The era of virtual reality 3D goggles may not be far away with advances in small-size displays such as the latest half-inch panel from Seiko Epson Corporation.
Aimed primarily at replacing reflective-lens-based viewfinders in digital cameras, the 0.48 inch color display has a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. In all, there are about 786,000 pixels (red, blue and green) in an area that is only as big as a human nail. In comparison, the Apple iPhone 5 retina display has only 727,000 pixels on its four-inch display.
However, unlike most displays, the Seiko Epson display is not based on normal LCD technology, but on something called high-temperature polysilicon (HTPS) TFT technology.
The company already has similar sized panels with lower resolution (up to 480,000 pixels.)
Electronic viewfinders are employed mainly as the finders – the small windows used to view the subject of a photo – in digital single-lens reflex cameras and camcorders using LCD screens. Electronic viewfinders are highly compact and make it easy for manufacturers to make the camera compact.