Qualcomm thinks that 4K smartphones will be the next big thing

Smartphones went from 720p to 1080p very quickly and now, according to chipset manufacturer, Qualcomm, we are due to up the resolution on our phones once again.

Tim McDonough, Qualcomm’s Vice President of Marketing, in an interview with Trusted Reviews said that 4K is is one of the primary focuses of the chip maker at the moment:

“I think 4K is one of the primary things you are seeing from us, 4K is pretty cool because it means that not only can you do 4K video, but once you can push that number of pixels and the chip has the ability to do 4K video, anything that is multimedia related – think about gaming – that gets better too.”

4K has been getting closer and closer to being a consumer level resolution over the last year, TV prices came down from upwards of $30,000 all the way down to sub-$1000, 4K monitors are starting to show up with Dell delivering a 28″ model at $699. You might argue that Ultra HD isn't necessary for a phone as you won't be able to see the difference during every day use, you might even say that it will just make modern day battery life even worse, but that's not going to stop the company from bringing 4K to smartphones in the first half of 2014:

“In November we announced Snapdragon 805, the next-generation of 800. Our shorthand for that is that it is the Ultra HD mobile processor and it runs Ultra HD. It will shoot it with video, it will play it back, it will play it back with surround sound and it will run an Ultra HD UI, It has already sampled and we said the first half of 2014 for devices to launch.”

KitGuru Says: I couldn't tell the difference between my 720p Galaxy S3 and my friend's 1080p Galaxy S4 so I'm sceptical on what good 4K on a smartphone would do, on top of that, I've wanted battery life to become a big thing for a long time. Having a smartphone is great when it can do everything you want it to but usually you only get around 2-3 hours of screen on time which isn't enough for most people, if I forget to plug in my phone overnight, I'm pretty much screwed the next day and so far no company has stepped in to solve that problem. 

Source: Trusted Reviews

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