When Apple unveiled its Retina screen on the iPhone 4, the world gasped. “There has never been a more detailed, clear, or viewable screen,” read a review on the tech Web site Engadget. “Staring at that screen is addictive,” said Wired magazine.

What they were reacting to was the superhigh resolution. The iPhone 4 packed in 326 pixels per inch (ppi)—pixels so tiny that you can't discern them at standard viewing distance. Apple went on to incorporate Retina displays into the iPad (264 ppi) and MacBook Pro laptops (227 ppi).

So began the Resolution Wars. Recent phones from Samsung, Nokia and HTC pack in 316, 332 and 440 ppi, respectively. Google's Nexus 10 tablet leapfrogs the iPad with 300 ppi.

And now the television industry has joined in. It is pushing 4K sets—that's four times the resolution of high-definition TV. Four times.

Now, up to a point, higher resolution really does look better. Yet there are some footnotes.

Low-resolution graphics look no better on a high-resolution screen. If you've programmed an iPhone app, you know that it doesn't look any sharper until you reprogram it for the sharper screen. Until then, the phone just applies pixel doubling (substitutes four pixels for every one on the lower-res screen), which doesn't improve sharpness.

In fact, they look worse. You may remember that when HDTV came out, standard-definition broadcasts actually looked worse than they did on standard TVs. (They still do.) Well, guess what? Same thing happens on other screens.

In theory, standard-res graphics on a high-res screen look exactly as sharp as they always did, thanks to pixel doubling. Yet as many MacBook purchasers discover with dismay, pre-Retina graphics look worse on Retina screens. This might be because a standard screen smooths out gaps between pixels, but on a Retina screen the gaps are so tiny, the subtle smoothing goes away.

In any case, the problem is especially severe on the biggest app of all: the Web. Few Web sites have been rewritten to accommodate Retina-type screens, so their graphics usually look awful.

Bigger = slower. Even if Web designers do get around to designing high-res versions of their graphics, those files will be bigger and therefore slower to load. On cellular phones and tablets that dole out Internet service by the megabyte, they are also more expensive. Do we want to wait longer and pay more to have those sharper Web sites? Shouldn't we be able to choose?

Already our Internet providers impose monthly data limits. Do we really want each Web site to eat up, say, four times our monthly data?

Sharp text should be automatic but isn't always. The previous points do not apply to text. Text is not graphics. Whenever a program or Web page displays text, Apple's Retina software automatically delivers extremely sharp characters to your screen.

Unfortunately, that's true only if the software companies use Apple's prescribed text-handling routines, and not all of them do. For example, documents in Adobe's InDesign layout program look horrible.

4K TV broadcasts? Forget it. The Retina-zation of television is particularly absurd. No cable or satellite company will send out 4K broadcasts because, in the bandwidth space of one 4K channel, providers could send out four HDTV channels. (Companies already send out low-res versions of HDTV channels to conserve bandwidth.)

The data required for a 4K video is also too great for DVDs, Blu-ray discs or Internet streaming. So what, exactly, will you watch on a 4K set?

If you buy a Sony 84-inch 4K set ($25,000), the company will loan you a hard drive containing 10 Sony movies in 4K.

That's it? We're going to ship hard drives?

19 Comments

1. 1. BillR 08:46 AM 3/26/13

   The question I have is what is the best resolution that we can see with our own eyes? Don't we also have a limited number of cones in our eyes that would limit the resolution that we can perceive? How close is this 4K to passing the resolution we can naturally attain?

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2. 2. Shaurya 11:19 AM 3/26/13

   According to this article on Arstecnica (http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/10/1080p-on-a-smartphone-screencan-it-possibly-matter/), at a distance of 15 inches, a person with legally perfect 20/20 eyesight can't distinguish above 229ppi. So even 720p on a 5inch phone is borderline overkill.
   
   As far as TVs are concerned, I recall reading quite a while ago that reviewers were unable to identify a 50inch 720p screens from 1080p screens at varied viewing distances. I don't have the link to this any more though. So, to the best of my knowledge, and concordant with basic logic, a 4K display for a movie is just marketing hogwash.
   
   Ppi today is what Megapixels were two years ago.

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3. 3. keion 11:58 AM 3/28/13

   >scientific american using the retina buzzword
   >scientific american thinking the iPhone 4 was the first high PPI device
   Jesus Christ how stupid can you get?
   Might as well change the site name to the unscientific iDrone.

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4. 4. walkerjian 08:43 AM 4/9/13

   It's even worse than this - I recently viewed a crystal clear broadcast at 576i, whilst a supposed 1080i Full HD broadcast looked terrible. I very rarely ever see true 1080i anymore as the content has been siphoned off behind a paywall - holding me to ransom by my expensive tv...
   
   4k and 8k is dumb
   
   in fact, with advances in vr glasses, resolution will be effectively infinite if you think about it - head tracking and eye movements used in conjunction with dynamic LOD on a retina like device will me that we will need to rethink pixels and resolution. Barnsley and Co. and their IFS may get another spin...
   
   And while I am at it, why does every pixel need to be refreshed at 60Hz?

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5. 5. dbtinc 09:00 AM 4/9/13

   Another attempt to get the consumer back into the game. Salesman tried to sell me an upgrade AV amp saying it was 4k "ready." Sounds like another failed attempt like 3D TV, and for all you oldies out there "quadraphonic sound."

