View your CAD drawings on 220dpi screens, eventually, predicts Intel

Super hi-rez screens are not just for ASUS and Apple tablets, says Intel. Ordinary CAD drafters may one day benefit from desktop monitors boasting 3840x2160 resolution on 21-inch screens. That works out to 221 dot per inch -- or 221ppi (pixels per inch) in the more modern version of the spec. The 3840x2160 comes from doubling the resolution in each direction from HD resolution, 1920x1080.

Compare that with the 300dpi output of an office laser, and lines will look smooth. Especially if the pixel density gets souped up to display  3840x2160 on a mere 15" screen, the most common size among laptop computers. Who knows, maybe this will eliminate the need for anti-ailiasing, the fuzziness paradoxically added to lines and text to make them look smoother.

I recall seeing a 300dpi monitor in the late 1980s. It was monochrome, but of such high resolution that lines looked (a) very smooth and (b) very thin. Dunno what became of that company. Intel wants its dream to come alive as soon as next year.

Drawbacks include the following:

• Graphics boards need more RAM and faster refresh rates to handle the 4x more data (than current HD screens).
  
  
• System text will become even tinier. (System text is already almost too small on my main 2048x1152 monitor, and so I sometimes will drag a window over to the second, 1360x768 monitor to read its contents more easily.)

• Electronista notes that such screens need stronger backlighting, and will cost a lot more than the 100-buck big-screen monitors we currently enjoy.

Source:
www.electronista.com/articles/12/04/12/intel.braces.for.very.high.resolution.computers

 

Comments

[DF]

System text will become even tinier. (System text is already almost too small on my main 2048x1152 monitor, and so I sometimes will drag a window over to the second, 1360x768 monitor to read its contents more easily.)

This doesn't necessarily need to be true. Apple take advantage of the 'Retina Display' improvements in dpi to high-res their graphics, not make them smaller.

[D Midi]

..."100-buck big-screen monitors we currently enjoy"...

Enjoy? How about "tolerate" at best, curse endlessly on a bad day.

I'm sure the Apple executives enjoy their laugh at the PC 'ecosystem' and their insistence on cutting costs and making everyone suffer the consequences, rather than raising expectations (and prices) for those segments of the market that like seeing natural colors at high resolutions and viewing angles.