Apple said to be sampling Samsung, LG iPad 'retina' screens Evidence that a future iPad - possibly even the next one - will feature a 2048 x 1536 display is growing. Apple is sampling screens of that resolution from Samsung and LG, the Korea Times claims, with a view to using them in the iPad 3. Testing will be completed in Q3, the KT source said, which suggests the "retina display" …
The problem Apple has with Samsung is with their mobile devices division, not their component manufacturing. If Samsung could make a phone or tablet that didn't strongly resemble Apples products (other companies seem to be capable of this) then most of the friction would go away. Android 3 for example doesnt look much like iOS, but Samsing skinned the Galaxy Pad 10.1 with TouchWiz that is very similar.
Samsung are also big enough to agree patent cross licensing for the bits of android that they can't or don't want to work around Apples patents on. I can't say I've seen any sign of willingness to do this.
Given the quality of the OLED display in Samsung's most recent Android I'd be expecting to be focussing in on that rather than yesterday's technology. The bigger OLED panels are due out this year, I think, a monopoly on tablet ones (7" would be sufficient) would be a definite advantage for Samsung, who don't seem to have trouble selling the rest of their screens.
Just because OLED is newer does not make it better in all situations.
It has a shorter lifespan (especially the blue transmission) and as a result they make the blue and red larger. That makes things looks a bit odd and the colour reproduction accuracy and screen resolution is limited, hence why the "retina" display is higher resolution and looks more accurate and not over-saturated.
Of course OLED will improve and then there will be no contest, but OLED is not there yet.
I'd sooner stick with tried and tested technology that gives me what I want (resolution and good colour) than go for something new which doesn't.
I've got a Wave and my brother has an Iphone 4. Next to each other I much prefer the AMOLED, especially outside in the sunlight. The resolution of the new Samsung Galaxy II is a big step up from that. Apart from the yield OLED is still struggling with energy consumption but for media consumption it is oodles better than the best IPS and I can't see Samsung being too keen on letting rivals get hold of this too quickly.
For one you would need a graphics processor capable of pushing around 4 times as many pixels just to be able to keep up with the current performance, then there would be the processing power required to upscale all video to such a resolution. Add to that the need for significant amounts of graphics memory to buffer the signal and all the associated increase in power drain would make the ipad 3 quite a bit more expensive than it is at the moment. And that doesn't even factor in the cost of producing such a display in the first place.
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