We’ve never seen a Samsung smartphone with a 4K display – but that may change in the future, and it’s all because of virtual reality.

Kyle Brown, Samsung’s head of technology and content, told TechRadar that right now, 4K panels aren’t worth the price premium. They just don’t create a noticeable difference in such a small screen size.

That’s definitely what we thought of Sony’z Z5 Premium, which only used all of its pixels when in the image gallery app. The rest of the time, it didn’t look any more detailed than a QHD phone.

Once Samsung can mass produce 4K displays for phones at a price that won’t shaft the customer, though, they would give VR a massive leg up over the competition.

The Gear VR is one of the cheapest ways to get virtual reality (Google’s Cardboard headset excluded) but you can still see individual pixels when you’ve got a QHD smartphone slotted inside.

4K would make it harder to see those pixels, even when the phone is pressed right up against your face, which would mean a more immersive VR experience.

It would be a huge leap over LG’s 360 VR headset, which doesn’t use your phone but is stuck with a much lower, more pixellated resolution.

Samsung will stick with QHD screens for its flagship phones for now, but once the price of 4K drops and the graphics chips can actually keep up, expect 4K to be on the way.

Source: TechRadar