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I love everything about the Epic except the screen

zion168

Newbie
Sep 12, 2010
33
0
Keyboard, color, response, all are head and shoulder above the EVO, the screen however disappoints me. I set the Epic side by side with an EVO and opened up the same web page on both phones, small text on the AMOLED screen was unreadable for me while the EVO did it without issues. They both have the same resolution right? I believe the dotted screen overlay on the Epic may be reason for this.
 
It's because the Epic has a PenTile subpixel structure. Google if you need to, but the bottom line is that there are fewer actual dots (every other pixel shares a green). This causes the screen to be less sharp. I initially hated it, but I'm starting to get used to it (although it is nice being able to read the smaller fonts on my Evo, in the long run it's not doing my eyes any service, so I've gotten used to the larger fonts.)
 
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When I first saw these super AMOLED screens, I was bothered by the slightly blurrier small text...then I watched a video on it in the dark and was mesmerized by the inky blacks, color, contrast. I'm hooked now. After seeing the super AMOLED, my Droid looks washed out and lifeless. After seeing gray blacks for years on regular screens seeing the pure inky blacks of super AMOLED is shocking in a way. The perfect screen of course would combine the pixel density of the retina display with the colors and contrast of the super AMOLED.
 
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Go watch a 720p movie on your phone and after you change your underpants, come back in here and let us know how much you love the screen :p

Sure, the text is slightly difficult to read if you're zoomed out far enough for the pentile matrix to actually make it choppy... but for **** sake, zoom in a little :p The size at which it becomes unreadable is too small for comfort for me anyway.

This screen is amazing.
 
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I gotta agree, though. After viewing this through my 200x microscope, the screen is really shitty. Even watching movies is horrible. You can literally see every pixel like it was right in front of you!! I don't see how they can release phones with such an obvious defect.

;)

Really, though, I can read the text no matter how tiny it is with my 20/20 vision so you must have some microscope eyes. Are you an android? 'Cause I seriously wanna get some implants like those.
 
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Screen preference is a subjective thing.

If the SAMOLED screens were RGB instead of PenTile there would be no contest (though battery life would go to hell and the prices would rise), but they're not. I have RGB OLED panels on my work bench and they look much nicer than the PenTile stuff.

I have 20/10 vision and I can clearly see what amounts to a cheese-cloth or screen-door effect on the Epic's screen. I had to hold the phone at arms length (which isn't vaguely comfortable) to get away from that and it bothered me.

Sure, the SAMOLED panel is richer and more vibrant, but its not to everyone's taste. If the Epic had used an SLCD I'd have been less hesitant to purchase it. Particularly as this was one of the reasons I got rid of my Nexus 1.

Not sure what good watching a 720P movie on a display that is only just over 480P capable does ;) Contrast is excellent as are the black levels, but it's still not a 720P display so you're just wasting space there.

It didn't matter in the end; the Epic currently has multiple fatal flaws for me, and as we're half way through the initial return period with not so much as a peep out of Samsung or Sprint about any of them, it's becoming obvious that the cost of that screen is going to be a marginally functional phone.
 
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I gotta agree, though. After viewing this through my 200x microscope, the screen is really shitty. Even watching movies is horrible. You can literally see every pixel like it was right in front of you!! I don't see how they can release phones with such an obvious defect.

;)

Really, though, I can read the text no matter how tiny it is with my 20/20 vision so you must have some microscope eyes. Are you an android? 'Cause I seriously wanna get some implants like those.

Quite the contrary, I have bad eye sight (myopia and astigmatism) and the first thing I noticed about the Epic was the mash screen. If you can't see that it has inferior text clarity (why do I have to watch a movie if I want to read text?) as compared to other s-LCD of the SAME resolution at the SAME text size, do yourself a favor and see an optometrist. ;)
 
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I never see this "blueness" people talk about. My whites look white. At all brightness settings.

