The rumor mill doesn’t usually start spinning at full speed for the next Samsung Galaxy S flagship so many months before the current year’s Galaxy Note flagship is due. But, with the Galaxy S10 set to mark the tenth anniversary of Android’s most popular smartphone lineup, it’s not too surprising that we’re already seeing numerous reports about the device. Some of these rumors are often about a feature that Samsung reportedly isn’t going to be offering with the Galaxy Note 9, which is an in-display fingerprint sensor. But today’s titbit comes straight out of left field: According to leakster Ice universe, the Galaxy S10 could have a display with a pixel density exceeding 600 PPI.
High Galaxy S10 pixel density rumored
With a resolution of 2960×1440 pixels (WQHD+), the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ sport pixel densities of 570 and 530 PPI respectively. The next popular display resolution after WQHD is UHD/4K, or 3840×2160 pixels. If one were to apply that resolution to the 6.2-inch Galaxy S9+ display, they would get a pixel density of around 710 PPI. Now, we would be remiss if we didn’t say this particular rumor isn’t very believable, unless Samsung has decided it either wants the Galaxy S10 to fold out into a tablet, thinks virtual reality is important enough to give users 4K resolution for the Gear VR, is considering increasing the screen sizes on both models, or just thinking of equipping the Galaxy S10 with a 4K display to make it stand out.
Samsung, right now, makes its flagship smartphones run at Full HD+ (2220×1080 pixels) out of the box. So a jump to a 4K display mostly makes sense if the Galaxy S10 display will run at 4K resolution only when connected to a Gear VR, or if Samsung wants to offer a sharper experience inside some apps, such as the gallery (which is what Sony does). Samsung could also adopt a non-standard resolution between WQHD and 4K. Not something Google (and developers) would be happy about, as the non-standard resolution would be an outlier among the accepted resolutions in the Android ecosystem, and a non-standard higher resolution just for the sake of it would serve no purpose.
Which brings us to the possibility that Samsung wants the Galaxy S10 to run at WQHD+ by default instead of Full HD+, which, again, would mean the device will switch to 4K resolution only for the Gear VR and perhaps a few proprietary Samsung apps. Yet, unless we hear about the company doing something new with the size or form factor of the Galaxy S10, a 600+ PPI display sounds rather impractical and unnecessary.
That’s the very nature of these early rumors, though, that we have to be skeptical when we hear them and play the usual game of waiting for the next big rumor to come along. But there’s no reason we can’t have a discussion, so let us know your thoughts on a 600+ PPI Galaxy S10 display by leaving a comment!