Qualcomm shows off its 2560 x 1440 577ppi 5.1-inch smartphone display

Qualcomm is best known for its range of mobile processors, but did you know that the company is also working on its own display technologies as well? Known as Mirasol, Qualcomm’s new displays aim to rival the current crop of OLED and LCD displays with a higher resolution and improved energy efficiency.

Although these products are still quite far from a release, we have been given our first glimpse at next-gen Mirasol displays in a few proof-of-concepts shown at the SID Display Week in Vancouver.

Qualcomm demoed some of its smartwatch prototypes, which use a tiny 1.5-inch 223 pixel per inch (ppi) Mirasol display. The display is designed to be highly energy efficient, and should offer around a week’s worth of battery life, which is a great selling point for wearable products.

The technology giant also showed off the same screen used on the back of a smartphone as a mini display for checking messages and other notifications. Whilst these were just concept devices, the display technology should be heading our way in third-party products at some point in the future.

More interestingly for us smartphone enthusiasts though, Qualcomm also showed off the same technology used in a 5.1-inch smartphone display. The screen has a mighty resolution of 2560 x 1440, which works out at an impressive 577ppi. Compare that to current top of the line 1920 x 1080 smartphones like the Galaxy S4 and HTC One, which have pixel densities of 441ppi and 469ppi, respectively, and you can see that there are quite a few more pixels packed in, resulting in a much sharper image.

Again, the display is designed to be more energy efficient than current technologies, offering up to six times the battery life over LCD and OLED screens, which is great news for our strained smartphone batteries.

If you’d like to see these devices and the Marisol display in the flesh then check out the video below, courtesy of Engadget.

Whilst none of these products are scheduled to come to market, at least not in the forms shown off in the video, we will probably see similar products based on these designs or using this technology at some point in the future. Sadly though, the impressive looking smartphone display is still a few years away from the production line.

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