I totally agree to you that pixel (density) is king, but given the condition of current (popular) OSes, or rather, their screen and web rendering technology - unfortunately the resolution of the screen also defines the size of the objects on screen (the widgets, buttons and text)...

My point was: if the openmoko has 800x480 screen, even though it can display most sites in 'full width', it most probably will be too small to be comfortably readable... unless it has a 'tool' to aid the reader to cope with the display size, like Apple has done well with its version of Safari on the iphone.

One more point, I think the detail level of a media (in this case the DPI of the screen) is tied closely to the distance the viewer is expected to use the media.

Anyhow, OK, now I understand more about where you're going w/ your initial comments Thx

Yep, with the right hardware and modern OSes, the need for the super high res screen will lessen on these devices.

By going with 480x320, everything is very legible with properly designed apps. And when you need a little more space to work with, you can scale everything just fine on the iPhone.

I'd like Nokia to steal some of their ideas They have very similar graphics accelerators.

I don't quite agree; the zoom is not always an adequate solution. Having more resolution at your disposal is more reliable, it's also more future-proof.

For example, having to zoom in can makes images ugly, it can distort text, all of which is important when e.g. you're reading comics, or browsing certain websites that suffer from this.

So the conclusion is this

1) DPI is relevant
2) Resolution in terms or pixels wide and high are relevant
3) Due to 1 & 2, that means the screen realestate is relevant
4) Good software is also necessary

If you can have all of the above...why not? If you cannot, then lets see how the software can help lessen the difficulties due to less than optimum hardware features.