But how would it look if it had a lower resolution, like a phone. Would it look like stuff from a distance?
I don't think you really understand what we're getting at here.
PPI is pixels per inch. It is directly proportionate to the size of the screen and the display resolution. A display device has a limited number of pixels it can display, and a limited space over which to display them.
Let's say you have a 640x960 resolution on a screen with a diagonal screen size of 3.54 inches.
To fit that resolution on that size of a screen, you will have to have a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch.
That means that for every inch, in both the horizontal and vertical directions, there will be 326 pixels in every inch of the screen.
It is not possible to say, increase the PPI of a screen without modifying the resolution or screen size, because the PPI is found by using both of those factors.
If you took a 52" TV and lowered it's 1080p resolution to like you said, the resolution of a phone, it would decrease the PPI to around 22 if I'm doing the math correctly. This would look like utter crap up close, but far away it would probably look okay. But doing something like that would be completely absurd and pointless, because it's a TV and is meant to be used as such.
Hopefully I explain it better this time, it can get pretty complicated.
Poll