Question

The Google Nexus 10 comes out shortly, and is the first device to use xxhdpi resources. It sports a display density of about 300 DPI (according to the Nexus 10 website and this calculator).

However, when I go to the Android documentation, it states:

• ldpi : ~120dpi
• mdpi : ~160dpi
• hdpi : ~240dpi
• xhdpi : ~320dpi
• xxhdpi is not specified.

How come the Nexus 10’s 300 DPI screen is xxhdpi instead of xhdpi, and what should be the approximate DPI of xxhdpi? Should we even worry about having new resources (aside from icons) for xxhdpi at this point, or should we just let the OS scale up xhdpi resources?

Answer 1

According to the post linked in the G+ resource:

The gorgeous screen on the Nexus 10 falls into the XHDPI density
bucket. On tablets, Launcher uses icons from one density bucket up
[0] to render them slightly larger. To ensure that your launcher icon
(arguably your apps most important asset) is crisp you need to add a
144*144px icon in the drawable-xxhdpi or drawable-480dpi folder.

So it looks like the xxhdpi is set for 480dpi. According to that, tablets use the assets from one dpi bucket higher than the one they’re in for the launcher. The Nexus 10 being in bucket xhdpi will pull the launcher icon from the xxhdpi.

Source

Also, was not aware that tablets take resources from the asset bucket above their level. Noted.