tft display vs super amoled display free sample

Thanks for the display technology development, we have a lot of display choices for our smartphones, media players, TVs, laptops, tablets, digital cameras, and other such gadgets. The most display technologies we hear are LCD, TFT, OLED, LED, QLED, QNED, MicroLED, Mini LED etc. The following, we will focus on two of the most popular display technologies in the market: TFT Displays and Super AMOLED Displays.

TFT means Thin-Film Transistor. TFT is the variant of Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs). There are several types of TFT displays: TN (Twisted Nematic) based TFT display, IPS (In-Plane Switching) displays. As the former can’t compete with Super AMOLED in display quality, we will mainly focus on using IPS TFT displays.

OLED means Organic Light-Emitting Diode. There are also several types of OLED, PMOLED (Passive Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode) and AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode). It is the same reason that PMOLED can’t compete with IPS TFT displays. We pick the best in OLED displays: Super AMOLED to compete with the LCD best: IPS TFT Display.

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Steven Van Slyke and Ching Wan Tang pioneered the organic OLED at Eastman Kodak in 1979. The first OLED product was a display for a car stereo, commercialized by Pioneer in 1997. Kodak’s EasyShare LS633 digital camera, introduced in 2003, was the first consumer electronic product incorporating a full-color OLED display. The first television featuring an OLED display, produced by Sony, entered the market in 2008. Today, Samsung uses OLEDs in all of its smartphones, and LG manufactures large OLED screens for premium TVs. Other companies currently incorporating OLED technology include Apple, Google, Facebook, Motorola, Sony, HP, Panasonic, Konica, Lenovo, Huawei, BOE, Philips and Osram. The OLED display market is expected to grow to $57 billion in 2026.

AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode) is a type of OLED display device technology. OLED is a type of display technology in which organic material compounds form the electroluminescent material, and active matrix is the technology behind the addressing of individual pixels.

An AMOLED display consists of an active matrix of OLED pixels generating light (luminescence) upon electrical activation that have been deposited or integrated onto a thin-film transistor (TFT) array, which functions as a series of switches to control the current flowing to each individual pixel.

Typically, this continuous current flow is controlled by at least two TFTs at each pixel (to trigger the luminescence), with one TFT to start and stop the charging of a storage capacitor and the second to provide a voltage source at the level needed to create a constant current to the pixel, thereby eliminating the need for the very high currents required for PMOLED.

TFT backplane technology is crucial in the fabrication of AMOLED displays. In AMOLEDs, the two primary TFT backplane technologies, polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) and amorphous silicon (a-Si), are currently used offering the potential for directly fabricating the active-matrix backplanes at low temperatures (below 150 °C) onto flexible plastic substrates for producing flexible AMOLED displays. Brightness of AMOLED is determined by the strength of the electron current. The colors are controlled by the red, green and blue light emitting diodes.  It is easier to understand by thinking of each pixel is independently colored, mini-LED.

IPS technology is like an improvement on the traditional TFT LCD display module in the sense that it has the same basic structure, but with more enhanced features and more widespread usability compared with the older generation of TN type TFT screen (normally used for low-cost computer monitors). Actually, it is called super TFT.  IPS LCD display consists of the following high-end features. It has much wider viewing angles, more consistent, better color in all viewing directions, it has higher contrast, faster response time. But IPS screens are not perfect as their higher manufacturing cost compared with TN TFT LCD.

Utilizing an electrical charge that causes the liquid crystal material to change their molecular structure allowing various wavelengths of backlight to “pass-through”. The active matrix of the TFT display is in constant flux and changes or refreshes rapidly depending upon the incoming signal from the control device.

AMOLED and TFT are two types of display technology used in smartphones. AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) displays are made up of tiny organic light-emitting diodes, while TFT (Thin-Film Transistor) displays use inorganic thin-film transistors.

AMOLEDs are made from organic materials that emit light when an electric current is passed through them, while TFTs use a matrix of tiny transistors to control the flow of electricity to the display.

Refresh Rate: Another key difference between AMOLED and TFT displays is the refresh rate. The refresh rate is how often the image on the screen is updated. AMOLED screens have a higher refresh rate than TFT screens, which means that they can display images more quickly and smoothly.

Response Time: The response time is how long it takes for the pixels to change from one colour to another. AMOLED screens have a shorter response time than TFT screens..

