resolution preferences??

[Raphael Wimmer]

Hi Carsten,
I'd argue for a VGA screen for three reasons:

On Fri, 06 Jun 2008 07:39:05 +0200, Carsten Haitzler <raster at openmoko.org>  
wrote:

> we can just drive the vga screen at qvga. no need for scaling - just  
> change the output at the lcd controller level.

1. Greater flexibility. I can use QVGA apps, I can use VGA apps, and I can  
use apps which are written for a fixed screen size in between.

> but it is a waste to pay for a vga screen when we won't use it.

2. The additional price for the better display is not such a huge problem.  
I don't think that a (marginally?) lower price would mean that many new  
customers. You even might lose potential customers who can't live with  
QVGA. When I get my Freerunner, I probably won't replace it with a newer  
phone soon. As the Freerunner is entirely open-source, it will stay  
compatible with new apps or services for a long time. Thus its life-time  
is probably longer than that of closed phones. The additional price for a  
better display is therefore not such a big issue, I think. With VGA the  
Freerunner has at least one great hardware feature that you won't find in  
every other smart phone. For me this is an important reason for wanting to  
buy one.

> how many people out there can really see the difference? be really
> honest. stop thinking "my specs are bigger than your specs".

Me.
3. Having used a Sharp Zaurus for ~5 years I am absolutely convinced of  
VGA resolution (though the Z's screen might be bigger than Freerunner's).  
You can see the difference in UI crispness, when displaying photos, when  
drawing. Due to the higher resolution, anti-aliasing is less important.  
Some of the applications I use most often (e.g. TextMaker (word  
processing), KO/Pi (calendar)) would suffer greatly if you had to scale  
the UI down to QVGA.

So, please keep VGA - and offer smooth, fast switching to QVGA.


Cheers,
Raphael







-- 
Dipl.-Medieninf. Raphael Wimmer
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