I’ve got a button having a layout_height of 10mm which looks correct on most devices, but on for instance the Lg Optimus 2X and on the Motorola Defy the buttons have about half the size:
i retrieved the DisplayMetrics info on those devices and here’s a short overview:
HTC Desire Z: 480x800, density : HIGH, xdpi: 254.0, ydpi: 254.0
Motorola Defy: 480x854, density : HIGH, xdpi: 96.0, ydpi: 96.0
Samsung Galaxy S2: 480x800, density : HIGH, xdpi: 217.71428, ydpi: 218.49463
LG Optimus 2X: 480x800, density : HIGH, xdpi: 160.0, ydpi: 160.0
As you can see the Desire Z and the Samsung have a reasonable looking x/y-dpi value. the defy and the optimus deliver obsiously incorrect values that I assume are the reason for the wrong size.
Is there any other way to get around that hardware bug except creating seperate layout files for those devices?
Or is it recommended not using mm/in sizes at all?
You should not use mm/in size to declare the dimension value of the UI. It is not recommended. Why? Because it will not scale correctly across devices.
The recommended way to do that is using the dp/sp to measure view object/font size.
Read this article:
More Resource Types – Dimension