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I'm designing an app for android, and the main devices we're targeting are Nexus S and Galaxy Tab, so I wonder which resolution should I design for and what PPI to use? I'd be using photoshop.

Surprisingly, I couldn't find a single decent PSD template for android while there are tons available for iOS, or maybe I'm just not looking at the right place?

Many thanks

Spedge
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eozzy
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2 Answers2

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The Nexus S and Galaxy Tab both have HDPI screens. The layout sizes are:

  • Nexus S: Normal
  • Galaxy Tab: Large

For HDPI graphics the nominal resolution is 240 DPI. The size of a graphic should be

pixels = dips * (density / 160)

which for HDPI devices becomes pixels = dips * 1.5, where dips is the size of the object in density independent pixels.

This means a 16x16 normal (MDPI) icon should be 24x24 pixels on an HDPI device to maintain the same size graphic.

The screen sizes are:

  • Nexus S: 480x800
  • Galaxy Tab: 1024x600

so just make your mockups this size.

Joseph Earl
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  • Google Nexus One - 3.7" - 480×800 - 254ppi Nexus S - 4.0" - 480x800 - 235ppi Galaxy Tab - 7" - 600x1024 - 171ppi right? – eozzy May 09 '11 at 14:37
  • Yep, but you can't design for each and every individual devices exact PPI, unless you really want to I guess. I have both, and a 32dip (48px on the devices) bitmap looks roughly the same on both, so designing for the guidelines works fine unless you want to get really fine precision on your layouts. – Joseph Earl May 09 '11 at 14:48
  • Hmm... so should I just design for 480x800 in hdpi(240) and 600x1024 in mdpi(160) - and the devices with similar screen resolutions will scaled automatically? – eozzy May 09 '11 at 14:57
  • Yeah I think that's the best approach. – Joseph Earl May 15 '11 at 14:33
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You can see details for every mobile devices here (http://deviceatlas.com):

http://deviceatlas.com/devices/Samsung/Nexus+S/entry/2282190

deviceatlas.com/devices/Samsung/Galaxy+Tab/entry/1999308

deviceatlas.com/devices/Samsung/Galaxy+Tab+2/entry/2258482

deviceatlas.com/devices/Samsung/Galaxy+Tab+10.1/entry/2418093

You can use also Tera-WURFL script for detecting mobile device width by getting user agent from browser. See demo here: http://www.tera-wurfl.com/explore/

Mateusz
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