Samsung Announces 10-Inch "Retina" Display for Tablets

The next generation of tablets could have ultra-sharp "retina" displays if
Samsung has anything to say about it. The Korean electronics giant plans to
demonstrate a high-resolution LCD screen with a pixel density of 300 dpi and
with a 40 percent power savings over current models.

The screen is based on a display technology called PenTile, which adds a
fourth "color" to the traditional trio of colors in LCD screens, red, green,
and blue (not to be confused with Sharp's QuadPixel tech, which adds
yellow). The fourth color is white, which makes the panel much more
efficient. Typical LCDs use a combination of the colored pixels to produce
white light, but the PenTile panel primarily uses the white pixels for this.
Since a large chunk of image content is white or light colors, less energy
is needed overall.

The other advantage to PenTile tech is that it needs fewer pixels to produce
images at the same resolution. Or, put another way, a panel with the same
number of pixels as a traditional screen will have higher resolution. The
screen, which Samsung will demo next week at a trade show in Los Angeles,
has a resolution of 2560x1600 and measures 10.1 inches diagonal, giving it a
pixel density of 300 dpi. That would appear to qualify it as a "retina"
display, though the term itself, popularized by the Apple iPhone 4, has no
scientific definition.

The PenTile screen overcomes at least one of the issues for making devices
with higher-resolution screens: battery life. The biggest drain on the
battery of any tablet is the screen, and the PenTile screen cranks up
resolution while actually increasing energy savings by 40 percent. Of
course, the processor in the device with the high-res screen would need to
drive graphics at the higher resolution, which also drains power, so the
actual energy savings wouldn't be as dramatic as that.

PenTile RGBW screens are already in use, most notably in the Motorola Atrix,
but this display shows off how beneficial they can be for tablets, where
those extra pixels can be put to better use than on phones. The technology
could lead to Apple introducing a retina display for the iPad 3, though
there are serious practical issues to consider besides battery life and the
processing power needed to drive such high resolutions. First, all apps
would need to be revamped for an upgraded display. And one could question
the need for so many pixels in the first place—far more than needed for even
1080p video.

Samsung says it plans to have the PenTile screen commercially available
later this year.