When the first VGA PocketPC’s hit the market 2004, they dethroned Palm’s HiRes+(320×480) screen systems from the crown of highest resolution in a PDA. I was impressed by the quality of the displays and the amount of data on-screen when I saw such a handheld a few months ago(HTC Universal)…but nevertheless, our local electronics store didn’t have any VGA PocketPC. Brighthand users currently discuss the lack of VGA PocketPC’s – and indeed, the lack of VGA displays is appalling.
Yes, VGA is cool – but there is one critical flaw with increasing display resolution:
Human eyes are limited when it comes to seeing small objects
Look at the image below:
It shows a more-less 1:2(your screen shows the text about two times as big as the Treo) image of a HiRes(320×320) screen showing text in the smallest font possible. While the text may be somewhat readable on your screen, trust me that a dirty little TFT on a PDA will affect readability adversely:
Now, that VGA PocketPC has text that’s 50% smaller than the already small text above – that goes beyond the vision limit of the average user. Both Microsoft and PalmSource kept their big default fonts when they upgraded their screen resolutions…and did so for a good reason. The average user will not benefit much from VGA, so why force him to pay extra?
To cut a long story short, VGA PocketPC’s rock(I would love one)…for us. But the average user doesn’t benefit much from VGA – and since companies tend to target average users rather than freaks, VGA will probably stay a rare feature for the time to come…
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I guess in the end, as much as I’d hate to, I have to agree.
Though it can be remedied very simply by some small adjustments with font size. As a user of a young adult generation I can’t return to QVGA after expiriencing HVGA and VGA. My eyes go through alot of strain looking at a tiny screen for prolonged periods of time and the larger screen does help especially with creating Word docs & browsing but at the end of the day you could brand me a “power-user” so my needs are beyond average.
Still I feel as if we are going to a stall session with QVGA, you’d think we would aleast see a broader adaption of HVGA by now.
Hi Genjinaro,
thank you for talking back!
HVGA – um – I don’t think that this will work for PocketPC’s. IMHO, the problem here is not the hardware but the software.
Scaling times 1.5 never looks nice on legacy apps – and if only one or two manufacturers go HVGA; developers won’t follow suite.
At Palm’s, we saw the same thing with the QVGA smartphones and even the Handera 330. Most apps never were optimized and looked gruesome due to the 1.5x scaling…
Best regards
Tam Hanna
I did like the 330, it did quite an impressive job at scaling apps, but it could look awful when scaling the graphics, and it was such a niche device that not many people really bothered to support it (unfortunately)
Hi Simon,
the end of the Handera line is a difficult topic – I’ll try to get an interview from them one day…
Best regards
Tam Hanna