Qualcomm demos its future on a 2560 x 1440 Mirasol display

At a time when all the newly-launched smartphones carry a display with pixel density of not less than 440 ppi, Qualcomm has come up with a next-gen 2560 x 1440 Mirasol display with a pixel density of 577 ppi.

Qualcomm demonstrated the new Mirasol technology at the Society for Information Display's "Display Week" in Vancouver this week and Engadget spent some time with the new displays. It described the new displays as a technology designed to allow comfortable outdoor reading on colour e-readers and other devices.

Qualcomm's website says Mirasol is "a display technology based on IMOD (Interferometric MODulation), with MEMS structures at its core. This MEMS-based innovation is bistable & highly reflective, meaning the display itself can be seen in direct sunlight." This is one of the stand-out features of the product other than the density of the display.

The demo showed a Mirasol display on a 5.1-inch panel with that crazy resolution. There was even a panel running on a smartwatch prototype. The report said, "When viewed up close, it delivered crisp images, but the reflective display kicked back a silvery tint and colors didn’t pop as they would do on other handsets."

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Even though the display does not have the same vibrant colours as on other modern displays, it is expected to use six times less power than other LCD/OLED displays.

Surprisingly, the wait for the product that describes itself as the next change in the smartphone industry might just get extended further as Qualcomm has stated that the product is a few years away from mass production.