Toshiba is building a 4-inch 720P 'Retina Display', maybe for Apple

Seth Weintraub | May 16 2011 - 11:14 am PT

Just two bits of news here. Remember that Toshiba is one of the companies that Apple is said to be working with on future displays, right?

Toshiba Corp will spend about 100 billion yen ($1.19 billion) to build a factory for making small LCD panels, mainly to supply to Apple Inc’s iPhones, the Nikkei business daily said.The company’s wholly owned unit, Toshiba Mobile Display Co, will construct the facility in Ishikawa prefecture and the plant will churn out low-temperature polysilicon LCD panels, which allow for high-resolution images, the paper said.Work on the plant will start by early next year, with the production due to begin in the second half of 2011, Nikkei said.Toshiba Mobile Display already makes low-temperature polysilicon LCD panels at a facility in the prefecture and its monthly production capacity of 8.55 million units is projected to more than double with the new factory, the daily said. Apple will invest in a portion of the investment for the factory, the Nikkei said.

OK, good. Now today’s news from Toshiba:

Displays for Mobile Phones and Portable Electronics: The mobile section of the booth will feature high-resolution LTPS displays, up to 367ppi (pixels per inch) resolution density, in sizes ranging from 3.3-inch to 4.0-inch with resolution formats ranging from Wide VGA (480 x 864) to HD (720 x 1280). In addition, these displays will demonstrate advanced technologies such as high-contrast (up to 1,500:1), high-color (up to 92% NTSC), and wide viewing angle (up to H/V 176º/176º). The displays are just a few representative examples of TMD’s broad line of thin and light displays for mobile smartphones and other portable electronic devices.

Of course, numerous reports have detailed a new iPhone with edge-to-edge 4-inch display panels.

OK, go ahead and start complaining about how Apple wouldn’t ever use a 720P display in an iOS device because of the application scaling stuff/additional fragmentation. We’ll be over here dreaming about a 720P iPhone.