Are 1080p screens really useful on a mobile phone?

Multimedia features is something that all of us have come to consider as a default feature of our phones and in the smartphone era it has become even more essential . My consideration this time is if they have become more essential than needed .

After playing around with a device having a 1080p / 5" screen for a few days now I have come to realize that this screen resolution is not actually useful in most every day usage scenarios . The pixel density is extreme I know , and staring at the screen is something that everyone will probably do when he sees a screen of this kind for the first time . On the other hand , trying to see an individual pixel has become really pointless .

The fact of the matter is that we all use devices everyday with pixel densities much smaller than most 720p screens let alone a 1080p one , on our mobile phones .

Surely enough , in our TV sets , regardless of their size , the 1080p resolution may result in small pixel density especially above 40 inches , but you almost never look at a TV from a distance close enough to actually notice that .

However , most mainstream Notebooks , Laptops and even Netbooks computers come with screens of lower resolution that in most cases top out at 1366x768 pixels . On a 15,6" screen this also results in a pixel density  much lower than the one the Galaxy S II had with it's 800x480 , 4.3" screen a year ago .

The above 300ppi densities offered by all 720p screens on mobile phones and even the much lower density of a 1280x800 tablet on 10" are also better than in most computers designed for every day use .

There are of course Laptops with screen resolutions that go even higher than 1920x1200 pixels and they do provide a much better viewing experience , however , they are still not meant for most users at least when judged by their price . On the Computer world , increased resolutions actually mean that more and more information and graphics can feet on the screen at any given time . A web page will presents more of it's vertical content on a screen with 1200 pixels in height than in one with just 768 .

This does not hold true in most cases when it comes to mobile phones , or at least Android ones .

In most cases , each icon and graphical element has the same size on a 1080p screen with the ones on a 720p or even a WVGA one . It's only their quality that changes , and even though the difference between them exists , in some cases at leats it's not that important .

The HTC One X for example has an marvelous 720p screen that really produces high quality graphics . 

It's only when you put it side by side with a phone having a 1080p screen that you can actually see the difference , and although it's there , it's hardly so important .

Text size is one aspect where the inscreased density can really make a difference , however it bumps into another problem which is the actuall size of the screen . Fitting more lines of text on a 720p screen than on a WVGA is good , as long as the text remains large enough to read it comfortably from a normal distance .

When you try to do the same on a 1080p screen , you end up with letters so small that the reading distance becomes very small , too small to actually hold your phone so close to your eyes . This has as a result to actually make the text size bigger than you can , just to make it easy to read . When you do that , the screen becomes useless for this usage scenario , since it just requires more resources and power to actually draw more pixels to create the same text on the same size (the individual pixels are still there and have to be drawn ) .

Moving on to the multimedia features that a screen like that can display . 

I can not argue that viewing an image on a 1080p screen at 5" is a great experience . That is if the image itself has the quality and size needed to provide the information to the screen . At this point at least , the camera modules that are inside mobile phones produce images that are actually seen worse on a 1080p screen since it reveals more detail than a 720p or a WVGA one . 

You can always transfer and view images taken with a compact camera or a DSLR one , however I seriously doubt that this is practical for most people including me . And this brings us back to the TV example and comparison . Part of actually enjoying the view of an image or a video is the size of the displayed content . It's the reason everyone wants even bigger TV sets and the reason this TV's exist .

Since in their case the pixel density drops dramatically as I mentioned before , we should actually prefer viewing the images we capture with our phones , compacts or even DSLR's on our phone and not out TV or computer screen but we don't . Size is an improtant factor when most people view multimedia files and is one of the reasons that most mobile phones have cameras with 8 or more Mpixels of effective resolution since they produce larger images .

I personally think that it all comes down to the impression created to the human brain and not the human eye by the increased density on mobile phone screens . Since the human eye is almost completely incapable of seeing individual pixels at a density above roughly 300ppi , only the perception created on our brain is the reason that we want those screens .

This is where my question (or questions? )comes in to complete this article . Given as fact that screens of this resolution can not come down to 3.5" for the next year or so , and getting them means that you have to carry around a device with a 5" screen does it really worth it ? Since just a year ago most people found the Galaxy Note a device too big to use and carry with them , how much things have changed in this year that has gone by? 

They also require computing power that in it's turn require more energy and all this results in lower stand-by times when you actually use the capabilities offered by screens like that , does it also worth using our phones less and less between each charge cycle ? Viewing a 1080p movie on a mobile phone that actually has this kind of a screen is something that is nothing short of amazing , but does it remain the same when it means that viewing a complete movie will drain more than half of your battery? Of course you can alwyas argue that you can do exactly that at your home with your charger next to you , but then again , why not see the same movie on your 32 / 37 / 40 / 42 / 47 or even larger TV set?