But will the GS8 default to lower than its native res?
More details continue to trickle out onto the web, and today's late-breaking info — via Chinese leaker — appears to confirm the phone's rumored "18.5:9" aspect ratio, with a native screen resolution of 2960x1440 pixels. Like the , there's a resolution slider, letting you scale down to "HD+" or "FHD+" — think 1080p or 720p, with a few extra pixels stacked on the vertical.
That's led to speculation that, like the Galaxy S7 on its latest firmware, the GS8 will default to 1080p (or thereabouts) instead of the highest possible resolution. And that wouldn't be too surprising to see, particularly in the smaller GS8. Although it's said to have a "5.8-inch" display, we know on taller phones. So you're still unlikely to be able to tell the difference between QHD+ and FHD+ on such a small panel. Thus, Samsung can save some power by downscaling by default, and leaving the option there for those who want to max out the resolution.
Besides that, the Galaxy S8 is reported to be using a denser RGB subpixel matrix, compared to the diamond PenTile arrangement of its predecessors. That means there are three subpixels per pixel, compared to two on last year's model, which may well compensate for any lack of sharpness elsewhere.
As phone displays eventually reach towards 4K, we can expect downscaling to become the norm. Ultra HD phone screens are useful for some things, like VR, but the fact is the vast majority of apps don't need such enormous pixel density.
More details continue to trickle out onto the web, and today's late-breaking info — via Chinese leaker — appears to confirm the phone's rumored "18.5:9" aspect ratio, with a native screen resolution of 2960x1440 pixels. Like the , there's a resolution slider, letting you scale down to "HD+" or "FHD+" — think 1080p or 720p, with a few extra pixels stacked on the vertical.
That's led to speculation that, like the Galaxy S7 on its latest firmware, the GS8 will default to 1080p (or thereabouts) instead of the highest possible resolution. And that wouldn't be too surprising to see, particularly in the smaller GS8. Although it's said to have a "5.8-inch" display, we know on taller phones. So you're still unlikely to be able to tell the difference between QHD+ and FHD+ on such a small panel. Thus, Samsung can save some power by downscaling by default, and leaving the option there for those who want to max out the resolution.
Besides that, the Galaxy S8 is reported to be using a denser RGB subpixel matrix, compared to the diamond PenTile arrangement of its predecessors. That means there are three subpixels per pixel, compared to two on last year's model, which may well compensate for any lack of sharpness elsewhere.
As phone displays eventually reach towards 4K, we can expect downscaling to become the norm. Ultra HD phone screens are useful for some things, like VR, but the fact is the vast majority of apps don't need such enormous pixel density.