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Originally Posted by rmeister0
The only thing that would make the TX better is a 640x480 display; but Palm doesn't do that.
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The reasoning behind that is that it would be difficult to adapt current apps to that size on-the-fly. Palm started 160x160 resolution. They doubled it (4x the area) to 320x320, just making every one pixel in 160x160 apps into a four-pixel box. From there they added an extra 320x160 (160 extra height) graffiti area, which, when expanded, made the rest of the screen 320x320 (using that same 4:1 pixel ratio on 160x160 apps, and just keeping the graffiti area expanded for 320x320 apps - 320x480 support was optional, and still is).
The reason 480x640 would be difficult is they can't just double the pixels on a 320x320 app - they'd have to multiply them by 1.5, making every one pixel (from a 320x320 app) 1.5 pixels high by 1.5 pixels long... And I've never seen half a pixel before.
Also the ratios for the length-to-width would also be off. 320x480 is a 0.67 ratio, and 480x640 is a 0.75 ratio, meaning the relative size of the graffiti area would need to be changed (thus causing problems for apps that support 320x480).
Logically, to keep real compatibility with previous apps, the next step is 640x640 (640x960 for a graffiti area), but mobile screens don't really go that high resolution (cheaply, anyway) yet. They may well change the resolution when switching to ALP, however, since they *are* completely redoing the base system anyway.