How many have used an AMOLED/SAMOLED screen?

[Deleted User]

So, a coworker of mine bought a Samsung Vibrant (Galaxy S for AT&T).

I had played with a Fascinate very briefly at one point and have used an Incredible quite a bit. However, using the Incredible was before I had a lot of time with the DX. Mostly what I had for a basis of comparison was my iPhone 3GS, whose resolution was low enough as to appear pretty coarse.

I was almost shocked at how incredibly noticeable the Pentile pattern was, and how grainy it made the text/icons appear. It was actually very bothersome to me. Maybe I'd get used to it, I don't know - but I just don't think I could spend any significant amount of time reading on that screen.

It's too bad - the form factor is nice, the audio quality is exceptional, zooming and scrolling seem noticeably smoother than on my X and it's sweet to have true blacks... but I really had trouble with the screen pattern.

This isn't really a "rah rah look how great the X is" - I'm just curious how many other people have found the Pentile layout to be troubling.

 

[yankeeboy]

So, a coworker of mine bought a Samsung Vibrant (Galaxy S for AT&T).

I had played with a Fascinate very briefly at one point and have used an Incredible quite a bit. However, using the Incredible was before I had a lot of time with the DX. Mostly what I had for a basis of comparison was my iPhone 3GS, whose resolution was low enough as to appear pretty coarse.

I was almost shocked at how incredibly noticeable the Pentile pattern was, and how grainy it made the text/icons appear. It was actually very bothersome to me. Maybe I'd get used to it, I don't know - but I just don't think I could spend any significant amount of time reading on that screen.

It's too bad - the form factor is nice, the audio quality is exceptional, zooming and scrolling seem noticeably smoother than on my X and it's sweet to have true blacks... but I really had trouble with the screen pattern.

This isn't really a "rah rah look how great the X is" - I'm just curious how many other people have found the Pentile layout to be troubling.

I just came from both the Incredible and the Fascinate...

The Dinc's screen is pretty good, the Fascinate's screen is insane with one main issue - the whites are bluish. After a few days it really began to piss me off.

I have had the DX now for 48 hours....I find the DX screen to be a bit "pale" in comparison. However, after a simple root and adding a 2.2 Deodexed ROM, I am hitting consistent 1850 - 2000 range on Quadrant. I know the benchmarks are crap, but the reason I bring this up is because the graphic scene where it climbs the stairs on the DX FLIES through it and smoothly....both my Dinc and SF stuttered through. I probably would have stuck with the SF, but I found that the community was lacking and development was annoyingly slow.

I have to say that I am quickly developing a liking for this phone, the voice quality blows away anything I have ever used in a PDA form factor. The only thing I have found that sucks is the exchange functionality - I have had to delete and re-add my account 2x's

 

[bigbadwulff]

The screen looks perfect.
Next...

 

[lennydude]

I had the Incredible. Loved the screen but the colors are off. Go to a verizon store and check them side by side and you will see what i mean.

I chose a colorful picture and sent it to my email. At the store i logged onto my email from both phones and sized the pictures the same. This will give you both an example of the colors AND the screens ability to display the picture............very important. Screen resolution on these devices is only a claim. Pictures look different to every person.

BTW..........i personally think the X screen is way better than the Fascinate or Incredible. Just me

 

[DougFNJ]

It's interesting, the AMOLED screens tend to put out a pinkish warmer tone, the Super AMOLED tend to have a blueish colder tone, the Droid X appears to have more accurate colors, particularly the whites. Where the AMOLED screens excel is the black levels, I can't think of any other display type that produces the blacks that any type of AMOLED screen can. Unfortunately, they tend to over saturate other colors, and you won't tend to get the contrast levels you'll get on other display types.

BTW..........i personally think the X screen is way better than the Fascinate or Incredible. Just me

I couldn't agree more, the contrast makes the Droid X more vibrant where the Fascinate and Incredible can tend to look a little darkish at times, almost like reading a book in a dimly lit room.

 

[Steven58]

I noticed the whites in the samoled screen looked bluish, too. I was in the store as I'm going to buy a phone for my daughter. Not only were the whites bluish, but the screen was too dim while reading text. Yes, I had it at the highest setting. I couldn't get a straight answer from SF owners on this. Oh well.

