Help Pentile dispay?

[ayrshiredude]

Can I ask a silly question? whats this pentile display

 

[DisplayGeek]

Can I ask a silly question? whats this pentile display

I'm glad you asked !!

PenTile Display technology is simply the best invention since Terry Scheffer invented the Super Twisted Nematic (STN) Liquid Crystal mode. OK, so I'm biased. Full disclosure, I'm one of the inventors of the technology.

The short answer is that it is a combination of Subpixel Rendering (SPR) and specific novel arrangements of subpixels that are optimized to work together to increase the information efficiency of the subpixels in color flat panel displays. For example, present PenTile layouts, such as now commercially available for OLEDs, only require two subpixels per pixel, on average, to provide a given resolution. Or, one my think of it as having 50% higher resolution for a given number of subpixels. (glass half full vs. half empty)

Some layouts in the PenTile Matrix family are even more efficient, for example, allowing 1.25 subpixels per pixel in one case shown on the wikipedia SPR page. And one layout, disclosed in a recently published patent application, can in theory, do one half subpixel (0.5) per pixel on average! So, PenTile technology is still improving.

A fuller description of PenTile Technology may be found at the Nouvoyance website: Nouvoyance You may wish to click on the technology section and even the whitepapers section.

You may also wish to visit the wikipedia pages on subpixel rendering and the PenTile Matrix family of layouts:

Subpixel rendering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PenTile matrix family - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[EarlZ]

I think I've read some where that the Pentile is like having 50% lesser real resolution as opposed to 50% more and it has a pretty bad TEXT quality compared to RGB and really poor gray colors ( as seen on the Samsung Wave, Galaxy S and Nexus One ) but it does boost the quality of photos and movies compared to regular RGB.

Based on my personal experience the gray levels on the Wave is pretty bad you can actually see other colors on the shade of gray and text quality is pretty feathery on the Samsung Wave, on the Galaxy S i dont own the phone yet so my personal experience with a demo unit does not count.

 

[DisplayGeek]

First, the new kid on the block gets blamed for everything that is presented on the screen?

You may have "heard" something, but that doesn't make it true.

Those color problems have nothing to do with PenTile. They are created inside of the cell phone software due to excessive quantization (bit truncation) before the data reaches the PenTile processor. The PenTile processor takes in eight bits operates on the data at eleven bits and puts out eight bits true, with two bits of dither, so that that SPR is in essence outputting ten bit data. This ensures that the color the panel is given is the color the panel puts out.

Did you know that tens of thousands of PenTile OLED panels were in cellphones all over the world, for over a year, before anyone noticed? If you have to be told that they are different before you notice... well... To me, that tells me that they work just fine.

About the resolution. Please read this white paper on how resolution is actually measured and how the PenTile OLED really does meet the VESA Specification (THE one and ONLY industry specification on resolution measurement!):

http://www.nouvoyance.com/files/pdf/CV%20Application%20Note%20Measuring%20Display%20Resolution%20RGB%20L6%2012-17-07.pdf

Those that claim that PenTile is not "true" resolution are confusing the conventional RGB Stripe limitation of six subpixels per vertically oriented black&white line pair as giving a shorthand method of "counting dots" to determine resolution. "Dot Counting" only works for conventional, non-subpixel-rendered, color displays.

The text quality is quite readable, which is the material point. The only real complaint I've heard is that some people have been viewing the PenTile panel up close, some with magnifiers (!) and note that it "looks weird". Well? If one is used to looking at one kind of display, legacy RGB Stripe, with its own set of very distinctive, and quite unnatural artifacts, then look at another, unfamiliar display, with its own set of very distinctive artifacts, then one may leap to the wrong conclusion and say that the new one is "wrong". Neither is "wrong", they are just both different from one another. If viewed from the normal expected viewing distance, the PenTile Panel will present the same image as a legacy RGB Stripe panel to the eye. They will look very similar, though not identical... as I said before, the legacy RGB Stripe is *not* itself perfect, nor should one use it as a reference standard.

Anyone remember what text looked like on CRTs? Anyone remember the complaints that LCD text looked "jaggy" compared to the then "standard" appearance of text on the CRT? The same thing is now happening with PenTile vs. RGB Stripe.

 

[Markiz]

im sure that for everday use, pentile will be ok. but how do you then explain droid being much better at displaying text?

 

[EarlZ]

@DisplayGeek

I didnt bother reading your entire wall of text but I should refer you to another thread w/c actually provides more information compared to a wall of text ( no offense ) and I would like to see you rebut on this http://androidforums.com/860842-post7.html

 

[Evil Peter]

As a side-note; if you don't want to offend, perhaps you shouldn't call it a wall of text when it's not. That's just a long, thorough post. A wall of text is a long text that doesn't use paragraphs.

 

[Deleted User]

As a side-note; if you don't want to offend, perhaps you shouldn't call it a wall of text when it's not. That's just a long, thorough post. A wall of text is a long text that doesn't use paragraphs.

I agree.

Substantial amounts of information should not be demeaned and dismissed. "I didn't bother reading" speaks volumes about the poster when the post itself was thoughtful, well spaced and punctuated, and eminently useful.

