Did you know: Sony has been claiming we don't need QHD screens on our phones for years, now puts one on the XZ3

Alright, it's a well-known fact by now that smartphone tech has been on a plateau for the past few years. Yeah, sure, there are some advancements in processor tech, some more RAM, some more storage space. But generally, if you spend your money on a flagship — any contemporary flagship — you are guaranteed to have an awesome phone. Nobody is ages ahead of the competition, all the latest tech is super-accessible, and everyone is making pretty stellar phones.

In the race to sell the "best thing out there", manufacturers have often made some "questionable" upgrades or added features with arguable usefulness to the end user. Like the jump to QHD resolution (1440 x 2560 pixels) four years ago. Nowadays, QHD is a standard on phones, because everyone was racing to adopt the super-sharp resolution out of fear of being left behind. But a ton of users out there were and still are questioning the need for it. On a small, 5-inch or even 6-inch display, it's pretty hard to spot a difference between QHD and good-ol' FHD (which is the "regular" 1080 x 1920).

A couple of companies didn't care about QHD one bit

One was Apple, the other one was Sony

Sony's Director of Xperia Marketing at the time, Calum MacDougall, came out and said:



Effectively, this statement mirrored the opinion of plenty of powerusers at the time, who were concerned that the toll on battery life and processing power was way too high for the minuscule benefits that QHD would provide.

And, over the years, Sony has silently supported this claim for its flagship phones. The Xperia Z3, Z5, XZ, XZ1, and XZ2 all had an FHD resolution.