Colour Accuracy/Display Quality: AMOLED screens are more accurate when it comes to displaying colours. This is because each pixel on an AMOLED screen emits its own light, which means that the colours are more pure and true to life. TFT screens, on the other hand, use a backlight to illuminate the pixels, which can cause the colours to appear washed out or less vibrant.

Viewing Angle: The viewing angle is the angle at which you can see the screen. AMOLED screens have a wider viewing angle than TFT screens, which means that you can see the screen from more angles without the colours looking distorted.

Power Consumption: One of the main advantages of AMOLED displays is that they consume less power than TFT displays. This is because the pixels on an AMOLED screen only light up when they need to, while the pixels on a TFT screen are always illuminated by the backlight.

Production Cost: AMOLED screens are more expensive to produce than TFT screens. This is because the manufacturing process for AMOLED screens is more complex, and the materials used are more expensive.

Availability: TFT screens are more widely available than AMOLED screens and have been around for longer. They are typically used in a variety of devices, ranging from phones to TVs.

Usage: AMOLED screens are typically used in devices where power consumption is a concern, such as phones and wearable devices. TFT screens are more commonly used in devices where image quality is a higher priority, such as TVs and monitors.

AMOLED and TFT are two different types of display technology. AMOLED displays are typically brighter and more vibrant, but they are more expensive to produce. TFT displays are cheaper to produce, but they are not as bright or power efficient as AMOLED displays.

The display technology that is best for you will depend on your needs and preferences. If you need a screen that is bright and vibrant, then an AMOLED display is a good choice. If you need a screen that is cheaper to produce, then a TFT display is a good choice. However, if you’re worried about image retention, then TFT may be a better option.

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Super AMOLED (S-AMOLED) and Super LCD (IPS-LCD) are two display types used in different kinds of electronics. The former is an improvement on OLED, while Super LCD is an advanced form of LCD.

All things considered, Super AMOLED is probably the better choice over Super LCD, assuming you have a choice, but it"s not quite as simple as that in every situation. Keep reading for more on how these display technologies differ and how to decide which is best for you.

S-AMOLED, a shortened version of Super AMOLED, stands for super active-matrix organic light-emitting diode. It"s a display type that uses organic materials to produce light for each pixel.

One component of Super AMOLED displays is that the layer that detects touch is embedded directly into the screen instead of existing as an entirely separate layer. This is what makes S-AMOLED different from AMOLED.

Super LCD is the same as IPS LCD, which stands forin-plane switching liquid crystal display. It"s the name given to an LCD screen that utilizes in-plane switching (IPS) panels. LCD screens use a backlight to produce light for all the pixels, and each pixel shutter can be turned off to affect its brightness.

There isn"t an easy answer as to which display is better when comparing Super AMOLED and IPS LCD. The two are similar in some ways but different in others, and it often comes down to opinion as to how one performs over the other in real-world scenarios.

However, there are some real differences between them that do determine how various aspects of the display works, which is an easy way to compare the hardware.

For example, one quick consideration is that you should choose S-AMOLED if you prefer deeper blacks and brighter colors because those areas are what makes AMOLED screens stand out. However, you might instead opt for Super LCD if you want sharper images and like to use your device outdoors.

S-AMOLED displays are much better at revealing dark black because each pixel that needs to be black can be true black since the light can be shut off for each pixel. This isn"t true with Super LCD screens since the backlight is still on even if some pixels need to be black, and this can affect the darkness of those areas of the screen.

What"s more is that since blacks can be truly black on Super AMOLED screens, the other colors are much more vibrant. When the pixels can be turned off completely to create black, the contrast ratio goes through the roof with AMOLED displays, since that ratio is the brightest whites the screen can produce against its darkest blacks.

However, since LCD screens have backlights, it sometimes appears as though the pixels are closer together, producing an overall sharper and more natural effect. AMOLED screens, when compared to LCD, might look over-saturated or unrealistic, and the whites might appear slightly yellow.

When using the screen outdoors in bright light, Super LCD is sometimes said to be easier to use, but S-AMOLED screens have fewer layers of glass and so reflect less light, so there isn"t really a clear-cut answer to how they compare in direct light.

