S-AMOLED vs LCD comparison and observations

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I just looked at the Vibrant today. I am trying out the Sprint EVO and have not made up my mind (have 3 more weeks to decide). I have been very curious with all the hubub surrounding this new screen. "brilliant" "incredible" "vibrant" etc are terms that all the review sites are throwing around.

Now that I have seen it, it is ture. The colors really pop. However, I am torn. On the one hand, S-AMOLED colors are very rich. It has better color saturation for video, and photos colors pop a bit more on the S-AMOLED vs the evo's LCD and the viewing angles are GREAT! There is almost no hazing effect when viewed from the side. WOW

On the other hand, even though both devices have 800x480 displays the text looks jagged on the Vibrant. Icons while very bright, do not look smooth. Very small text that is readable on the EVO is illegible on the Vibrant (for example viewing web pages zoomed all the way out). Pictures when viewed at the same zoom level look sharper and more detailed on the LCD screen. It appears that the actual resolution is less on the S-AMOLED than the TFT.

What is going on here? Why does it look this way. For me a large part of my phone is reading text, why does it appear more jagged and fuzzier? Does anyone have any insight?

Oh, and also the maximum brightness is lower on the Vibrant (not that I ever use max brightness) somehow whites look just a little dirty/grey in comparison to the EVO.

Anyone have any insight into this resolution issue?

after reading up on arstechnica.com i realized that this fuzzieness is due to the face that the S-AMOLED display is a pentile display and thus only has an addressable resolution of 392x653.

http:// arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/03/secrets-of-the-nexus-ones-screen-science-color-and-hacks.ars/

Remove the space between the Http:// and the link for the Ars Technica Article about pentile displays.

from the article:

"you could think about this display as taking the 480x800 input image and scaling it down to 392x653 image, using subpixel positioning to reduce the apparent blurriness as much as possible."

That explains why this is so much fuzzier when displaying text. Now to decide if the the color saturation is worth the reduced resolution....hmmm.

Yes I agree, PenTile is the only thing keeping AMOLED from being the best displays hands down. The worst thing you can do though is compare to screens side by side. You will always find something wrong with both, ignorance is bliss =P

I had time with the HTC Incredible which uses AMOLED and you get used to it, I do think its worth it. I did like being able to read text zoomed out all the way though on the EVO.

Its a trade off, but I honestly think whatever you pick you will get used to it after time.

i think for me, a mobile phone's performance comes down to display text quality (browsing ebook reading etc), web browsing, video, phone UI experience, and battery life. if you got used to the AMOLED on the incredible why did you give it up for the EVO?

All you need to do is go on a Vibrant, go to youtube, and watch the Tron Legacy trailer in HQ... or the Avatar that came with it and AMOLED will blow your mind...

I had the Evo for 3 weeks and if Sprint worked well in my area I would have kept it. I like it a bit better than the Vibrant, which I have now. The screen is not as bright and pretty but the smoothness of the text made up for it. I also liked how websites looked on the Evo more.

I'm still very happy with the Vibrant, but I would have stuck with the Evo if I didn't have so many dropped calls where I work and live.

Just imagine if the screen was 4.3 inches even though the screen size for this isn't to bug nor to small

Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

The S-AMOLED in the Galaxy S is not pentile matrix. The Incredible doesnt use pentile matrix either. The N1 does use pentile matrix. I have seen a N1 beside an Incredible and the two are really different looking. Text on the Incredible is crisp and clear, on the N1 its fuzzy.

Edit: Sorry, I was wrong about the Galaxy S, it DOES use pentile matrix. What a ripoff, this has me seriously questioning whether to get the phone or not. The low text quality on the N1 ruined that phone for me. But I'm pretty sure I'm right about the Incredible, the text on it looks super sharp and crisp.

Originally Posted by violinbf

i think for me, a mobile phone's performance comes down to display text quality (browsing ebook reading etc), web browsing, video, phone UI experience, and battery life. if you got used to the AMOLED on the incredible why did you give it up for the EVO?

I went to the EVO for the 4.3" screen vs 3.7. Like you said, text is better on LCD. Everything else is better on AMOLED, imo. So it comes down to what is most important to you.

Originally Posted by derek4484

The S-AMOLED in the Galaxy S is not pentile matrix. The Incredible doesnt use pentile matrix either. The N1 does use pentile matrix. I have seen a N1 beside an Incredible and the two are really different looking. Text on the Incredible is crisp and clear, on the N1 its fuzzy.

Edit: Sorry, I was wrong about the Galaxy S, it DOES use pentile matrix. What a ripoff, this has me seriously questioning whether to get the phone or not. The low text quality on the N1 ruined that phone for me. But I'm pretty sure I'm right about the Incredible, the text on it looks super sharp and crisp.

Samsung has used PenTile on every single AMOLED they have made.

I do love the 4.3 inch screen. 4.3" gives 15% larger viewing area than a 4" screen. This was very noticeable to me especially with typing on the keyboard and displaying web pages. Another plus is that viewing video's with the device on the table is more comfortable on the larger screen. The EVO is not too much larger than the Galaxy S.

The only thing that bugs me about the EVO is the processor/GPU and battery life.

It is hard to look at the GPU benchmarks and demonstrations for the new OMAP and Hummingbird and not think that the Snapdragon is a little behind the times. Not sure that I will game that much but I do want the power to run the new fancy Gingerbread UI nice and smooth. I wish i knew what kind of GPU processing power was necessary for Gingerbread because I will be trying to shoe horn that OS update on my device.

Obviously a 45nm processor will overclock better than a 65nm one and will get better battery life at stock speeds. I believe the power draw is ~500mw for the Snapdragon and ~350mw for the Hummingbird. That is significant power savings. Weirdly though the reports of the Vibrant's battery life are not that much better that the EVO. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Galaxy overclock to 2ghz just like the previous generation 65nm OMAP on the droid (stock 550mhz overclocks to 1ghz easily)

Pops_G did you keep your EVO or return it? Using a custom Kernel to defeat the FPS cap makes it a non issue now. If you did return it, do you have your eye on something else? One nice thing about Sprint is that you can upgrade your device at the subsidized price annually VS every 2 years so I only need to get to next July. Plus the plans are cheaper if you are crafty.