Android Screen Sizes and Densities - android

I am considering to drop support for small screens in my app.
Recently I have stumbled upon Screen Sizes and Densities and currently (2011-10-01) it says that 3.5 percent of the active devices fall into the small/hdpi category. I wonder what device actually has a small screen with high pixel density?
I know of the HTC Wildfire which has 240 x 320 pixels, 3.2 inches (~125 ppi pixel density). If I understand correctly that would be an ldpi device. For my app the Wildfire has a share of somewhere around 2 percent.
So first, why does Screen Sizes and Densities not list anything under small/ldpi? And second, what would be an example of a small/hdpi device?

There are some device from Dell like Aero which comes under small/hdpi.
HTC Tattoo can be considered under small/ldpi

Just to add to Basavraj's answer, Guessing the screen size is not that simple. Like Galaxy note has 1200 X 800 screen dimensions but it's screen size falls in large(and not in extra-large) category.

Related

Android layouts - Would it be reasonable to create more Layout Folders than sw320, sw480 sw600 sw720 sizes?

In order to support different screen sizes in an Android App, I have created different layout versions: sw320, sw480 sw600 sw720
But I notice that many mobile smartphones takes the version of sw320 while they do represent the page differently.
For example when running on the following devices:
Nexus One and
Samsung Galaxy s7
both takes (from some reason) the sw320, Why is that?
And would it be reasnable to add more layout versions to the code?
Nexus One and Samsung Galaxy s7 both takes (from some reason) the sw320, Why is that?
The Nexus One was an hdpi device with a screen resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. Its shortest width is 480 pixels, which is 320dp.
The Samsung Galaxy S7 should be an xxxhdpi device, and its screen resolution is 2560 x 1440. Its shortest width is 1440 pixels, which is 360dp.
Hence, both devices fall within your -sw320dp bucket, given your other buckets.
And would it be reasnable to add more layout versions to the code?
IMHO, you should have fewer versions, not more. You should be using layouts that are more fluid and can adapt to small variations in screen size. Having different layout resources entirely should be reserved for cases where a major change in UI is called for (e.g., the classic master/detail pattern implementation, between phones and tablets).

Same layout looks different in devices which have the same screen size

I have 2 phones: Samsung s6 edge+ and Samsung note 4.
Both have the same screen size (5.7 inch) and the same screen resolution (1440X2560).
Both have xxxhdpi density.
Still the same layout looks different on both devices.
even the top status bar and action bar also looks different on both devices.
Can anyone suggest any solution to have the same UI on every Android device?
Screen Sizes also depend largely on its PPI resolution and depends on ppi the android app select the drawables to get the icons or images so you need to check the ppi of devices

Android: Getting confused with density per pixel and qualifier on android folders

I have a bit confused with the qualifier. I am dealing with kindle fire 7" and 8.9, galaxy s4.
Kindle Fire 7inch: I need to use values-large-hdpi instead of values-sw600dp in order to work.
Kindle Fire 8.9inch: I can use values-sw600dp not for values-large-hdpi.
Galaxy s4 what qualifier should I use.
the qualifiers refer to what the screen dimensions are. So values-large-hdpi will apply to screens that have a minimum density of hdpi and are classified as a large screen type. The sw600dp means that the in order to use those values the screen must have a minimum width of 600dp. So my guess is that the Kindle Fire 7 inch does not meet the sw600dp requirments (Try holding it in landscape, that might work). But the 8.9 inch (being larger) would meet these requirements. The Galaxy s4 my guess falls into the xhdpi density range, not sure about screen size. Most phones will use normal, but the s4 having such a large screen might qualify to large. I would recommend using a screen width quantifier anyways, as just using hdpi or large is to vague.

issue in layout related to multiple screen support

am developing an application which support from 2.3.3 to 4.2. here am developing an application which can support both phone and tablet. for that i created sperate layouts and saved in different folder.
i tested my application with a test device X-treme 7" Internet tablet which is android 4.0.1 version. but when i test with my tablet its not take layouts from layout-large folder. but when i test with emulator which runs android 3.0 OS it takes layouts from large folder.
and my doubt is that why my application is not working properly (ie, took layout properly) ??
The X-treme 7" Internet tablet has a resolution of 800x480. With a 7" screen, that puts the pixels per inch somewhere around 80, which falls into very low end of the ldpi scale (which is <=120ppi. To convert a resolution of 800x480 to a density independent pixel (dp) screen size, we must multiply by ldpi's scaling of 0.75, which gives us a resolution of 600dp x 360 dp.
As per the range of screen supported guide, a large screen must be at least 640dp x 480dp, therefore your X-treme 7" Internet tablet should be classified as a normal screen device, hence why it is not picking up your layout-large layouts.
You can use any number of the many apps on Google Play to confirm your tablet's screen density and what resources it should be loading.

android design Galaxy 2 and Galaxy 3

I'm trying to create an android app optimized for Galaxy S2 and Galaxy S3.
I created the images for Galaxy S3 and I put them in the xhdpi folder.
After that I reduce the images 75% and put them in the folder for hdpi (according to Android Guidelines for multi-density).
The problem is that the S2 do not only have lower density also the screen is smaller so the images resized only 75% are too big to be used.
Example: a full width image in Galaxy S3 will be 720px wide, the 75% is 540px that is bigger than 480px wide that I need for full width in Galaxy S2.
The problem is that I have at the same time 2 different densities and 2 different screen sizes.
How can I handle multidensity + multi sreen size?
Should I do it only creating the specific images with the specific sizes for G2 and G3 or there is a way (by code) to tell the phone to auto adjust the image to a certain size (for example I provide an image that is originally width 540px but I tell the phone to rescale it to 480px to be adjusted full width in Galaxy 2.
I'm clear that the images for G3 must be xhdpi and G2 hdpi, but the question is more about how to handle the different screen sizes wisely.
Thanks,
David

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