windows phone 8 to support 1080 resolutions, it just makes me shake my head. Heck, 720 would be a great res for a 10" screen IMO, and people want 1080 in a 5-6" screen??? Seriously??? What's the point? It just feels like people are begging for pixels just for specs sake. You know, mine is bigger than yours syndrome. This is not like a desktop PC where more resolution means you can fit more onto the screen. In the mobile arena, everything is already optimally sized for finger touching and can't get any smaller, so regardless of the resolution, we won't really get more screen real estate. Even Apple's Retina macbook pro by default does NOT allow you to set your desktop to full 1:1 pixel resolution, because it would severely compromise usability.
What do you think?
Does the 800x480 screen reduce my enjoyment of any of the above activities? No it doesn't.
Does it make my eyes strain or make things harder to read? No. Diagonals are more jagged but it is no harder to read and identify the words.
Do games look better? Yes they do. Again, diagonals are more jagged, but I still don't have difficulty identifying or aiming at anything. HD also needs more 3d horsepower (and more battery) to run. I'm sure there are some instances where we lose out on frame rates just because of all the extra pixels. I'd rather have frame rates personally.
Photographs? Well, I am extra picky about this as I am a professional photographer full time. What surprised me though is that I still think that photos look totally fine on the Lumia 810. Better on the 920? Yes, but it doesn't mean the 810 is not VERY pleasing to view photos on. If you didn't have a 920/8x/whatever to compare to, you would probably really enjoy looking at photos on the "low res" screens. I mean, small to medium sized professional prints are typically printed at 200-300 ppi, and still are not as clear and detailed as the beautiful screen on the 810. So I determined that I definitely don't need a "retina" type screen for photo enjoyment. It's there and I'm not complaining, but I certainly wouldn't consider it as important. If it was gone I wouldn't miss it.
As for video, well, honestly, on a 4.3-4.5" screen, 480p vs 720p is very hard to notice the diff unless you are specifically looking for diagonal lines in the background. My business also provides some pro video services, and anyone in pro video knows that 99.99% of Hollywood movies use what's called the 180 degree shutter technique. I won't explain it but its purpose is to blur any kind of movement, whether it be objects or actors moving, or the camera panning or moving. This is why the footage is not usually crystal clear when you pause a video, unless its a VERY slow moving scene. So on such a tiny screen, I am really not feeling the need for HD resolutions in video files, especially knowing all movement is purposely blurred, and the pixels are too small to make out fine details, especially with typical Hollywood fast-cut editing you have no time to appreciate razor sharp edges. When I deliver mobile-optimized video files to clients, 480p is as high as I go. 720 and 1080 make a diff on large screens, but we're talking like 4-5 inch screens here! Again, I find it a waste of space and battery to have HD bids on my 920. In fact, 360 lines looks absolutely fantastic on my 920. The conversion/rendering quality plays a larger role in overall viewing pleasure than the sheer resolution IMHO.
Web browsing, well, you can certainly notice a difference when you are looking at a page at full width in portrait orientation. But the thing is, the text is too darn small to read comfortably unless you zoom in to a specific part of the page. And once you zoom in and the text is larger, there is NO problem whatsoever reading it at 800x480. Full width view is more of an overview, rather than a true reading format. And if a site is designed and optimized for mobile, then there is no real PRACTICAL benefit from the HD screen. Text looks fine, and as mentioned, photos look great too. So in a nutshell, when text is displayed at a readable size, it's still quite COMFORTABLY readable at 800x480. This goes for web, readers, email, or whatever other text based stuff.
When it comes to maps, I use Nokia maps and Drive. Vectorized maps will have LOTS of diagonals which is where the high res screens shine. But again, we are talking PRACTICAL differences, and having slightly jagged diagonals isn't going to prevent you from finding your destination. In fact, all the dedicated GPS units use lower res screens, its only the most expensive models that have finally moved up to 800x480, and there's only a couple, and they cost more than a Lumia 810. So I'd say the high res gives no *practical* benefit when it comes to mobile mapping for the typical user.
To be honest, the HD screen is one of the reasons I got the Lumia 920, but if I knew what I know now, I probably would have just sprung for the 810 only. The pureview camera is the 920's saving grace so I'm still happy I bought it, but the HD+ screen is definitely not a selling point to me anymore at all.
Now with people begging for windows phone 8 to support 1080 resolutions, it just makes me shake my head. Heck, 720 would be a great res for a 10" screen IMO, and people want 1080 in a 5-6" screen??? Seriously??? What's the point? It just feels like people are begging for pixels just for specs sake. You know, mine is bigger than yours syndrome. This is not like a desktop PC where more resolution means you can fit more onto the screen. In the mobile arena, everything is already optimally sized for finger touching and can't get any smaller, so regardless of the resolution, we won't really get more screen real estate. Even Apple's Retina macbook pro by default does NOT allow you to set your desktop to full 1:1 pixel resolution, because it would severely compromise usability.
What do you think?
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