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Hitachi announces 4.5 inch 720p screen that does 3D without the need for glasses; coming to phones soon

Categories: Hardware
By: , IntoMobile
Thursday, July 21st, 2011 at 1:04 AM

Smartphones are getting larger and larger, a trend that irks some of the staff at the IntoMobile offices, and it looks like it isn’t going to reverse any time soon. Back in January of this year Samsung and AT&T announced the “Infuse”, an Android smartphone that packs a 4.5 inch screen. We didn’t really know what to think of it since it’s impossibly large. We’re only now starting to get used to 4.3 inch screens, as seen in the Samsung Galaxy S II, and those extra 0.2 inches makes a huge difference. Many who reviewed the Infuse thought the same thing, so we predicted we’d never see such a behemoth hit the market again. That’s likely due to change now thanks to an announcement from Hitachi. They’ve developed a new 4.5 inch IPS LCD that does 720p, meaning 1280 x 720 pixels worth of delicious resolution; it’s even 3D capable. The way they’re doing 3D is unique too, using a system they’re calling the “liquid crystal lens system”, which offers twice the brightness compared to the “parallax barrier method” seen in devices on the market today such as the Nintendo 3DS or Sprint EVO 3D. See the image below for a rudimentary example of how this works.

Now there’s a lot to be said about how useless 3D is on smartphones today. It’ll likely continue to be nothing more than a marketing ploy in the years to come, but that 720p resolution … that’s pretty. The only device we can think of that has the same type of gorgeous high end display is the rumored Nexus Prime. It’s set to run the latest version of Google’s Android operating system, dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich, and it should be out by the end of the year. We’ve yet to see it in action, but considering the retina display on the iPhone 4 is one of the many reasons the that device is popular, we can’t wait to see what others do with an even higher resolution screen.

[Via: TechCrunch]

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

  • Anonymous

    Just look at what Hitachi has done for WP7 which requires 800×480 programming.  This display is very close to Apples Retina display (3.53 inches at 960×640) and sets up the possibility a 4-fold increase in pixels for WP7 programs at 1600×960 (same functionality that iPhone 4 used).  At 1600×960 the display would have a size of approximately 5.72 inches where the 5-6 inch display market has not yet been tapped.  Would/could Hitachi produce a 1600×960 display by expanding the 720 display is the question!