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6. 6. lamorpa 09:05 AM 4/9/13

   The single most important issue was not mentioned: In motion video, images are smoothed by the brain. It is physically impossible to see the difference between 1080p and 4K. In static images, yes. Motion, no. Anyone claiming to be able to see it in video is either not human, or lying. In demonstrations, often, compressed 1080p is compared to uncompressed 4K. The difference might be able to see them, but that's not a real comparison. Low loss or no loss 1080p would be a vast improvement. There's no need for higher resolution.

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7. 7. jabailo 11:14 AM 4/9/13

   The people who live in one of Google's fiber towns might appreciate these technologies.
   
   And yes, there is lag between platform and content...look how long it took for the widescreen format to be commonplace in TV. But can you even imagine using an Edison square (4:3) LCD?

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8. 8. Derick D 11:29 AM 4/9/13

   Yet another example of marketers "creating" a need where one doesn't exist. Don't buy the hype, or more resolution than you need.

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9. 9. Rene Grothmann 11:32 AM 4/9/13

   It's worse. High resolution graphics on web pages look bad on ordinary displays, because most browsers downscale horribly.

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10. 10. jtdwyer in reply to BillR 01:51 PM 4/9/13

    Good question - that I'm sure has a very complex answer. The simple answer, though, is that our vision system is not digital & is enhanced by many analog processes. As I understand, our vision system doesn't even continuously rescan its entire field of view - it's maintained in a visual memory system & is only partially updated on each scan...

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11. 11. mw111 02:17 PM 4/9/13

    Photographs! There's currently no way except prints to see them at full resolution. What's the point of having the camera?

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12. 12. KeithZoo 02:34 PM 4/9/13

    I see this article and release a BIG sigh of relief. If this is true, it means that I no longer need to worry about the future of my artwork. As a digital artist, I've been fearing that the "high definition" market would be the death of my field. As this article states, the TVs/screens are only as good as their content, which means high def webpages and images. Me putting a 300ppi image on the web means I no longer have control over my content. People will then be able to freely grab and redistribute/PRINT my artwork as they feel (unless I slap on numerous watermarks - but then what's the point at all?). Here's to thinking this trend dies a swift death.

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13. 13. AllanRBrewer 03:14 PM 4/9/13

    Not to mention that many of us, especially over-50s, do not have 20/20 vision - I certainly can't read my smartphone without reading glasses.

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14. 14. filmeiker in reply to KeithZoo 03:30 PM 4/9/13

    Unfortunately for you, I think this is not a trend that will die. The market (and marketers) will push the technology forward and you will either have to adapt or figure out an alternate model that is better suited for the new norm.

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15. 15. jack.123 12:58 AM 4/10/13

    What differance does it make if most people can't afford to buy it.

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16. 16. bucketofsquid 02:57 PM 4/10/13

    I have an HDTV but I won't pony up extra for HD channels so most of what I watch looks pretty crappy. I'm certainly not going to buy 4K screens until they and the content are very inexpensive.

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17. 17. ThePegasi in reply to BillR 07:45 AM 4/15/13

    PPI is more important than sheer resolution when talking about what we can view. It's also related to viewing distance, further complicating concrete judgements on whether there's "any point" to certain resolutions.
    
    If you have a 5" 1080p screen, you could arguably be unable to discern the pixels at that high a level and at normal viewing distance. However, a 50" 1080p television is going to be a completely different kettle of fish, because the pixels are literally larger since the screen is larger.
    
    This is why I find the trend of talking about resolution versus our ability to perceive it. When discussing how much detail we can actually see, resolution is next to meaningless without an accompanying screen size. PPI is a much more useful number since it encompasses both factors. Still, it doesn't tell the whole story as viewing distance continues to complicate things. I've met people my own age (~24) who peer in to their smartphones like an old biddy, almost nose to screen. Once we get a PPI value where pixels are indistinguishable at any distance greater than a couple of inches, I think we can truly say we've reached the upper limits of useful pixel density increases.
    
    With regards to this article in general, I think the title could really do with a "yet" qualifier. None of these are reasons why retina and 4k technology is outright not worth it, only why it isn't worth investing in YET: because the media and broadcast technology isn't there to make the most of it. Technological development is often lopsided, with one factor surging forward and others taking a while to catch up. But they will. If there's room for differentiation between companies available in under-utilised technological advances, people will work to fill it.
    
    Arguing that TV companies won't bother transmitting in 4k because they could transmit 4 HDTV channels in the same bandwidth is a ridiculous argument. You could have made an almost identical argument as to why they wouldn't bother transmitting in HD over SD. The same goes for the data size argument with things like DVDs.
    
    This is simply screen technology surging ahead. It'll take a while for supporting tech and infrastructure to catch up. That's a far cry from this technology not being worth the trouble at all. Disappointingly bad journalism, not something I'm used to seeing here.

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18. 18. konnor 09:45 AM 4/21/13

    We may or may not "need" 4k TVs, but I think once they drop in price, people will buy them. They are starting to sell even for $1,300 now, from <a href="http://techdomino.com/4k-tvs-seiki-uhdv/">Seiki</a>, so I could see a lot of people buying them.
    
    Also, what I like most about this, is that if such large high resolution panels become much cheaper, then so will 1080p TV's, and tablets and smartphones, and everything with a screen, which is great for everyone.

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19. 19. Quinn the Eskimo 01:03 AM 5/5/13

    We just bought (January) a Seiki 39" 1080p at K-Mart (yes, kiddies K-Mart) for $279. Hooked to an outdoor antenna and a Mac Mini. 40 channels free and the internet. Viewed for 12 feet away, couldn't be happier.

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