Reblog:
…an interesting point, but mostly valid when applied to photos - text (and vector art) is a different story. The original post’s claim that magazines print at about 300dpi appears to be referring to the general rule that photos should be prepared at 300pdi. However, those photos are then run through a halftone screen at approx. 133-175lpi. There are a number of other factors that make it hard to directly compare the printed page with device screens, but the message of the above post is quite correct.
Text in print remains significantly higher quality than on digital devices. While photos start at 300dpi and are cut down into halftone screens for print, text begins it’s life as a series of vectors and is output at the native device resolution for the printer which can run in the thousands of dpi for offset printing. I’m painting with broad strokes here (both for brevity and because I am pulling rough numbers from memory) but as amazing as some of the new displays are, they’ve still got some catching up to do.
While I disagree with the claim that digital screens are surpassing the printed page (strictly in terms of resolution), I would agree that the print and digital design workflows are converging. I think we will see that this convergence is going to be driven by new and improved tools for creating content as much as by improvements in the devices used to consume content.