Mobile By Russell Holly Jun. 5, 2014 11:31 am
Thanks to a new mirror tech being used under the display, Qualcomm’s Mirasol tech has gotten a lot more fun to look at.
Smartphone display tech is constantly getting brighter, supporting higher resolutions, and offering more colorful experiences every day. All of those things cause a strain on battery life, and when you add in our collective desire to watch movies and play games on the go, it usually seems like the only real solution is to keep stuffing bigger batteries in these devices.
Qualcomm is one of several companies offering an alternative low power display option, but their initial attempt left much to be desired. Fortunately, like all other forms of display tech, Mirasol has improved greatly thanks to some new technology.
What makes Mirasol work as well as it does is the use of a mirror-like film under the display. This reflects light back at the user, which means the display that is in between the mirror and the user gets illuminated in the process. Unlike normal displays, which get washed out in direct sunlight, Mirasol displays actually work better when catching the full force of the sun.
Unfortunately, the trade off with this “Interferometric Modulator” or IMOD tech is a lack of color depth due to how much space was needed for each color pixel. The new implementation of this technology uses a “Single Mirror IMOD” or SMI setup so that every pixel is capable of displaying a nearly endless range of colors by adjusting the depth of the mirror. This means that unlike normal displays where three colors are used at varying intensities to create many different colors, each pixel can technically generate a broader range of color.
In looking at the images above, one with the IMOD display in a Qualcomm Toq watch and the other with an SMI display in a Qualcomm test device, you can see that the difference is significant. This display tech is capable of delivering much greater color depth than its predecessor, but without a comparison to regular AMOLED or LCD panels it’s not totally clear how they compare with current generation displays.
What this does mean for sure is that SMI-based Mirasol will (finally) be considered useful enough to put in things like smartwatches and low-power devices that could greatly benefit from full color displays.
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Smartphone display tech is constantly getting brighter, supporting higher resolutions, and offering more colorful experiences every day. All of those things cause a strain on battery life, and when you add in our collective desire to watch movies and play games on the go, it usually seems like the only real solution is to keep stuffing bigger batteries in these devices.
Qualcomm is one of several companies offering an alternative low power display option, but their initial attempt left much to be desired. Fortunately, like all other forms of display tech, Mirasol has improved greatly thanks to some new technology.
What makes Mirasol work as well as it does is the use of a mirror-like film under the display. This reflects light back at the user, which means the display that is in between the mirror and the user gets illuminated in the process. Unlike normal displays, which get washed out in direct sunlight, Mirasol displays actually work better when catching the full force of the sun.
Unfortunately, the trade off with this “Interferometric Modulator” or IMOD tech is a lack of color depth due to how much space was needed for each color pixel. The new implementation of this technology uses a “Single Mirror IMOD” or SMI setup so that every pixel is capable of displaying a nearly endless range of colors by adjusting the depth of the mirror. This means that unlike normal displays where three colors are used at varying intensities to create many different colors, each pixel can technically generate a broader range of color.
In looking at the images above, one with the IMOD display in a Qualcomm Toq watch and the other with an SMI display in a Qualcomm test device, you can see that the difference is significant. This display tech is capable of delivering much greater color depth than its predecessor, but without a comparison to regular AMOLED or LCD panels it’s not totally clear how they compare with current generation displays.
What this does mean for sure is that SMI-based Mirasol will (finally) be considered useful enough to put in things like smartwatches and low-power devices that could greatly benefit from full color displays.
More...