Another consideration when comparing the color quality of a Super LCD screen with a Super AMOLED screen is that the AMOLED display slowly loses its vibrant color and saturation as the organic compounds break down, although this usually takes a very long time and even then might not be noticeable.

Without backlight hardware, and with the added bonus of only one screen carrying the touch and display components, the overall size of an S-AMOLED screen tends to be smaller than that of an IPS LCD screen.

This is one advantage that S-AMOLED displays have when it comes to smartphones in particular, since this technology can make them thinner than those that use IPS LCD.

Since IPS-LCD displays have a backlight that requires more power than a traditional LCD screen, devices that utilize those screens need more power than those that use S-AMOLED, which doesn"t need a backlight.

That said, since each pixel of a Super AMOLED display can be fine-tuned for each color requirement, power consumption can, in some situations, be higher than with Super LCD.

For example, playing a video with lots of black areas on an S-AMOLED display will save power compared to an IPS LCD screen since the pixels can be effectively shut off and then no light needs to be produced. On the other hand, displaying lots of color all day would most likely affect the Super AMOLED battery more than it would the device using the Super LCD screen.

An IPS LCD screen includes a backlight while S-AMOLED screens don"t, but they also have an additional layer that supports touch, whereas Super AMOLED displays have that built right into the screen.

For these reasons and others (like color quality and battery performance), it"s probably safe to say that S-AMOLED screens are more expensive to build, and so devices that use them are also more expensive than their LCD counterparts.

The quality of a mobile phone"s display is arguably the most important factor to consider when you establish a relationship with a handset. It"s inescapable, really. Whether you"re playing a rousing game of Robot Unicorn Attack or (regrettably) drunk-dialing an ex, it"s the one interface element that you"re consistently interacting with. It"s your window to the world and your canvas for creation, and if it"s lousy, it"s going to negatively influence everything you see and do. Today, we"re delving into the world of mobile displays, where we"re aiming to entertain and edify, and hopefully save you from making regrettable decisions -- when it comes to purchasing new phones, anyway.

In this edition of Primed, we"ll be examining the different qualities and underlying technologies of several displays, starting with the ubiquitous TFT-LCD and moving through the nascent realm of glasses-free 3D and beyond. We"ll also be addressing the importance of resolution and pixel density. Finally, we"ll be scoping out a handful of upcoming technologies -- while some are thoroughly intriguing, others are just plain wacky. Go ahead... buy the ticket, take the ride, and join us after the break. It"s Primed time.

Generally speaking, two display types rule today"s mobile phones: the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), and the Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED). While each technology carries a set of strengths and weaknesses, a very important distinction can be drawn between the two. The LCD uses the light modulating properties of liquid crystals (LCs), but LCs don"t emit light directly. As such, a light source is necessary for proper viewing. Conversely, the OLED uses organic compounds that illuminate when exposed to electric currents. As backlights aren"t necessary for OLEDs, they"re significantly thinner than traditional LCDs. All things equal, OLED phones should be slimmer than their LCD counterparts, but this isn"t always the case. Take for example the MEDIAS N-04C, which uses a TFT-LCD and measures 7.7mm thin, versus the Galaxy S II, which uses the latest Super AMOLED Plus display and is 8.5mm thick.

The most desirable phone displays today are variants of these two technologies. In the LCD camp, there"s the Super LCD (S-LCD) and the IPS display -- with the latter as the basis for the Retina Display and the NOVA display. Likewise, the OLED territory is filled with options such as Super AMOLED, Super AMOLED Plus and ClearBlack. We"ll discuss the important distinctions between these competing display types shortly, but first let"s develop a fundamental understanding of how these brilliant creations work and how they came to be.

Now let"s apply this knowledge to the modern TFT-LCD that you"re familiar with. It"s the basis for twisted nematic (TN) and in-plane switching (IPS) displays, and both technologies rely upon the thin film transistor (TFT) for the quick response time and image clarity that we take for granted. Fundamentally, the TFT is a matrix of capacitors and transistors that address the display pixel by pixel -- although at a blistering speed. Every pixel consists of three sub-pixels -- red, green and blue -- each with its own transistor, and a layer of insulated liquid crystals are sandwiched between conductive indium tin oxide layers. Shades are made possible by delivering a partial charge to the underlying LCs, which controls the amount of light that passes through the polarizing filter, thus regulating the intensity of each sub-pixel.

