Japanese wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo has introduced 16 new phones and tablets for its winter lineup — including the first mobile phone to ship with an IGZO display from Sharp.
IGZO stands for Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide, and they’re thinner than traditional LCD displays and don’t require as much light from a backlight, which helps reduce energy consumption.
The Aquos Phone Zeta SH-02E will have a 4.9 inch, 720 x 1280 pixel screen.
One of the advantages of an IGZO screen is that it can support higher pixel densities than some other screen types. So theoretically the manufacturer could have packed even more pixels into that 4.9 inch screen, but with 300 pixels per inch, I doubt most users will complain.
The Verge reports that in a demo, the display used 25% as much power as a standard LCD when idle, and just 75% as much when active. That could lead to longer battery life.
The phone also features a 1.5 GHz Qualcomm S4 quad-core processor, a 16MP rear camera, and a 1.2MP front-facing camera.
NTT DoCoMo will offer the SH-02E with Andorid 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It will ship in November or December.
Hopefully, my next smartphone has one of these or some future iteration. The screen drains the most battery on my phone right now.