According to Korean media, a Samsung employee speaking at a conference where the company talks about their technology roadmap has confirmed that there will be a phone out on the market this year with a 560 pixel per inch display and 2K screen resolution. If you do the math, that means said display will have to measure roughly 5.24 inches on the diagonal. Samsung didn’t specifically say that the Galaxy S5 will be the first phone to use this display, but everyone is expecting that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

And it doesn’t stop there. That same employee has also said Samsung is working on a 4K display with a pixel per inch rating of 860. Plug those numbers into a calculator and you get 5.12 inches on the diagonal. What exactly is someone going to do with a display that can output 860 pixels per inch? I have absolutely no clue, but I want to see that display with my own two eyes before I declare that it’s overkill.

Why is Samsung making such insane displays? Because they have to. There is no such thing in this industry as “good enough”. Companies always try to one-up themselves, year after year, even if the direct consumer benefits of those advances aren’t obviously clear. This has been happening in nearly every industry, from computers, to cars, to airplanes, to boats. Trying to make something better even though the existing solutions are “adequate” is how progress is made.

Our children’s children will laugh at us when we tell them about the Galaxy S4.