Samsung to Try to Beat Apple to Market with a "Retina" Display Tablet?

galaxytabThe ongoing battle between Samsung and Apple might get a little more intense come February. BGR reports that Samsung is preparing to launch its own high resolution 11.6" tablet that will carry a 2560 x 1600 resolution screen.

Even though the tablet features a larger display than Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1, we’re told that the tablet is “barely larger” due to the fact the slate will have a thinner bezel with a whopping 2560 x 1600 resolution, 11.6-inch screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio.

A resolution of 2560x1600 would beat the 2048x1536 display that the iPad 3 has been rumored to have.

Samsung first introduced a similar 2560x1600 screen back in May at SID Display Week 2011 International Symposium. That screen, however, used the less conventional PenTile technology to achieve its high resolution which has been criticized for some potential drawbacks.

The PenTile display uses a series of local filter operations to convert the underlying image into display intensities, including convolution, thresholding, color curve adjustment, and postprocessing with locally-adaptive filters. In practice, this means the display blurs the red and blue channels by dispersing these color intensities to the nearest subpixel element of the right color, and then also implements subpixel positioning to increase the apparent resolution again. However, subpixel spacing is not constant across the display, making the real apparent resolution complicated to estimate

Apple and Samsung have been in an ongoing legal battle over similarities the Galaxy Tab product line and the iPad.

Apple has been long rumored to be working on a high resolution iPad display that would carry twice vertical and horizontal resolution of the iPad. Apple used a similar technique when it upgraded the iPhone's screen to 960x640 from 480x320. Apple's iPad 3 is expected to carry a resolution of 2048x1536, up from 1024x768 in the current iPad. Rumors have suggested that there have been production holdups on creating these high resolution screens in quantities. The latest reports suggested Apple could also be able to release the iPad 3 as early as February, though other reports have suggested a slightly later release.

Popular Stories

Apple Glass

Apple Smart Glasses: Everything We Know So Far

Wednesday May 21, 2025 8:21 am PDT by
Google made waves yesterday by showcasing a set of lightweight smart glasses featuring deep Gemini integration and an optional in-lens display. The demo has reignited interest in Apple's own smart glasses project, which has been the subject of rumors for nearly a decade. Here's a recap of where things stand. Current Development Status Apple is actively working on new chips specifically...
iPhone 17 Air Pastel Feature

iPhone 17 Air Battery Capacity and Weight Allegedly Revealed

Monday May 19, 2025 2:22 am PDT by
Apple is expected to launch an all-new ultra-thin iPhone 17 Air later this year, and while there have been plenty of rumors about the camera's overall design and thinness, we haven't heard any details about the device's weight and battery capacity until now. According to the leaker going by the account name "yeux1122" on the Korean-langauge Naver blog, the 6.6-inch iPhone 17 Air has a weight ...
Apple CarPlay Ultra instrument cluster themes 01

Apple's CarPlay Ultra Is Here – Does Your iPhone Support It?

Thursday May 15, 2025 5:17 am PDT by
Apple's recently announced CarPlay Ultra promises a deeply integrated in-car experience, but not all iPhone users will be able to take advantage of the new feature. According to Apple's press release, CarPlay Ultra requires an iPhone 12 or later running iOS 18.5 or later. This means if you're using an iPhone 11, iPhone XR, or any older model, you'll need to upgrade your device to access...
WWDC 2025 Banner

Apple Announces WWDC 2025 Schedule, Including Keynote Time

Tuesday May 20, 2025 8:13 am PDT by
Apple today announced a more detailed schedule for its annual developers conference WWDC, which runs from June 9 through June 13. The schedule confirms that Apple's keynote will begin on Monday, June 9 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time, with a live stream to be available on Apple.com, in the Apple TV app, and on YouTube. During the keynote, Apple is expected to announce iOS 19, iPadOS 19, macOS 16,...
macOS 16 visionOS Inspired Feature 1

macOS 16: Everything We Know So Far

Tuesday May 20, 2025 7:31 am PDT by
The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple's annual developer and software-oriented event, is less than three weeks away. We haven't heard a great deal about macOS 16 ahead of its announcement this year, so we could be in for some major surprises when June 9 rolls around. Here's what we know so far about the next major update to Apple's Mac operating system. macOS 16 Name? Every year ...
maxresdefault