 

[Fabolous]

Every AMOLED screen, regardless of whether it is "super" or not is oversaturated by 30%.

If you value color accuracy, AMOLED is not for you.

As for the panels used in the Droid 1/2 and X, they all have 97% color accuracy and very high contrast for an LCD panel.

I prefer them to AMOLED.

IMO, as long as pentile matrix exists, AMOLED is not a viable choice in screens

 

[GrandMasterB]

I always thought the screen on my Droid1 was rather pretty compared to previous devices I had used. Then I got the Incredible 6 months later and right off the bat noticed the pentile matrix , pixelated fonts and blown out colors and was greatly annoyed by it.

You get used to it after a while but now after using the DX for a few days I had to get my Incredible back out of the closet and ready for Ebay and you turn it on and realize how obnoxiously blow out the colors always were. I am still amazed at how much crisper the fonts are on the DX.

I have not yet seen an SAMOLED in person yet so I cannot comment on that.

 

[nynvolt]

I thought the epic 4g had a very bright and vibrant screen when compared to my dx. I keep my dx brightness at the minimum setting so it seems pale compared. To my eyes the epics screen was every bit as sharp as mine. I think reading a screen that bright would bother my eyes, even with my screen on the lowest setting the dx strains my eyes after awhile. I didn't notice the "pentile" pattern described by the op.

 

[DougFNJ]

Speaking of brightness, before I had sold my Incredible, I held it next to the X. What I noticed was Droid X was brighter at a very dim setting than Incredibles brightest setting. I noticed this same thing at the store when I was returning the Fascinate for the Droid X.

I think the only 2 differences between AMOLED and Super AMOLED was the pink tone vs blue tone, and Super AMOLED is more legible outdoors in the sun. IMHO, I really didn't visibly see any other differences.

 

[Deleted User]

The topic kind of veered into colors which is fine but wasn't really what I found surprising in the screen quality.

The colors are very saturated, which we know. What I was struggling with was the noticeable jagged edges everywhere caused by the Pentile pixel configuration, especially when reading text.

 

[MentatYP]

Pentile jaggies (especially when browsing while zoomed out) + blueish whites + oversaturation = no thanks

 

[Fabolous]

Speaking of brightness, before I had sold my Incredible, I held it next to the X. What I noticed was Droid X was brighter at a very dim setting than Incredibles brightest setting. I noticed this same thing at the store when I was returning the Fascinate for the Droid X.

I think the only 2 differences between AMOLED and Super AMOLED was the pink tone vs blue tone, and Super AMOLED is more legible outdoors in the sun. IMHO, I really didn't visibly see any other differences.

Yes, you can see here that both the AMOLED and SAMOLED have lower brightnesses than the IPS/regular LCDs:

The topic kind of veered into colors which is fine but wasn't really what I found surprising in the screen quality.

The colors are very saturated, which we know. What I was struggling with was the noticeable jagged edges everywhere caused by the Pentile pixel configuration, especially when reading text.

Yeah, I think for people who haven't been spoiled by the D1/2/X, they might not notice the jaggies, but when you have a TRUE 854x480 resolution, you just get used to the clear fonts.

 

[nj02vette]

I noticed the pentile matrix right away on my DInc. One of the reasons, among a many others, that I don't have that phone anymore.

Hard to distinguish for graphics, but for text it's horrid. Oh yeah, lack of true white is also a killer.

Played around the other night with a Samsung Fascinate. Hate to say this, but side by side with the Incredible, the Fascinate's screen is WORSE. Same resolution in a larger display only makes that pentile matrix look even grainier.

 

[Outlaw71]

Interesting to hear people speak about how bothersome the colors not being exact is to them. Perhaps it's because I'm colorblind (no that doesn't mean I only see black & white), but for me my eyes adjust to any screen no matter what it looks like. So if a tv I'm watching happens to be way off, it still doesn't effect me while I'm viewing it.... wouldn't even notice it more than likely until it got recallibrated. But at any rate, I guess for what I do with a phone, color accuracy has never even been on my list of must-haves.