The most common LCD display is based on TN technology, which has been successful due to its relatively inexpensive production costs and fast refresh rates. Many of you will remember the shadow-trail that plagued early LCDs, and faster refresh rates reduce this effect and make the displays better suited for movies and games. Unfortunately, TN displays are famous for exhibiting poor viewing angles and most aren"t capable of showing the entire 24-bit sRGB color gamut. In attempt to mimic the full range of 16.7 million colors, many screens implement a form of dithering to simulate the proper shade. Basic TN screens are hardly fantastic, but they"re also good enough to survive the day without eliciting too many complaints.

IPS displays were created to resolve the long-standing problems of poor viewing angles and color reproduction of their TN counterparts. The fundamental difference between the two technologies is that liquid crystals run parallel to the panel rather than perpendicular. This alignment allows for wider viewing angles and more uniform colors, but at a loss of brightness and contrast. Traditionally, IPS panels were significantly more expensive than TN alternatives, but recent advances have lowered the production cost and improved the brightness and contrast issues. This technology is the basis for Apple"s Retina Display and the NOVA display -- both of which are manufactured by LG.

Another technology that"s gotten plenty of airtime is the Super LCD (S-LCD), which is a display that"s manufactured by a joint-venture between Sony and Samsung. It employs an alternate method to IPS and TN that"s known as super patterned vertical alignment (S-PVA). Here, the liquid crystals have varying orientations, which help colors remain uniform when viewed from greater angles. S-LCDs also feature improved contrast ratios over traditional TN displays, which exposes a greater amount of details in dark images. Further, these displays feature dual sub-pixels that selectively illuminate based on the brightness of the screen. As you can imagine, this provides power-saving benefits, along with refined control of colors on the screen.

Now, let"s take a look at OLEDs, which are a staple of many high-end phones today. As we"ve mentioned, these displays operate without a backlight. Instead, they use electroluminescent organic compounds that emit light when they"re exposed to an electric current. The main advantages of OLEDs include deeper black levels (because there"s no backlight), enhanced contrast ratios, and excellent viewing angles, while drawbacks include reduced brightness and colors that are often over-saturated. OLED screens also suffer an awkward aging effect, where the red, green and blue sub-pixels will deteriorate and lose efficiency at different rates, which causes brightness and color consistency to worsen over time. While improvements are being made, it"s important to understand that this display technology is still relatively immature.

You"re most likely familiar with the active-matrix OLED (AMOLED), which relies on a TFT backplane to switch individual pixels on and off. Coincidentally, active-matrix displays consume significantly less power than their passive-matrix OLED (PMOLED) counterparts, which makes them particularly well-suited for mobile devices. These displays are typically manufactured by printing electroluminescent materials onto a substrate, and that relatively simplistic process suggests that OLEDs will ultimately become cheaper and easier to manufacture than LCDs. Shockingly, the most challenging step is the creation of the substrate itself, which remains a difficult and expensive endeavor. Currently, the limited supply and high demand of AMOLED screens has restricted their availability, and you"re most likely to find them in high-end smartphones.

While all screens suffer from reduced visibility in direct sunlight, the original AMOLED screens were particularly vulnerable to this drawback. To resolve this, Samsung introduced the Super AMOLED display. With this new technology, the touch sensors were integrated into the screen itself. Naturally, this allowed for a thinner display, but this also improved brightness by eliminating the extra layer. Additionally, the screen"s reflection of ambient light and power consumption were significantly reduced. While colors were now bright and vibrant -- and acceptable in direct sunlight -- the displays still couldn"t match the crispness and clarity of LCD screens, particularly with respect to text. Samsung"s PenTile matrix is to blame, which is a hallmark of its AMOLED and Super AMOLED displays. Here, a single pixel is composed of two sub-pixels, either red and green, or blue and green, and the green sub-pixel is significantly more narrow than the other two. While the scheme works fine for images because the human eye is more sensitive to green, it makes the anti-aliasing of text rather imprecise, and the end result is a bit blurry. Like Super AMOLED, Nokia"s ClearBlack display was created to make the AMOLED screen more visible in direct sunlight. This was accomplished by adding a polarized filter to the display, which allows the viewer to see through the screen"s reflection and view the images as they would appear under more ideal conditions.

