Let me be honest...

I can't discern any differences between 720p and 1080p in SMARTPHONES. Anything above 300 dpi is beyond my eye vision. But when you talk about about 1080p on a 30+ inch screen, you have to be BLIND not to see any difference.

The problem is not "to see no difference". It is how much this should matter to you. There comes the GEEK HYPOCRISY. I just talked to a friend, finishing his PhD from IT Department, and he couldn't wait to upgrade from his Galaxy S3 to S4. I asked him why. He promptly said, it is many megahertz, this much resolution etc. I countered,

"Can you really feel some those differences, or rather, those are simply technical masturbation to you?"

He just had a geeky itch and had to have the most fancy tech. Ok, I understand it, everyone has their own obsessions...

Reading those "1080p is barely noticeable", "not such a big deal", "you need to use a magnifier" articles made me think...

Dear Techno-Geek Sites

* If 1080p with a 225% difference doesn't make  a difference on a 30+ screen, then why the hell have you been claiming technical superiority or vast differences between Retina and 1080p displays on sub-5 inch screens?

* If 1080p with a 225% difference doesn't make  a difference, then why the hell have you been touting the new 4K resolutions. That shouldn't matter at all. If we are dealing with DIMINISHING RETURNS (I am an economics professor), then shouldn't be the difference from 720p to 1080p more important than from 1080p to 4K when there is hardly any infrastructure to utilize it? 

* If 1080p with a 225% difference doesn't make  a difference, then why the hell have you been claiming "clear" and "significant" differences (over 5-20%) between PS3 and 360 resolutions? 225% difference MUST naturally be more important than 5-20%, whatever angle you look at it from.

* If 1080p with a 225% difference doesn't make  a difference, then why the hell have you been pushing the industry with much higher "retina" displays on tablets, notebook, and monitors, which are much smaller than an average TV set?

* One answer can be, "Well, the continuous action on a game usually masks the relative low resolution compared to a static screen"... Well then, why the hell would we need 60 fps? Wasn' it  you the hypocritical tech guys who have been pushing the industry also in this direction?

In my opinion,

High resolution makes a difference, more or less, but it does! And it is just RIDICULOUS to have sub-1080p resolution on an 50 inch screen in todays world with a future game console that will go on for 5-10 years, while even the freaking 5 inch smartphone in our pockets have 1080p resolution on them! SERIOUSLY NO EXCUSES.

Yes, maybe the difference isn't huge, yes maybe we are spoiled. Yes, maybe the gameplay is more important. But for God's sake, given everything else we have (smartphones, retina tablets, laptops), Full HD and 4K TVs around, any sub-par 1080p is UNACCEPTABLE. This is not 2006 anymore, this is the time frame of 2013-2020+

WE F***ING NEED THE 1080p on our TVs.

Yup. PS4 pre-order canceled. It can't even run Battlefield 4 at 1080 for pete's sake!

For gaming at least, resolution shouldn't be important. Because you play games for fun, not for eye candy visuals.

I honestly don't care. I bought my 720p HDReady TV in 2008, and so far i just don't feel any need to upgrade even though money isn't an issue.

You're missing a huge part of the equation which is how close you are to the device. You are not going to notice a difference between 720 p and 1080 on a 30" screen if you're sitting at a normal distance. But, if you're going to be two inches away from the screen, then yeah, you might. So, when you're dealing with something that will be 6-12 inches from your face, resolution is more immediately noticeable. Dunno how noticable, but it's a factor.

Hmmm...yeeeah were just spoil in my opinion. People need to realize, that to obtain those kind of specs, it cost money and Sony learned that the hard way.

What I'm getting from this is it's important to have it for having it sake? What year did the Iphone 3gs come out? I'm still doing fine with mine. I help people do things with their Iphone 5's they didn't understand all based off my know how from using the 3gs all this time. When I hold the new phones I never feel like "wow, I should throw money at one of these for myself" Rather I am just reminded that I don't need to upgrade. People today have a serious hipster problem, always trying to get the new thing.........why? because there is a new thing? Iphones haven't changed in years neither has alot of tech. But hey I'm more of the conservative type. If you want the newest thing with flashy lights kudos to you.

Meanwhile holding on to what I have brings me joy and don't cost me the fashionable dollar.

resolution isnt the problem.
The problem is that you pay more for the xbox because of kinect, just so that it can 10% away from the GPU.
im sure if kinect wasnt a part of this and xbox was priced slighly cheaper than the ps4, no-one would have a problem.
no-one complains about cheap stuff doing average resolutions, but they will complain about expensive hardware giving poor performance, especially when the cost includes something that they dont want.

There is truth to the viewing distance negating the higher resolution somewhat but i do agree with the sentiment of fanboyism and hypocrisy.

Companies like Crytek that brought multiple thousand dollar gaming rigs to their knees back in days are now saying things like 900p was a design decision. Give me a break. Doesn't hurt me much. They could have made that game 1600p and it wouldn't make it much better.

Those tech websites are just quite bad but they pander to their target crowd really well. Free PR from Apple from so many websites too instead of actually critiquing them. They are some on the android spec wars side too.

Fanboyism and hypocrisy!

LOL, be careful throwing the 720p number out like that in the wild.

It hurts some people you know. They have feelings. Respect the religion.