On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 8:30 AM, Phil Endecott < [email protected]> wrote:
> Thanks Dianne. What's going on with the Tab? Its true dpi, which it > does accurately report in the xdpi and ydpi fields, is about 170. I > could imagine that a tablet might be typically held further from the > face than a phone, hence the dpi that should be used to control the > size of graphic elements etc. might be set to a different value - but > surely, it should be set to a lower value, shouldn't it? Yet you're > saying it reports a higher value. Huh? What were they thinking? > Well a device is more likely to have a density that is higher than its real dpi rather than lower; making it higher makes things UI larger and thus more readable and usable, while making it smaller quickly makes the UI so small that it doesn't work. I wouldn't want to go any lower than what you'd see on say the G1, which is 180dpi and uses the mdpi (160) density. At any rate, the whole point of density is that it is not directly tied to the real screen dpi. It is quantized, so that there are a limited number of densities applications need to deal with. Manufacturers have some flexibility in picking it based on the feel they want for their device. In the case of Samsung, they wanted a larger more easily touched UI. Others may want the same thing, for example to make it easier for people who have poor eyesight to use their device or whatever other reason. > I've also just looked at my AC100 (Tegra 250), and it reports xdpi = > 160, yet the correct value should be about 120. > As you say, this seems to be completely broken, and the Tegra example > shows that 96 cannot be used as a sentinel for a wrong value. > Well fortunately that one isn't a compatible device so won't have Market. :} Out of curiosity, what are you trying to do? I know you said you are trying to display a ruler, but what exactly do you want it to be used for? Just for people to hold stuff up to it to measure? One of the reasons the devices haven't been good in this regard is because after introducing these APIs, we have never actually found a single place in the standard UI where they should be used, so nobody realizes they are shipping with bad values. *sigh* -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer [email protected] Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