In its most recent incarnation, the Super AMOLED Plus features a traditional three sub-pixels of equal proportion within one pixel, along with an increased sub-pixel count and density. Both of these measures create a display that"s much more crisp, especially when it comes to text. Further, the tighter spacing between pixels results in better visibility under direct sunlight. The new Super AMOLED Plus screens are also thinner and brighter to boot.

By now, you"ve probably had the chance of viewing a glasses-free 3D screen for yourself. Whether you think the feature is cool, gimmicky or annoying -- or, all of the above -- it"s clear that autostereoscopic displays are moving into the mainstream. If you"ve ever wondered what makes this marvel possible, today is your lucky day. First, let"s start with stereoscopic imaging itself. This merely refers to a technique that creates an illusion of depth by presenting two offset images separately to the right and left eye of the viewer. Traditionally, glasses were required to complete the effect, but a creation known as the parallax barrier has done away with that. Essentially, it"s a layer of material placed atop the screen with precision slits that allows each eye to view a different set of pixels. As you"ve likely observed (or at least read about), you"re required to position the display at a very specific angle to properly view the 3D effect. Also, because the parallax barrier effectively blocks half the light emanating from the screen, the backlight is forced to shine twice as bright -- which really kills the battery. Granted, it"s an infant as technology goes, but researchers are already making refinements. For example, MIT"s HR3D is a promising project that touts better viewing angles, brightness and battery life -- largely by increasing the number and varying the orientation of the slits.

So far, we"ve discussed the underlying technologies of mobile displays, but these options are merely one factor for consideration as you select your next phone. Screen resolution is another very important topic, as it determines the amount of content that can be displayed at any given time. Many of you are likely aware of this, but the physical size of a screen conveys nothing about the content that it can display. For example, a 4.5-inch screen with an 800 x 480 resolution actually displays less information than a 3.5-inch screen with a 960 x 640 resolution. These numbers are simply measures of the physical number of pixels positioned vertically and horizontally across the screen. Taking it a step further, the 800 x 480 screen is capable of displaying 384,000 pixels worth of information, while the 960 x 640 screen is capable of displaying 614,400 pixels worth of information. Put simply, a low-res screen simply can"t convey the same amount of content as a high-res alternative.

The most common displays today are generally based around the Wide VGA (WVGA, 800 x 480) standard, and lower-res options include Half VGA (HVGA, 480 x 320) and Quarter VGA (QVGA, 320 x 240). Another variation of this is Full Wide VGA (FWVGA, 854 x 480), which is common to Motorola"s Droid family. Quarter HD (qHD) is an up-and-comer in the mobile industry, with a 960 x 540 resolution, which is one quarter the pixel count of full 1080 HD (1920 x 1080). Lest we not forget Apple"s Retina Display, which measures 960 x 640. As you"ve seen in our reviews, we"re particularly fond of high-res screens, and HVGA really is the minimum that you should accept when purchasing a new phone.

Another component of screen resolution is pixel density, which is the total number of pixels within a physical constraint. It"s calculated in pixels per inch (ppi), which is fundamentally a measure of how tightly pixels are squeezed together. This element was somewhat of an afterthought until Apple introduced the Retina Display, but it has important ramifications for the overall crispness of text and images. While the iPhone 3GS came with a 3.5-inch screen with an HVGA resolution, the iPhone 4 kept this same screen size yet boosted its resolution to 960 x 640. The result was a massive increase in pixel density, which grew from 163ppi in the iPhone 3GS to a staggering 326ppi with the iPhone 4. Of course, these numbers are merely academic until you examine the impact that a high pixel density has upon the overall legibility of small text and clarity of images. As you"d expect, other manufacturers aren"t letting Apple have all the fun in the pixel density war, and we"re seeing particularly exciting developments from Toshiba and Samsung (more on that a bit later).

If you"re interested in calculating pixel density for yourself, you"ll need to start by knowing the display size and screen resolution. From there, you"ll need to determine the diagonal resolution of the screen with a little help from our friend Pythagoras (famous for the Pythagorean theorem). For our purposes, his equation is best expressed as follows:

Now, take the diagonal resolution (in our case, 933 pixels), and divide that by the display size (4-inches). If you"ve done the math properly, you"ll see this particular display has a pixel density of 233ppi. While most smartphones on the market today feature perfectly acceptable pixel densities, this little tidbit could come in handy if you"re looking for the clearest possible display.

