Steven Jobs recently claimed that the camera on the iPhone 4 has more sensitivity than the human eye and called it a “retina display.” However, Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technolgies, disputes the claim.
“The resolution of the retina is in angular measure – it’s 50 Cycles Per Degree,” wrote Soneira. “A cycle is a line pair, which is two pixels, so the angular resolution of the eye is 0.6 arc minutes per pixel. So, if you hold an iPhone at the typical 12 inches from your eyes that works out to 477 pixels per inch. At 8 inches it’s 716 ppi. You have to hold it out 18 inches before it falls to 318 ppi. So the iPhone has significantly lower resolution than the retina. It actually needs a resolution significantly higher than the retina in order to deliver an image that appears perfect to the retina.”
Soneira said the resolution should compare to that of the Motorola Droid. “It’s a great display, most likely the best mobile display in production (and I can’t wait to test it) but this is another example of spec exaggeration,” Soneira concluded.
Source: PC Magazine
