3GSM Barcelona 2006 live coverage

The 3GSM Congress in Barcelona was the ideal place for the manufacturers to show a new technology, which might be used in mobile devices soon. Sharp and Toshiba were demonstrating 2.4" VGA displays on their stands. Current top of the line high-resolution displays used in the mobile phones are QVGA (240x320 pixels). The only exception are some Nokia S60 devices with 352x416 pixels resolution. The VGA displays have four times the resolution of a QVGA display. The pixels of the display are really, really small and as a result the pictures shown on these displays are just impressive.

Sharp VGA display

Toshiba VGA display

Since the VGA displays require four times the computing power compared to the QVGA, they feature a compatibility mode, this way then can show QVGA picture, when the additional resolution is not needed.

QVGA and VGA mode

QVGA and VGA mode

More VGA samples

The future will tell if these displays will find their way in the mobile phones. Our opinion is that they are a lot more needed in devices like digital cameras and specific applications like GPS. In a common device, like the mobile phone, such resolution is just not needed. Some of the users will not see the difference between VGA and QVGA on a 2.4" screen.