Now that we"ve examined display technologies and screen resolution, let"s take a brief moment to discuss touch screens, which are crucial elements for modern smartphones. The dominant touchscreen technology is known as capacitive touch, which receives feedback from your body"s ability to conduct electricity. When you place a finger on the display, the screen"s electrostatic field becomes distorted, and the change in capacitance is registered by the underlying sensor. From there, software is used to react to your input. The beautiful part about a capacitive touchscreen is its ability to register multiple points of contact at the same time, which enables multi-touch functionality such as pinch-to-zoom.

Another type of touchscreen on the market today is known as the resistive touchscreen. It"s generally less expensive to produce and responds to physical force. While there are multiple elements to a resistive screen, the most important are two electrically conductive layers that are separated by a narrow space. When you press on the display, the two layers come into contact with one another, which registers as a change in current. Unfortunately, these added layers reduce the overall brightness of the display and increase the amount of glare reflected from the screen. You"ll generally find resistive touch screens in lower-end smartphones because they don"t support multi-touch, although a few individuals appreciate its ability to receive input from a stylus, gloved fingers or fingernails.

Hopefully we"ve given you a solid overview of the current state of mobile displays, but as you"d expect in an industry that"s rapidly evolving, there"s plenty of exciting possibilities on the horizon. Here"s a few gems that are sure to whet your palate for the future.

Ortustech (a joint-venture between Casio Computer and Toppan Printing) has developed a 4.8-inch screen with full 1080p resolution and a stunning pixel density of 458ppi. While a touchscreen isn"t in the mix, manufacturers understand the appeal of full HD, and we"re seeing the industry continually advancing upon this holy grail. Likewise, Hitachi has announced a 4.5-inch IPS display with a 1280 x 720 resolution that supports glasses-free 3D to boot. Toshiba has introduced a 4-inch contender, also at 720p, with a stunning 367ppi resolution. Samsung isn"t resting on its laurels, either, and is working on mobile displays that will push between 300 and 400ppi -- by 2015, anyway. While this announcement was specifically for tablets, we know Sammy"s smartphones are bound to benefit.

Manufacturers are finding a new take on our mobile phones being a window to the world, as transparent displays are now coming into the fray. TDK began production of a see-through OLED earlier this year, and while we"d be shocked to see this novelty crop up in smartphones, it"s sure to give some added intrigue to the feature phone segment. Whether it can actually save SMS fiends from walking into oncoming traffic is still debatable.

If you find your current smartphone far too rigid, 2012 could be quite a milestone, as Samsung is readying flexible AMOLED displays for production next year. While we plan to see smartphones with large screens that can be folded into a smaller form -- a definite improvement over current hinge-based designs -- we"d love to see an outlandish solution that fully incorporates the flexible spirit.

Take one quick look at your smartphone"s power consumption and it"s painfully obvious that the display is the primary culprit. With projects such as Mirasol and E Ink Triton leading the way, we"re hoping to see a day when color "electronic ink" becomes useful for smartphones. In addition to requiring only a fraction of the power of its illuminated brethren, these displays offer full visibility in direct sunlight. Of course, the need for a light source is a given, and current refresh rates would make for lousy gaming and video playback, but these alternatives are getting better with each new announcement. For those needing maximum battery life at all costs, these displays can"t come soon enough.

It can be argued that the display on your smartphone is its most important feature, as it is the principle way in which you interact with your device. A poor display means a poor user experience. As with all tech, it is easy to spot an under-performer, however the differences between a good display and a truly excellent display are harder to discern.

Roughly speaking there are two main types of displays used in smartphones: LCD and LED. These two base technologies have been refined and tweaked to give us AMOLED and IPS LCD. The former stands for Active Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode, while the latter means In-Plane Switching Liquid Crystal Display.

All of this hasn’t gone unnoticed by the marketing people, which means that plain old AMOLED or regular IPS LCD aren’t the terms used in the marketing fluff. Instead, we have Super AMOLED, Dynamic AMOLED, Super LCD, Super Retina OLED, Super Retina XDR, Infinity Display, and so on. But what’s any of that actually mean?

The LED part of AMOLED stands for Light Emitting Diode. It’s the same tech as you find on many home appliances that show that the power is on with a little red light. An LED display takes this concept, shrinks it down, and arranges the LEDs in red, green, and blue clusters to create an individual pixel.