When I first got my DX though I remember small text being virtually unreadable. And I had seen video's comparing the DX screen to the iPhone screen and they brought up how choppy the Droids small print resolution was unusable.

But 3 or 4 days after I got my phone I recieved an OTA update one night and the next day I was able to read everything on my screen no matter how small the text was. They fixed it completely.

 

[Fabolous]

Yeah, the Droid X had a software issue in the browser.

AMOLED screens have a hardware limitation called the Pentile Matrix. Instead of each pixel being able to display all three colors (RGB), AMOLED screens can only display 2 colors per pixel, and rely on their arrangement to display the full range of colors.

What this does though is basically cut 1/3 of the effective resolution from the screen.

So while there are 800x480 pixels, they can't all display RGB, so the effective resolution is actually 2/3 of that.

This is what makes the text fuzzy, and no amount of software can fix it.

 

[wxman2003]

Its the same in the world of tv's. They all have a blue push because people percieve blusish white as actually more white than calibrated white, when in fact it is much further away than white. That's why people have a hard time initially watching a calibrated tv. They think the colors are too washed out, when in fact, it is much more accurate. People want their blue skies to look blue, when in reality, the sky is never that blue.

 

[mancow]

I still think that the original Droid 1 has one of the most amazing screens I've seen. I sold mine to a co-worker and now have an X. Every time I see his phone I'm a bit surprised at the clarity and detail. It just seems so sharp and life like.

 

[TheBlackPrince]

I don't see the big hype with the SAMOLED. I mean it is nice to have really dark blacks when using it as a desk clock or when reading off the Kindle app but I owned the Vibrant for a few weeks and it wasn't all that great. Seems like it over does the colors.

 

[Boxytheboxed]

I don't see the big hype with the SAMOLED. I mean it is nice to have really dark blacks when using it as a desk clock or when reading off the Kindle app but I owned the Vibrant for a few weeks and it wasn't all that great. Seems like it over does the colors.

For the week I had the SF I loved the screen. I could tell how it was over-saturated, but I thought the screen looked great regardless. My whites weren't nearly as blue as some photos I saw on the internet. MAybe its just my untrained eyes, but I think the Xs screen pails in comparison to the SAMOLED

 

[IHateMyTreo]

Can't even use AMOLED outdoors. Even my old Storm was better outside than the Inc.

 

[Martimus]

I've tried playing with the Galaxy S phones at a couple of stores. Maybe it's my less than perfect eyes but I had a really difficult time reading the screens. Bottom line for me, I guess, is that I'm perfectly happy with my DX...

 

[nitsuj17]

The Dinc's screen is pretty good, the Fascinate's screen is insane with one main issue - the whites are bluish. After a few days it really began to piss me off.

I have had the DX now for 48 hours....I find the DX screen to be a bit "pale" in comparison. However, after a simple root and adding a 2.2 Deodexed ROM, I am hitting consistent 1850 - 2000 range on Quadrant. I know the benchmarks are crap, but the reason I bring this up is because the graphic scene where it climbs the stairs on the DX FLIES through it and smoothly....both my Dinc and SF stuttered through. I probably would have stuck with the SF, but I found that the community was lacking and development was annoyingly slow.
[/QUOTE]

fix stagefright in your build.prop, thats why your quadrant scores are that high, its cheats the test and breaks video recording. upper 1500s, maybe 1600 are the highest possible otherwise.

 

[raqball]

I recently jumped ship from Sprint and the EVO... I originally got the Fascinate (my son still has his) and after a few days I missed the 4.3 screen I had with the EVO so I paid the restocking fee and picked up the X today...

The Fascinate's screen is eye popping... It pretty brilliant... Ya the colors may be over saturated but that thing pops!!! I loved the screen on the Fascinate, but wanted the 4.3", so hence the X... The X has a nice screen and I actually think the X's screen is better than the EVO's....

 

[Deleted User]

I used the Dinc for an alarm clock as well as my current DX. I REALLY don't like how the DX screen isn't black. It lights up the room due to the black being some shade of gray. The Dinc was a true black and the clock only showed the time because the background was truly black.