The World's First Phone With More Pixels Than an iPad

A full HD smartphone isn't cool. You know what's cool? A Quad HD smartphone — one with 2,560 x 1,440 pixels, like the one China's Vivo just announced.

The Vivo Xplay 3S will be the world's first smartphone with a 2K HD screen, with more pixels than a full-size iPad. The company didn't specify exactly how big the display would be, butEngadget suspects Vivo is using a 5.5-inch Quad HD panel made by LG. That would translate to 538 pixels per inch (ppi).

Driving all those pixels will be a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, a system-on-a-chip that includes radios for China's main LTE networks. Other specs, as well as the price and launch date, remain unknown.

So why would you want a phone with so many pixels? After all, if Apple's "retina" claims are to be believed, once you go north of 300 ppi, there's essentially no benefit — the human eye can no longer discern individual pixels at normal viewing distances. Screens that are already 1080p, such as those on the HTC One, are far beyond "retina" resolution. Why go even further?

One possible reason is to make the phone more usable at ever-closer viewing distances, for anyone who wants to hold the phone just an inch or two from the eye (and if you do this, what's the matter with you?). Another could be to ensure a good experience with external displays. Although the resolution of the phone's display differs from what it can drive externally, mobile app developers will favor support for screens that exists on phones, not monitors and TVs.

Or perhaps increasing screen sizes appeal to our inherent desire for "more" of everything and prove that it can be done. The practical benefits of expanding phone displays and 4K TVs are questionable, but the specs are certainly superior. For many people, apparently, that's enough.

Of course, more pixels comes with a tradeoff in battery life and processing ability. It will be interesting to see when manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, Motorola and HTC respond with Quad HD phones of their own — and which chips will drive them.

1. Pudding Camera

Pudding Camera has a wonderful visual interface. Scroll through little thumbnails and camera icons (rather than text lists) to find the filters and effects you're looking for.

This visual UI is helpful, since the app itself is not entirely in English. The output resolution is full, so you'll be downloading and sharing nice big images after you're done snapping and filtering.
2. FxCamera

FxCamera has been my go-to Android photo app for a while now. The filter options get very granular, which is great if you're a control freak - not so much if you're hoping to whip out your phone and capture a fleeting moment. Still, the array of choices is impressive for a freebie.
3. Vignette Demo

Vignette's framing options and clean UI make it a standout app. You can combine the filter and frame choices for a variety of permutations. The downside is that the output resolution is small, at least with the settings we tried. That's convenient for sharing online, but you may not want to document your entire life with these tiny pics.
4. Little Photo

Little Photo packs a surprising UI punch. Take a pic and you start with the raw image. A translucent menu then floats over the snap, and you can scroll through your effect choices and preview them on the fly. Mix your effects, hit apply, and share at will. The image processing and output are impressive.
5. Retro Camera

Retro Camera is fun, slick, and has a very "Hipstamatic" feel. You're not scrolling through lists of effects, but selecting the vintage film camera you'd like to shoot with. The UI then becomes the camera (with various additional options appearing as buttons and switches), and you look down into the view finder as you snap away. Photos are then "developed" in the preview gallery where you can scroll through your attempts in a handheld dark room and share them out via Twitter,Facebook, and "Electronic Mail" - whatever that is.

In our testing, we had a few crashes, but not enough to detract from the fun value.

There's also a paid version with more cameras and features to choose from.
6. Action Snap

Action Snap is a bit different from the others on our list. It has a handful of filters, but the selling point here is the ability to grab a sequence of images and stitch them together automagically. This is great for objects or people in motion.

Set the automatic shutter interval anywhere between .01 and 5 seconds (or a custom speed that you can control manually) and start snapping your moving target. The app arranges the photos sequentially into panels or a grid. The dead-simple interface and lack of bells and whistles means you can focus on your subject in motion.
7. A World of Photo (Free)

A World of Photo is not your traditional box of digital filters. It's a social photo game with the potential to be a lot of fun and/or super creepy. Think of it as a mobile, photo-centric version of Chatroulette.

You can jump right in as a guest user or sign up for an account if you plan to play often. Wait to be "located" by another user (who will appear on the map in relation to you). Then it's up to you to snap a photo of anything (within the terms of use and common decency) and send it off to that user. The nice thing is that when you're ready to take a photo, it allows you to use Android's camera, or other photo apps you've already installed. I used Vignette to snap a photo of my coffee cup and send it out to "Guest 8244." I assume he or she enjoyed it immensely.

The recipient can comment or send feedback. When the exchange is done, the app locates someone else, and tasks them to send a pic to you. I received a horrifying photo of a giant insect crawling on someone's foot. Fun!

The interface is still a little rough. I attempted to email the bug-foot photo to myself, but the message came through without an attachment, and the horror was lost to the aether. Still, it's easy to see how a little time spent playing with this app could lead to a lot of time spent playing with this app.
8. Photo Illusion

This app doesn't actually take photos on its own - you'll need to access snaps from your gallery. Once you load them in, there are multitudes of effects you can apply. Some of them are a little goofy, but there's entertainment to be had with fisheyes and fun house-type mirrors. The above example uses a lomo filter and a mosaic pattern.
9. Roidizer

Want Polaroid-style pics without fuss? Grab this free app. The user experience could not be simpler, and the results are impressive.

Take your photo through the Polaroid viewfinder, watch it develop, and write the caption at the bottom in a variety of fonts. You can change the "film type" before or after you shoot, but the variations are simple and clean. Your pics are easy to save and share. The final resolution is decent, but not huge.
10. Camera360 Free

Last but certainly not least, Camera360 Free has a full buffet of effects, filters and styles to choose from, including a great tilt-shift option that is often lacking in other Android offerings. The UI has nice big buttons, and once you get into picture-taking mode, there are even more granular options to play with.

Sharing is a little buggy, but if you're looking for a wealth of photo options to experiment with, Camera360 (or its paid version) is a great choice.

http://mashable.com/2013/10/16/quad-hd-phone/