The O in AMOLED stands for organic. It refers to a series of thin organic material films placed between two conductors in each LED. These produce light when a current is applied.

Finally, the AM part in AMOLED stands for Active Matrix, rather than a passive matrix technology. In a passive matrix, a complex grid system is used to control individual pixels, where integrated circuits control a charge sent down each column or row. But this is rather slow and can be imprecise. Active Matrix systems attach a thin film transistor (TFT) and capacitor to each sub-pixel (i.e. red, green, or blue) LED. The upshot is that when a row and column is activated, the capacitor at the pixel can retain its charge in between refresh cycles, allowing for faster and more precise control.

The image above is a close-up shot of the AMOLED display on the Samsung Galaxy S8. The RGB triangular pattern is clearly shown. Towards the bottom of the image, the green and red LEDs are off and the blue LEDs are on only slightly. This is why AMOLED displays have deep blacks and good contrast.

Super AMOLED is a marketing term from Samsung. It means a display that incorporates the capacitive touchscreen right in the display, instead of it being a separate layer on top of the display. This makes the display thinner.

Dynamic AMOLED is another marketing term from Samsung. It denotes Samsung’s next-generation AMOLED display which includes HDR10+ certification. According to Samsung, Dynamic AMOLED also reduces the harmful blue light emitted from the display, which helps reduce eye strain and helps lessen sleep disturbances if you’re using your phone late in the day!

As for Infinity Display (or Infinity-O Display), it is more marketing from Samsung. It means “a near bezel-less, full-frontal, edge-to-edge” display. However, it is still a Super AMOLED unit.

LCD displays work with a backlight that shines through some polarizing filters, a crystal matrix, and some color filters. Liquid crystals untwist when an electric charge is applied to them, which affects the frequency of the light that can pass through. Since the crystals can be twisted to varying degrees depending on the voltage used, a display can be built when they are used with polarized panels. A grid of integrated circuits is then used to control each pixel, by sending a charge down into a specific row or column. Colors are created by the use of red, green, and blue filters, known as sub-pixels, which are then blended by varying degrees to produce different colors.

The above image is of an LCD display from a HUAWEI Mate 8. Notice how the pixels are made up of equally-sized sub-pixels, one for each of the colors: red, green, and blue.

Like Super AMOLED, a Super LCD display also incorporates the touchscreen. There is no “air gap” between the outer glass and the display element, which means it has similar benefits to Super AMOLED.

Samsung isn’t the only company that is good at marketing, there is another! Apple has coined the term “Retina” for its displays. The term was first used for its smartphones with the launch of the iPhone 4, as it offered a significantly greater pixel density (over 300 ppi) when compared to the iPhone 3GS. Later came Retina HD, which applies to iPhones with at least a 720p screen resolution.

All Retina and Retina HD displays on the iPhone are LCD IPS displays. However, things have changed a bit with the iPhone X as it features an AMOLED display, now marketed under the term Super Retina. It’s still an AMOLED display. It just has extra adjectives. With the launch of the iPhone 11 Pro, Apple coined the term Super Retina XDR. The XDR part means Extended Dynamic Range, as they have better contrast ratios and higher peak brightness.

Not all Retina displays use OLED. Although the MacBook Pro is marketed with a “Retina” display, as you can see from the magnified image above, it is a regular LCD, even if it uses the latest Apple silicon.

Both technologies can be used to build displays with 720p, 1080p, Quad HD, and 4K resolutions. And OEMs have made handsets that support HDR10 using both LCD and AMOLED displays. So from that point of view, there isn’t much difference between the two.

When it comes to color, we know that the blacks will be deeper and the contrast ratios higher on AMOLED displays. But, overall color accuracy can be high on both types of display.

One of the main weaknesses of AMOLED displays is the possibility of “burn-in”. This is the name given to a problem where a display suffers from permanent discoloration across parts of the panel. This may take the form of a text or image outline, fading of colors, or other noticeable patches or patterns on the display. The display still works as normal, but there’s a noticeable ghost image or discoloration that persists. It occurs as a result of the different life spans between the red, green, and blue LED sub-pixels used in OLED panels.

