The Hottest Gadgets Are All About Pretty Images [IFA 2019]
Displays are the most eye-catching element of modern gadgets, and it just so happens that now they can be more tempting than ever. The largest electronics expo proves that the whole world of technology just wants to show us the most impressive images possible.
It can be transparent. It can be foldable. It can be rollable. Heck, if you don’t have any revolutionary solution up your sleeve, you can just use two of them, and it will be enough for a while. But when you have a booth on the largest and oldest electronic trade show in Europe, you better ensure that you’ve got yourself an awesome display to show.
Displays Are Everywhere
As I walked through the vast exhibition halls, the displays were attacking me everywhere. Some wanted to draw my attention with picture quality, others with their form as the LG’s flexible TV. I was at the IFA for the sixth time in a row, and for the first time, I saw such enormous emphasis on the screens.
No wonder though, that all of the giants put their money on displays. Many segments of the market have become saturated, and analysts like Gartner have been reporting that sales of smartphones and tablets are still declining. They have simply become too good. Since all of the smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, and computers nowadays, can last for years in terms of performance and features, companies try to secure their position with new form-factors and hi-res, hi-refresh screens.
Most of the people may live with a slightly slower CPU, but they will regret spending a thousand bucks on a laptop if it doesn’t feature a decent screen. Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay with all the visuals turned up to 11 won’t be impressive until you’ll watch it on a good monitor.
Ok, it’s hard to spot a truly bad screen on the market, and you wouldn’t want to upgrade your tablet just because it boosts its resolution from Full HD to QHD, but add one more thing to the equation, and you’ll get yourself a revolution.
Foldable Magic
Take the Samsung Galaxy Fold as an example. Even if you’re not convinced that you’ll ever need something like this in terms of usability, trust me, you’ll want it when you see it in person. During my hands-on with the device, I’ve felt the excitement that no CPU, GPU, or anything hidden under the hood could give me. I felt like I was witnessing the beginning of a new era. That no matter how clunky the display on the outside may be, the one that folds is something straight from the sci-fi movies.
With Apple’s mobile chips, which in many ways outperform the Intels in notebooks, hardly anyone changes their flagship phone because it lacks power. Devices like the Galaxy Fold will give these people a huge reason to spend a huge amount of money.
Some companies try to make this transition with less risk, one step at a time, such as LG with its G8x Dual Screen phone. It looks like a Nintendo DS, it provides great multitasking and stellar control options for mobile gaming. I wouldn’t buy it — it still doesn’t live up to its promise because of cumbersome software, but I hope that the company will continue to build upon the idea.
I also liked ASUS ROG Phone 2 and Sharp Aquos R3, both equipped with stunning 120Hz screens, which add as much to the feeling of fluidity as the stronger components would. Everything is happening instantly, and after spending 30 minutes with these phones, it was difficult for me to justify the price of my Samsung Galaxy Note 10+, which is still behind with its 60Hz refresh rate.
Are We Ready For Some 8K?
It doesn’t end with mobile devices, mind you. The transparent OLED TV from Panasonic is something that you got to see to believe it. When it’s switched off, it becomes a transparent glass, a subtle element of the living room decor. Stealth at its finest.
LG, Samsung, and Sharp, on the other hand, are trying to push 8K resolution as a new TV standard. The first major event broadcast in 8K will be next year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo. I’ve been staring at these 8K TV’s for a while, and to be frank, they don’t look like a significant upgrade from 4K yet. On the other hand, when you see something like this mindblowing 1993 footage of New York in HD, you regret that more filmmakers didn’t future-proof their content in a similar way.
The main problem with 8K television now is exactly this — there’s not enough content. Did you know that the vast majority of blockbusters are shot at resolutions below 4K, and special effects are always prepared in Full HD? The most popular movie camera records in 2.8K, and rendering complex scenes in 4K takes too long for modern computers.
The vast majority of blockbusters are shot at resolutions below 4K, and special effects are always prepared in Full HD!
But many companies also try to find workarounds for this problem. Dedicated chips for image upscaling are starting to find their way not only to high-end TVs, where they’ve become standard some time ago but also smartphones, such as Nokia 7.2, which also launched at IFA. Sharp brought their consumer 8K camera to the show — as its name suggests, it’s crazy sharp 😉 Oh, and it also sports a beautiful, large screen. Obviously.
5G Propels the Display Hype
To be honest, I thought that this years’ IFA will be centered around 5G, just like the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was. However, even when 5G was mentioned, it was in the context of high-quality video streaming and cloud gaming. The most obvious, but also the least distant use-case of high-bandwidth mobile connection we can now think of. The ultimate goal of all 5G presentations was, once again, showing us how we can make use of these beautiful screens.
I Love the Hardware, But Where’s the Software?
I also got the impression that some aspects of technology are moving forward and others are lagging behind. We already have these wonderful displays and form factors unlike anything we’ve seen to date, but often their potential is hampered by software.
Ensuring that your mobile app will work fine on both smartphone and tablet isn’t exactly anything new. However, transitioning between Galaxy Fold’s 4.6-inch and 7.3-inch displays on the go takes more effort to be seamless. Samsung also equipped Galaxy Fold with the ability to run three apps at once. In the perfect world, dragging, dropping, and copying stuff from one to another, should be as intuitive as on the desktop. Unfortunately, it’s not yet.
$10,000 TVs don’t work as smoothly as $500 phones
If I’d buy a phone with 120Hz refresh rate, I wouldn’t do this just to mindlessly swipe the menu and look how fluid it is. I’d expect 120 fps gaming experiences and apps that make the full use of the hardware. And I’d become disappointed rather quickly. As much as I am with the fact, that often even $10,000 rollable TVs don’t work as smoothly as $500 phones.
Beautiful Problems to Solve
But that’s why I like to visit events like IFA. I can see what chances the software developers will have soon, and what problems we will face. We can prepare ourselves. Besides, I simply love to look at those fancy screens that cost a small fortune, but I’d still like to own them. Much more than a CPU that’s 20% faster than its predecessor. Man, these hardware manufacturers are really sneaky…