I have 15/20 vision. Things that are 20 feet away appear to me as if they were only 15 feet away, which is quite good. And the only way I can notice individual pixels is if I'm staring at a still background of solid white. Or if I concentrate really hard I can notice it. Any other time, everything just looks... amazing.

The only other display I think really compares is the iPhone4... but it gets disqualified due to being freakin tiny :p
 
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I never see this "blueness" people talk about. My whites look white. At all brightness settings.

I have 15/20 vision. Things that are 20 feet away appear to me as if they were only 15 feet away, which is quite good. And the only way I can notice individual pixels is if I'm staring at a still background of solid white. Or if I concentrate really hard I can notice it. Any other time, everything just looks... amazing.

The only other display I think really compares is the iPhone4... but it gets disqualified due to being freakin tiny :p

I think you mean 20/15 vision ;) Lower numbers on the right indicate better visual acuity!

I didn't get any of the blue-tinting either.

I think colors on the Epic are somewhat oversaturated, but pleasingly so (unlike the default setups on Samsung's TVs ... gaaah!).

Having gone back to the Evo until Samsung/Sprint get the Epic working properly (should I say if?) the Evos display is noticeably washed out. But text is sharper, and I find that a less irritating combination.

No question the Epic's screen is extremely good, but I'm never going to be sold on PenTile ... it's just a way to reduce power consumption and up yield until OLED starts to fulfill it's much-vaunted and not-yet-achieved benefits (okay, so it DOES have perfect black levels, but that's the only claimed benefit it's actually delivering today).
 
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HD video on a non-HD capable screen? /boggle

That's just wasting storage space ...

It's a great screen, but 720P it is not ...

You are correct. 720P = is a resolution of 1280x720 with progressive scan.

The "720" part only accounts for the 720 scan lines across... So Epic would be what 800? So in essence it would be greater than 720.

I don't know much about the type of scanning present, however I assume it is equal to if not greater than Progressive.

-Adrift

*edit* before anyone bashes my comment, I know you get a higher combined resolution in 1280x720, I'm just saying that just saying the number 720 is only refering to the scan lines across, which the epic has more of.
 
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Continuing my previous comment.

In actuality, the picture on the Epic might be even better than 720p, depending on the screen size you are viewing it on. If you had a 55in TV displaying 720p, it would look bad because you are stretching that resolution out across the dimensions of that screen. Where as you could have a smaller resolution displayed on the 4" screen of the Epic look better, becuse you have a more dense picture.

Someone would have to actually crunch numbers to find out which is better. 720p on a HDTV or whatever our resolution breaks down to across the 4" screen

idk... To my eyes, Avatar on the Vibrant looks better than 720p Avatar on my 55".

-Adrift.
 
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You are correct. 720P = is a resolution of 1280x720 with progressive scan.

The "720" part only accounts for the 720 scan lines across... So Epic would be what 800? So in essence it would be greater than 720.

I don't know much about the type of scanning present, however I assume it is equal to if not greater than Progressive.

-Adrift

*edit* before anyone bashes my comment, I know you get a higher combined resolution in 1280x720, I'm just saying that just saying the number 720 is only refering to the scan lines across, which the epic has more of.

No 720 lines is the vertical resolution ... and 1280 is the horizontal, so it presumes you'd be using the Epic in landscape orientation (or otherwise you are discarding 2/3 of the available resolution and hence data!).

There is no way to render that resolution on an Epic (or any other current phone) without scaling.

Any percieved increase in "quality" is down to perceptual increases in sharpness that occur when down-scaling any image from one resolution to another. There is NO ACTUAL increase in percieved resolution vs. the real equivalent resolution.

If you're running 720P sources on a 480P device (e.g. the Epic) you don't gain anything .. and 480P source material would look the same (unless your conversions are faulty).

Yes, of COURSE, 720P material seems sharper on a 4" display vs. a 55" ... that does NOT mean that your 4" display is doing you any more good at 720P than it is as 480P ... and 480P is ALL the Epic screen is good for.

ANYTHING more is wasted storage space.

Math doesn't lie!
 
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