Today’s flagship smartphones sport crystal-clear 2K displays. These have twice as many pixels as a traditional 1080p “Full HD” display and are becoming increasingly common, alongside even more pixel-packed 4K TVs and computer monitors. This has prompted display manufacturers to look to the future once again.
8K displays will be arriving within a few years but Samsung has already set its sights far beyond that. It has teamed up with 13 different companies, including the South Korean government, to make a project dubbed “EnDK” reality in the next few years. The company intends to show off a functioning 11K mobile display at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics before beginning their usage in smartphones from 2019, according to Korean news site ETNews.
The 2K display of today’s Samsung Galaxy S6 has a resolution of 2560×1440. Phonearena notes that an 11K panel would have a resolution of 11,264×6336, if using a 16:9 aspect ratio. This would result in a pixel density of over 2250 pixels per inch, compared with the maximum of 576ppi on a 2K display.
Having so many pixels has no immediate advantage for the consumer. It is impossible to see individual pixels on today’s phones and adding more only increases work for the processor, using more battery and producing more heat. There is a reason for developing the technology though as Samsung says that it will enable a “3D effect” on smartphones.
Exact details are lacking but it appears as though having so many pixels would allow the implementation of an optical illusion behind the scenes. Presumably, a perception of depth could be created by showing a slightly different image on some of the pixels, as 3D glasses do today, fooling the brain into thinking that the display is 3D.
The South Korean government has invested $26.5 million into EnDK which could result in an 11K, 3D smartphone being in your pocket as early as 2019. The project doesn’t end there though: apparently, the development is a “basis” for another leap in pixel quantities in the future.
