720p , 1080p , 4k display- Does it make a difference?

Courtesy: Pinterest

Given above is a picture of phones with different screen sizes and resolutions. Now, if I told you that all the phones shown above have the same resolution, which one would you choose? Would you still go with the one with the largest size(though it comes with the bigger price tag) or would you just take the one which offers you the resolution at the lowest cost? Or, you may meet at the middle. If you are confused, read ahead!

We pay a lot extra to get a higher resolution on our devices, so every budget phone owner, has once in a while thought about this. 

Does it really make a difference? 

The answer is 'not really, mostly'. 

I have always been against the presumption of "the higher, the better." So, I decided to dig deeper into this for those who might be confused. Let's cut to the chase.

What is screen resolution?

Screen resolution is the number of pixels on your screen. Our screen is made up of thousands of pixels and those tiny squares (pixels) make up what we see on the screen. So, when i say 1024 x 768, what I mean is that there are 1024 pixels horizontally and 768 pixels vertically. So, higher the screen resolution, more the details and richer the colours. 

Courtesy:Techdonut

Different sizes, same screen resolution.

Here, the things get a little more complicated. Let us consider a 720p resolution on two devices- 5-inches and 6-inches screen. Now, both the screens pack the same number of pixels in different screen sizes. It means that both the screens show the same detail, reducing the size of data in the smaller device, implies, it has smaller font which is difficult to read. So, choosing the right screen size for a particular resolution is very important. Hypothetically, packing in a 4K resolution in a 4-inch smartphone will not make any sense other than making all details look smaller. Only when the right screen size is chosen, you can actually feel the difference and enjoy it's optimal performance. On the other hand, though the details become smaller, they become sharper and images look richer.

What to choose then?

The answer is that it is quite subjective. If you choose a higher resolution, the price goes higher because it is a better screen fundamentally. This price also gives us richer details. But, this sharpness, though comes at the cost of the battery life. Nevertheless, playing HD games is definitely cooler than playing ping pong in today's era. But then, putting so much pressure on the GPU is also not a very good idea.

My take

I do not have a problem with higher resolution. Neither do I ask you to watch YouTube in 144p. There is a difference when I compare a 4K experience on mobile device or watching the same on a 4K supported TV which is atleast 5 times larger than the mobile. It is about striking the right balance between screen and resolution. Technical jargon is used as selling point for quite a lot of devices, which in turn, lead us to shell out some extra thousand bucks for something that we won't even feel a difference about. So next time, choose wisely. Till then!