Why is Android only HVGA?

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We're now starting to hear about more and more android phones and yet one thing has remained consistent with all of them, Half-VGA screens (480x320). Why is this not changing when we have several phones going as high as WVGA (800x480)? That just seems strange to me.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 (Rachel, as it's called) will have a WVGA (800x480) screen and will run Android.

Software-wise, Android is capable of any framebuffer resolution on any device (hardware and memory resources permitting). It's known to run in 1024x768 on desktop/laptop PC's, too.

HVGA is kinda the sweet spot now. It will make the phone that bit cheaper, let it run just that little bit more smooth, etc...

If you look at the 800x480 phones.. they are the more expensive WinMo phones. Android is ment to deliver more 'cheaper' smartphones.

The Sony Rachel is the weird one in the bunch, so I'm very curious how it works out

I've seen some talk that Cupcake only supported HVGA, which would make me think anything before that did too. Any people know android well and can answer this from a technical standpoint and not just educated guesses?

Originally Posted by Poke_N_PDA

I've seen some talk that Cupcake only supported HVGA, which would make me think anything before that did too. Any people know android well and can answer this from a technical standpoint and not just educated guesses?

Android itself supports basicly any resolution (though I think it has a minimum of 320x240 or something)....

... but there are some / a lot applications (some from the Market, some from Android itself) that expect 320x480 resolution and thus don't use the entire screen area (but work OK none the less).

and the capacative vs resistive screen thing, does that matter? or will Rachael be resistive?

by keeping the system resolution consistent among devices, Google are trying to make it easier for Android developers to develop programs, as one program would run on all android devices.

Think about windows mobile

windows mobile: many devices with lots of different hardware and API's, an app developed with vga in mind wouldnt work very good with with wvga (makes life harder for developers)

so, in theory I would say consistent and similar hardware would make developing applications easier, and one application would run across all android phones.

I suspect that higher resolutions on such a small screen are not particularly well suited unless you have using a stylus, and the Android UI is optimized for touch control.

Regards,

Dave

Originally Posted by TylTru

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 (Rachel, as it's called) will have a WVGA (800x480) screen and will run Android.

Software-wise, Android is capable of any framebuffer resolution on any device (hardware and memory resources permitting). It's known to run in 1024x768 on desktop/laptop PC's, too.

if rachel is the "X2".....
then whats this?

The resolution is perfect, as it helps developers to port their iphone apps to android, and develop games and apps for both platforms. thats perfect!