EarlZ: if you don't want to educate yourself on a topic, don't insult someone knowledgeable by telling them their information is less than useful. It's a personal failing on your part that you didn't choose to read it, and if you didn't bother reading it, how can you possibly comment on whether it is more or less useful than another post?

 

[EarlZ]

I would recommend you read what I said and understand the context and not the last line alone. thank you.

 

[Markiz]

EarlZ: if you don't want to educate yourself on a topic, don't insult someone knowledgeable by telling them their information is less than useful. It's a personal failing on your part that you didn't choose to read it, and if you didn't bother reading it, how can you possibly comment on whether it is more or less useful than another post?

well, i dont really know how knowlegable display geek is, seeing how he talks theres nothing wrong with pentile, when actual comparison shots show differently.

Not that SGS's screen is terrible, far from it, but droid seems noticeably better in displaying text.

 

[Geryatrix]

I must admit that my eyes are not in the first flush of youth, but as far as I'm concerned the display on the SGS is superb.

I'm not saying that under magnification the individual pixels can't be seen, but as I don't use a magnifying glass to look at my phone screen, I'm very happy with what I can see.

 

[dsjr2006]

Pentile makes for poor text display in my experience, but that's limited to the Nexus One so........

 

[pkulak]

@DisplayGeek Thanks for the great info. Very informative.

You talk about how Pentile displays are able to use fewer subpixels per pixel, which is an accomplishment, but it sounds to me like an accomplishment of cost cutting, not in quality of the display. Now, if it cuts costs and displays the same quality image then that's a win. Are you saying that it really is the exact same quality of image? No downsides at all?

And, do you know off hand how many subpixels are used to display each pixel on the Galaxy S?

EDIT: Just read the Wikipedia article. Assuming that it uses RGBG, that would be 2 subpixels per pixel, vs 3 with RBG?

 

[kanzlr]

the problem is just SMALL text.
a zoomed out webpage where I can read the text fine on my Milestone is almost unreadable on the Galaxy S.

but yes, most stuff looks good...*ieks*

 

[tx_brandon]

For Display Geek to sidestep the subpixel issue and address the 'lesser resolution' non-issue is a red herring argument. PenTile does indeed have its drawbacks when it comes to displaying pure text.

 

[YellowGT0]

At normal viewing distance Pentile display looks just as sharp as the others. Maybe under an electrion microscope the LCD wins

 

[YellowGT0]

ROAR SO PIXELATED!

Wow you really see how much gets cut off with the smaller screen in this pic :-O

 

[Evil Peter]

I've compared the SGS to iPhone 4 and a few LCD Android units and I definitely wouldn't trade away the SAMOLED. The difference in text readability is in my opinion clearly smaller than the difference in contrast and colors. YellowGT0's picture shows that pretty well.

 

[galaxyS]

pentile display is nothing!!!

gee, i have the phone and i don't see anything wrong with texts and shades or blah blah blah.. seriously this pentile is nothing and does not really affect your reading/writing experience on the galaxy s.. it's more of like a gimmick to degrade the phones that use this tech.. but, seriously it's not a big deal..

 

[OfTheDamned]

This thread already has a topic. It is conveniently located right there in the title and the first post. Please stick to that topic.

 

[waspbr]

well, the display is aweseome, I have been reading books on it, I have mainly used the thinkfree (natively installed) app to read PDFs and the native ebook reader/kindle for the remainder.

The Screen really does not disappoint.

 

[Eazail70x7]

ROAR SO PIXELATED!

Wow you really see how much gets cut off with the smaller screen in this pic :-O

Sweet

 

[Markiz]

Mods, could you sew together these two pentile threads? Or something?

 

[kanzlr]

nobody said SAMOLED is bad, I own and use a Galaxy S myself.
Those that say there is no problem seem to not compare the smalles fonts possible (while still being readable).

whats so hard about holding it side by side and comparing it?
is it a deal breaker? no!
is it annoying if you like to view webpages zoomed out and still read the small text? yes!
has amoled benefits? sure, color and contrast.
these benefits just don't mean that small text is any more readable.

 

[shableep]

Did you know that tens of thousands of PenTile OLED panels were in cellphones all over the world, for over a year, before anyone noticed? If you have to be told that they are different before you notice... well... To me, that tells me that they work just fine.

Hey. I registered just to say that I may be an unusual case, but I noticed the difference in these screens before I knew what they were. And I think these types of screens must have been around for a while because I first noticed the unusual look of these screens on camcorders back in about 2001. On these PenTile screens it appears to me as though the pixels are diagonal. Then, when I learned that the PenTile sub-pixels were actually offset, it made sense that I would see a "diagonal" effect. It could be that many people don't complain about this because it's either not worth complaining about to them, or maybe they're not sure about what specifically makes them look odd.

While what I noticed to be PenTile back in 2001 was probably an LCD implementation of it, I can understand the use of PenTile on OLED screens. The power savings it provides probably helps make OLED a more compelling option for mobile devices.

Anyway, I came across this thread after reading a recent announcement about a 300dpi 10.1" PenTile screen that is in development at Samsung. So here's to hoping that when a PenTile screen gets to 300dpi, the offset sub-pixels wont be noticeable anymore.