Toshiba raised the bar for LCD quality with the announcement of a 6.1-inch panel with a dazzling pixel density of 498 pixels per inch (ppi) last week. In comparison, Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) Retina display on the iPhone 4S has just 326ppi. With a resolution of 2560x1600, Toshiba says the panel is capable of displaying 16.7M colors with a 1000:1 contrast ratio, while vertical and horizontal viewing angles were given as 176 degrees.

Toshiba credits the creation of the new panel to its work in the development of LTPS technology, or low temperature polysilicon.  For now, the company has not announced any concrete product plans beyond noting that the current model is geared towards 2D images. This is where the odd dimension of the screen has generated some amount of puzzlement online; at 6.1-inch, it is smack between the sweet spot of about 4 inches for large smartphone displays and 7 inches for smaller tablets.

To me, the panel appears to be a prototype created specifically to prove the viability of 500ppi displays while adhering to a standard 2560x1600 resolution format. In my reckoning, further development and commercialization will be directly related to the interest that the company receives. Of course, some have also pointed out the most common e-book format is 6-inches. As such, Toshiba may also be positioning its ultra-high-resolution LCD panel itself to manufacturers of color e-readers.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at PhysOrg
- check out this article at Geek.com

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