Images appear blurry in mobile app previews

[TheChesterCat]

I've seen many people report this same issue, and the only recommended solution seems to be to scale down the resolution of images from some ludicrous size like 14k pixels. I'm previewing images that are a pretty standard size (1000 x 2000 px, jpg's or png's). These images, no matter what, appear blurry / pixellated in the mobile app preview.

I've tried all sorts - different art board sizes, exporting various sizes to test, making a new document and just copy + pasting the images in. The images look perfect on the web preview; and rightly so, there's nothing wrong with the images. Why does the phone butcher the image quality? Why is such a basic thing getting so little attention? Surely anyone trying to preview any prototypes that include imagery are having the same issue?

[Dan Rodney]

Are you using an Android or iOS mobile device?

Are you loading the XD file from the cloud or using the live device preview over USB from a Mac/PC (these are 2 different ways to view XD files on the mobile app)?

What size is your artboard?

[TheChesterCat]

Hi, thanks for getting back to me. I'm previewing this from the cloud using the XD app, on an Android device (Archos Oxygen 68XL). It's running a pretty recent version of Android, but as you can tell from the name the screen is rather big. I'm wondering if perhaps the screen-size has something to do with it?

I may test this on other phones just to clarify that point.

My artboards are 224 x 464. Though in my experience, the artboard size made no difference - I tested this with an artboard using the standard iPhone 12 Pro Max size, with the same exact image copied + scaled to fit. The image was still notably pixellated versus the web preview.

[Dan Rodney]

224 x 464 is a very small artboard (the smallest iPhone was 320 wide), but even with a small artboard it should still look fine when viewed at 100%. If you're saying the iPhone 12 Pro Max size of 428 x 926 still looks pixellated there's something else wrong. I've only used the XD app on an iPhone (which does not look pixelated) so maybe there's something different is happening with the Android mobile app.

I wish I could help troubleshoot, but I'll have to leave it to others who have Android devices to advise. 

[marliton]

Hi. Can you share a screenshot from the mobile device?

Doesn't matter what image resolution do you use, if you preview it on a small screen it's possible you see the image at low resolution because of the mobile screen resolution limit. Mainly, you'll lose little details in the image.