It’s kind of amazing that in the world of VR, mobile displays are being watched like a hawk because they’ve become the life blood of HMD products such as the Oculus Rift. The problem is they are so dang slow compared to desktop 120Hz equivalents. Why not use a desktop equivalent? They aren’t made in large enough quantities at the smaller size that mobile panels come in. In other words, too $%&^$ expensive!
The news blasting around the Internet is that Sharp is developing a 4K panel for mobile devices. However, don’t get too excited! There isn’t any mention of refresh rate in the original reports, and John Carmack and the like are under strict instructions to not break the laws of physics. Hopefully low persistence technologies will be enough to curb the motion blur issues on 4K panels. Also, just because you have the extra pixels doesn’t mean you’ve got the horsepower to drive them – especially in stereoscopic 3D VR form. How does imagery look when run at a lower resolution than the panel is structured for?
However, as an indicator of things to come, this is a good sign that high res panels will gradually become readily available for VR devices in the not too distant future.
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