The issue of bringing VGA resolution to smartphones has been contentious. On one hand, it provides crisper displays, but the downside is that crisper pictures come at a cost of battery life and will take a toll on processing power as it takes four times as long to render a VGA screen than a QVGA display. Then, there are those who are indifferent, apathetic, or anti-VGAs since the small 2.8-inch to 3-inch display on smartphones would only provide a small marginal increase in display crispness. However, HTC did bring the screens to the mainstream with success, but it looks like 2009 may the the death of mainstream Windows Mobile Professional VGA displays, with devices either going higher resolution to WVGA or reverting back to the lower resolution QVGA screens.

Although VGA displays were available on PDAs and some smartphones, the display only entered the mainstream smartphone market when HTC brought the crisp screens to the Diamond and the Touch Pro, providing a compelling upgrade reason for the already 3G-enabled HTC Touch and TyTN II respectively. Now, about a year later, it seems that HTC has abandoned VGA as the standard resolution for its high end devices.

After testing grounds with the WVGA display format on the Touch HD and the XPERIA X1 (a device that is manufactured by HTC and made by Sony Ericsson), HTC is now standardizing on WVGA. This new, larger format can be seen on the Diamond2 and the Touch Pro2.

Evidence for the death of VGA can be seen in the market as well. Although niche players like Acer, Asus, and others may still use VGA resolution, carriers are choosing to revert back to QVGA or move forward with WVGA. An example can be found on AT&T’s Summer of Smartphone Lineup, which brings the HP iPAQ K3 and the Samsung Pivot, both with QVGA resolution.

Moving forward, it seems that media-centric versions of Windows Mobile 7 may abandon the VGA format, opting instead to go with WVGA or WFVGA, which are required for the Chassis 1 build. Further, with multi-touch support, especially on the Zune HD, WVGA will give a bit more finger-pinching room to zoom with gestures.

VGA seems short-lived in the mainstream Windows Phone world. With a life span of roughly a year on the Diamond and Touch Pro, its popularity has taken a toll for the worse. To this end, I am announcing the time of death for VGA resolutions on mainstream smartphones: 2009.