Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. HOMEPAGE

There's a great reason why your phone's screen keeps getting better

Samsung makes incredibly sharp smartphone displays. Better than your iPhone screen, even.

Advertisement

They may seem like overkill on a smartphone — after all, the iPhone is the most popular smartphone in the US.

In other words: most consumers aren't choosing their smartphones based solely on screen quality. Nor should they!

But there's a really good reason that Samsung is pushing the envelope on screen quality: it's all about virtual reality.

Samsung Gear VR
AP

If you're one of the few people who's actually tried virtual reality, then you may be familiar with what's called the "screen door effect." It may sound like complex jargon, but it's not: When you're wearing the Samsung's Gear VR headset, which is powered by any of Samsung's latest smartphones, the image looks pixelated.

Advertisement

Like a screen door! Get it?

The dazzling screen on Samsung's Galaxy Note 5 — one of Samsung's newest, most high-tech phones — is stunning to the naked eye. But when you hold it up to your face in a VR headset, just inches from your eyes? It's transformed into something that looks low-quality.

That's because the lenses on Samsung's gear VR magnify the pixels on the smartphone — they're indistinguishable to the naked eye, but are enlarged when you wear Gear VR (thus creating the immersion effect that distinguishes VR from other mediums).

samsung gear VR
Samsung's Gear VR. Samsung

Smartphone companies are working hard to boost screen quality. But that's not because phone buyers are clamoring for higher quality screens; it's because those super high resolutions are required for quality VR.

Advertisement

The higher the resolution a phone is capable of, the less distinguishable individual pixels become. And the better the experience looks, the more realistic it feels. That's at the heart of virtual reality: tricking your brain into believing a computer construct is reality.

Samsung gear vr Lands End ustwo
"Land's End" is a gorgeous game for Samsung's Gear VR headset. Samsung

There is, of course, a catch: designing phones with ever-increasing resolutions is no easy feat. Increasing the number of pixels requires serious processing power and drains battery extremely quickly. More simply: phones get super hot and drain battery power very quickly as the resolution increases. Android Authority actually cited these reasons, among others, as why Samsung and LG won't develop "4K" smartphone screens this year (4K is the next step after HD).

Even though we may not see 4K this year from Samsung, there's a really good reason the company is working on it.

Virtual reality Gaming
Advertisement
Close icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.

Jump to

  1. Main content
  2. Search
  3. Account