Hitachi has announced the availability of a more affordable technology that will make HD ready IPS panels more widely available, and demoed a 4.5-inch LCD panel with a 1280x720 pixel resolution.

The Japanese company has used amorphous silicon-based TFT technology rather than the more expensive low temperature polysilicon or LTPS which requires extra wiring, making it bulkier and more fragile.

The new panel is also less power hungry as Hitachi has managed to tweak the amount of backlight needed, which means better battery life on larger screen devices.

What's more Hitachi's prototype managed a pixel density of up to 329ppi, which is slightly higher than that of the iPhone 4 display and good enough to earn it a Retina Display sticker.

Expect the new display, which follows up from the one showcased back in February, to offer up to 500 cd/m2 brightness and support 24-bit colour, a 1000:1 contrast ratio and a massive 160-degree horizontal and vertical viewing angle.

There have been only a few models on the market with an HD ready display, both of them from Samsung; the Note and the Samsung Galaxy S2 II HD LTE have a 5.3-inch and a 4.65-inch screen respectively.