SMARTPHONE DISPLAYS, A big confusion to the Techies

There is a lot of buzz around us regarding the present segment of displays of smartphones. There was a time when we were all satisfied with the TFT display of generic smartphones but that’s history now. Now we shall talk about big players like the newest OLED, AMOLED, P-OLED, IPS-LCD, HTC’s Super LCD, Samsung’s Super AMOLED, etc.

IPS-LCD

 In-Plane Switching Liquid Crystal Display, abbreviated as IPS-LCD, is one of the finest and premium technologies of mobile displays in the present era smartphones. This technology was developed to eradicate the twisted nematic field effects of the matrix LCDs which include TFT displays. The main problems with matrix LCDs were poor colour reproduction and dependence on viewing angles. In this regard IPS LCD has great colour reproduction and wide viewing angles. IPS LCD produces more accurate colours as compared to AMOLED displays and thus enhances our viewing experience. IPS LCD involves arranging and switching the orientation of the molecules of the liquid crystal layers between the glass substrate essentially parallel to the glass substrate. The IPS LCD panel uses a glass substrate unlike the AMOLED display which uses a plastic substrate. The IPS LCD displays delivers good amount of brightness and uses a backlight to lighten up the displays. Blacks on the IPS LCD display looks dull and greyish due to the backlight of the IPS LCD. Whites on the IPS LCD display are quite sharp and accurate. The IPS display also has great sunlight readability due to fewer reflections. Colours may seem a little dull on the IPS panel but that’s not quite noticeable. The IPS display is safer for the eye relying on the fact that it produces less amount of blue light compared to AMOLED displays. Considering all aspects IPS is worth for mid-range devices but on the high end segment it’s quite a different story.

SUPER LCD

Just as the AMOLED is the predecessor to Super AMOLED, LCD is the predecessor to Super LCD.  As in the case of IPS LCD, the Super LCD package also has a backdrop illumination and thus never demonstrates true blacks. The liquid crystals determine whether a part of the screen should be covered or not and to what extent lights should be allowed to pass through. This sort of display produces brilliant whites and also consumes very minimum power to demonstrate light colours making it far more than suitable for web browsing. In Super LCD the air hole between the external glass and the presentation component is omitted resulting in reduced glare thus producing eye soothing colours and delivers great sunlight viewing performance. Colours are not perfectly saturated and thus pleasing effect of a display is not obtained in any type of LCD displays. This is the best display in the LCD segment and its biggest competitor is the Super AMOLED display both of which having their own pros and cons.

AMOLED

 It’s the best display available for the present arena of smartphones. I’ve compared all the other displays with the AMOLED display because it is the best compared to others. SAMSUNG, the biggest manufacturer of AMOLED displays presently, has done a great job revolutionizing the smartphone display technologies. AMOLED display was first used by NOKIA in its N30. SAMSUNG took up the AMOLED technology and drove miles further developing vibrant and eye-pleasing displays to suit our needs. Advanced Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode abbreviated as AMOLED is basically an LED technology where individual pixel light up to produce a complete perfect image. Each pixel of a HD or Quad HD or 4K display, act as individual light source to produce a complete image. The Organic part in AMOLED display stands out for the thin organic film placed between two conductors in each LED. It uses an advanced matrix technology rather than a passive matrix technology. In active matrix technology, a thin-film transistor (TFT) and a capacitor to each sub-pixel (RGB LED). It results in faster movement of charges and high refresh rates to produce a clearer image every time. The AMOLED display produces great images with proper sharpness, infinite contrast ratio and good brightness (A maximum of 1200 nits can be delivered presently by the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, which is the highest till date). Images are slightly over-saturated which reduces accuracy but that can be adjusted with various software tweaks to produce images with cooler tone. A major drawback of AMOLED displays is the poor sunlight readability compared to the IPS LCD display due to use of a plastic substrate in AMOLED displays unlike the IPS LCD display which uses a glass substrate. The use of plastic substrate increases reflections thereby reducing sunlight readability. AMOLED displays are flexible due to the use of plastic substrate which adds to its positivity. AMOLED displays produce pure and true blacks because each pixel can be turned off individually. This results in very low battery usage for black backgrounds as the screen is almost turned off in black background conditions. But AMOLED can become more power hungry to display complete whites. Another drawback of an AMOLED display is that under high heat (Say the heat produced by the flames of a portable lighter) the pixels may go dead producing a black spot on the screen which will never recover.  AMOLED displays are quite expensive compared to the IPS LCD displays.

SUPER AMOLED marketing term used by SAMSUNG in which the touch-pad is directly integrated into the glass of the display, thereby reducing the overall thickness. Similarly Retina Display is also a marketing term used by apple which signifies a display with a pixel density of over 300 ppi (pixels per inch). The P-OLED is also a marketing term used by LG which stands for Plastic-OLED and signifies the use of a more flexible plastic substrate on a normal OLED display.

Different persons have different needs and so it’s very difficult to choose a direct winner right away. If we need an accurate display with minimum glare for long time use, IPS LCD or Super LCD should be the choice. But if we desire an eye-pleasing, sharp display, AMOLED should be the choice. But in our opinions, you should always consider the AMOLED display for a great viewing experience.                         

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