vivo Xplay 3S will be the first phone to feature a display with a 2560 x 1440 resolution

It was right around this time last year that the first 1080p handsets started to roll out to the market. At the time, many folks claimed that 1080p on a smartphone was unnecessary and that 720p was more than good enough.

Fast-forward to today, just about every major Android flagship features a 1080p display. You might think that’s where the resolution spec war should end, but that’s not stopping Chinese smartphone maker vivo from jumping to the next level.

Today vivo began teasing its next handset, the vivo XPlay 3S, which it says will be the world’s first handset to feature a 2560 x 1440 resolution display – or “2K” as vivo is referring to it. vivo didn’t specifically mention who was making the display or how big it would be, but we’d imagine this could be the 5.5-inch 2560 x 1440 resolution display that was announced by LG Display back in August.

In addition to the so-called 2K display, vivo also indicates that the phone will have a high-end 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU and will support 4G TDD-LTE/FDD-LTE technology for all three Chinese carriers.

The vivo XPlay 3S might not make its way out out of China officially, but that doesn’t make its arrival any less interesting.

The real question is whether we even need smartphones with displays higher than 1080p. Despite early claims that 720p was ‘good enough’, most folks today will admit that there is something sharper and more impressive about phone’s with 1080p displays. The same thing might happen when we get our first look at phones with resolutions that are even higher.

On the other hand, the benefit might be pretty small considering the trade-offs. Specifically, we imagine that the larger display will slow the phone down both in terms of raw speed and in the graphics department. Such a display may also suck the phone’s battery dry very quickly, unless vivo sticks in a huge battery to make up for the difference.

We suppose only time will tell for sure whether the vivo Xplay 3S’ high-end display is a worthwhile improvement or just a gimmick, but it certainly feels like overkill.

It’s interesting to note that while the “2K” resolution of the vivo 3S is a big jump forward, it isn’t expected to be a resolution “standard” by any means. The next big jump in mobile and home TV display technology is largely considered to be the 4K resolution, aka Ultra HD – or 4096 x 2160 pixels. For those wondering, the new 4K standard is already technically supported by Android.

What do you think of the idea of having displays higher than 1080p on your handset, worth the effort or are you perfectly content with your existing 1080p (or even 720p) display?