OpenAI Buys Jony Ive's AI Startup to 'Completely Reimagine What It Means to Use a Computer'

Wednesday May 21, 2025 10:27 am PDT by
OpenAI is acquiring io, the hardware-based AI startup co-created by Jony Ive, OpenAI announced today. Ive has been working with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on io for two years, and the duo expects to develop a family of AI devices. In a video shared by OpenAI, Altman and Ive outlined their partnership and what they expect to create as a result of the merger. "I have a growing sense that everything ...
Apple Glasses Purple Feature

Apple Smart Glasses Launching in 2026

Thursday May 22, 2025 12:22 pm PDT by
Apple is planning to launch a set of smart glasses by the end of 2026, reports Bloomberg. The glasses will be comparable to the Meta Ray-Bans and the Android XR glasses that Google showed off earlier this week. Apple's smart glasses are expected to include cameras, microphones, and AI capabilities, much like the Meta Ray-Bans. The glasses will be able to take photos, record video, provide...
Apple CarPlay Ultra instrument cluster themes 01

Apple's 'CarPlay Ultra' Experience Now Available

Thursday May 15, 2025 5:07 am PDT by
Apple today announced that its next-generation CarPlay experience, now dubbed "CarPlay Ultra" begins rolling out today, starting with Aston Martin vehicles. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. CarPlay Ultra is now available with new Aston Martin vehicle orders in the U.S. and Canada. It will also be available for existing models that feature the brand's next-generation ...

Top Rated Comments

Marcus-k Avatar
176 months ago
Copying isn't competition.

Apple didn't invent high resolution screens.
Score: 60 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AppleScruff1 Avatar
176 months ago
I didn't know Apple made their own lcd panels. I thought they bought them from Samsung and other suppliers. How can Samsung copy something that Apple doesn't make?
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rmwebs Avatar
176 months ago
Oh joy, yet another "Samsung sucks - they copy from Apple" thread.

As hard as this may be for some of our lesser educated members to understand, Samsung are not copying apple. For one thing "retina display" is not a technology. It's a term invented by the apple marketing department because they didn't want the same "high resolution display" name that their competitors use.

Now, with a tablet there is only so much you can do. We are at a point in technology where we have to wait a few years for the next gen super cpu's ( I'm talking 3ghz+ quad or oct core arm's). The logical thing to do right now is improve the usability as that's pretty much all that can be done. The screen is a logical upgrade. The tech has only recently become available and was most certainly not an apple innovation. Companies like Samsung and LG are the ones doing that research and development, not apple as they don't make displays.

The assumption here seems to be that if apple's rumour surfaced first then anyone else who is rumoured to be doing the same thing MUST have copied Apple...if that's what you want to believe then more fool you, but Samsung is much more likely to have had access to the tech way before apple. The issue has been getting a CPU that can power it reliably (the A5 should suffice but it will take a performance hit, that's for sure).
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tendenzi Avatar
176 months ago
Most tablets in my area are rectangular with a black bezel. I suppose someone could innovate and invent a new geometric shape since Apple invented the rectangle.

They didn't even invent the tablet, but look at tablets pre-iOS and post-iOS, you'll see a clear influence Apple has had over the market, and how "innovative" the rest quickly became.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
pixelpro Avatar
176 months ago
At least someone is trying to compete with Apple.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Marcus-k Avatar
176 months ago
+1.

But even if Samsung beats Apple to market, it's only a matter of weeks/months they'll have the lead. It took this long for Samsung to leap frog?

Samsung needs to stop pretending it innovates. It's always been the affordable to the premium line-ups, at a cost of quality and maturity in their product line ups.

In what way is creating a new screen capable of high resolutions copying Apple? And it's only a rumour so far that Apple is actually going to use a "Retina display" on their next iPad, so again, in what way are they copying Apple?
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)