IME the higher res screens really make text look a lot better, for everything else YMMV.
How much better text display matters to you is entirely subjective though – the physical space on all iDevices other than the iPad is too small for me to comfortably use them as reading devices for long periods of time (regardless of how high the DPI of the display is) and the look of text is of marginal value to someone looking primarily for an “MP3 Player” (the topic of this thread) in any case.
I’m looking forward to “Retina” style high DPI screens on tablets and LCD monitors, but honestly I could take them or leave them on phone sized devices.
Text is more important to me than video, since I mostly use my Touch to read books. Naturally I compared text as well, using the same chapter from “The Pillars of the Earth.” The differences were awfully subtle for me, even side-by-side. Reading on a 160 x 160 Z22 screen, now that was ugly.
Personally, I’m completely comfortably with reading books on a 2" x 3" screen. I’m 45, so presbyopia hasn’t quite set in, though it’s been waving its arms at me. Physically, I like the fact that I can comfortably hold the device in one hand. I find it easier to handle than a paperback, let alone a hardcover, and of course it slips easily into a pocket which is difficult with many paperbacks.
I compared the two side-by-side tonight: my Touch 3rd generation vs. a Touch 4th generation. On paper, the difference is huge: 480 x 320 vs. 960 x 640. 4x the pixels, double the pixels per inch. Yet in practice, I had to really look hard at fine details to see the difference. A still from the same scene of the Sarah Connor Chronicles (original resolution 1920 x 1080) showed more detail on the new display, but it wasn’t something I could take in at a glance.
On video it’s slightly less significant – though still visible to me; I was mostly referring to anything with text, UI, or generally vector graphics. Where the difference is eye-poppingly dramatic.
My take is that when your display is only 3" x 2", 160+ pixels per inch is still pretty good.
I find your beliefs fascinating, but I violently disagree. High res on a small device is a game changer and instantly obsoletes anything low-res of the same size. As I mentioned earlier, I thought I was going to keep my iPhone 3GS as a backup device but I literally could not bear to look at it any more. It was ruined for me, forever. It’s like going from dial-up internet to high speed broadband. There is no “back”. It ruins you.
(Incidentally for those of you wishing for retina-DPI on large devices, you might want to look up the physics and costs associated with scaling that to a larger size… hint: it ain’t happening any time soon; there’s a reason small devices are the first to enjoy super high DPI.)
160 dpi is not a bad resolution either, so the change in quality really depends on the text you’re reading. For text that was specifically designed for the 160 dpi screen, such as Apple’s user interface fonts, you’ll hardly notice any difference. For text in random fonts on random webpages or PDF documents, the difference is huge. For me, the Retina display was what made web browsing (in non-iPhone formats) and PDF reading possible at all – on the older screen it was a nightmare of constant zooming & scrolling.
I was really expecting to have the same reaction, since that’s how I feel about HD vs. standard definition broadcasts (the difference between DVD and Blu Ray is also visible to me, but nowhere near as dramatic). Yet it didn’t happen. My point being that not everyone is going to have the same reaction you did. Not even among people who are generally sensitive to resolution. The Retina display did not ruin me.
I’m still upgrading, of course :). It’s just that I’m far less excited about it than I was.