Blue LEDs have significantly lower luminous efficiency than red or green pixels, which means that they need to be driven at a higher current. Higher currents cause the pixels to degrade faster. Therefore, an OLED display’s color doesn’t degrade evenly, so it will eventually lean towards a red/green tint (unless the blue sub-pixel is made larger, as you can see in the first image in this post). If one part of the panel spends a lot of time displaying a blue or white image, the blue pixels in this area will degrade faster than in other areas.

The theoretical lifespan of an AMOLED display is several years, even when used for 12 hours a day. However, there is anecdotal evidence that some displays suffer from burn-in quicker than others. Displays that show signs of burn-in after only a few months should be considered defective because they certainly aren’t normal.

Picking a winner can be hard as there are many factors to consider, not only about the display technologies but also about the other components in a handset. For example, if you are an AMOLED fan, then would you consider a device with large storage and a good processor, but with an LCD display? The same argument works the other way for LCD fans. Generally, you’ll be fine with either display type, so just pick the handset you like.

Higher-end devices typically sport AMOLED displays and mid-range/budget devices usually use LCD. But that isn’t set in concrete as there are plenty of high-end devices that have LCD displays. With OLED production costs dropping dramatically in recent years, more and more budget options will be offering OLED panels in the future.

What do you think? AMOLED or LCD? What about the terms like Retina vs Infinity Display? Are they meaningful to you? Please let me know in the comments below.

These days you really only have two choices of screens when you are buying a smartphone or tablet: LCD or AMOLED. Many of you probably can’t tell the difference between the two screen types, but both technologies have inherent strengths and weaknesses. LCD has been around for a while, but AMOLED phones are gaining popularity thanks to Samsung and other manufacturers. There isn’t a clear winner at this point in time, so here’s a look at both.

LCD, Liquid Crystal Display, has been a part of our lives for years now. Besides mobile devices, we see LCD screens being used with almost every computer monitor, and in the majority of TVs. While these screens are made of wondrous liquid crystals, they also require a couple panes of glass, and a light source. LCD screens produce some of the most realistic colors you can find on a screen, but might not offer as wide of a contrast ratio (darker darks and brighter brights) as an AMOLED screen.

Some common terms you will find associated with LCD displays are TFT and IPS. TFT stands for Thin Film Transistor, which makes the wiring of LCD screens more efficient by reducing the number of electrodes per pixel. One benefit of TFT displays is an improved image quality over standard LCD screens. Another popular LCD technology is In-Plane Switching, or IPS, which improves upon TFT by offering much wider viewing angles and color reproduction on LCD screens. IPS screens are able to achieve this by keeping all the liquid crystals parallel to the screen. IPS is generally preferable to standard TFT.

AMOLED, Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode, technology has grown in popularity in recent years, particularly among Samsung products. AMOLED screens consist of a thin layer of organic polymers that light up when zapped with an electric current. Due to this simple construction, AMOLED screens can be extremely thin and do not require a backlight. The benefit of losing a backlight is readily apparent: these screens are able to produce blacks so deep that the screen pixels can shut right off. Shutting off pixels can also save electricity and battery life in phones and tablets. Just keep your backgrounds close to black and you’ll save energy.

Sometimes when you read about AMOLED screens, you might hear people complaining about something called a “pentile” display. This is a feature of most color AMOLED screens. Instead of having just a single red, blue, and green sub pixel per actual pixel, pentile displays have a RGBG sub pixel layout which has two green sub pixels for each red and blue. The positive of this technology is that you are able to create a screen that is just as bright as normal screens with one third the amount of sub pixels. The negative of pentile screens is that they can appear grainy, or appear to be lower resolution due to the larger, more visible sub pixels. For a while, Samsung begun using a display type called Super AMOLED Plus, which does not use a pentile sub pixel layout and also improves viewability in direct sunlight — traditionally a weakness for AMOLED. Samsung equipped the Galaxy S II with a Super AMOLED plus screen, but then reverted back to Super AMOLED screens for the Galaxy S III, citing screen life as the reason for the switch.

There are pros and cons for each type of screen, and both screen technologies can produce vivid, beautiful displays. The only way to know for sure if the screen on your future device will satisfy you is to try it out for yourself. You will be able to easily see if the screen viewing angles, contrast ratio, and color reproduction will fit your needs after using the phone for just a few minutes.

OLED displays are commonplace on all high-end phones, tablets, smartwatches, televisions, and even many of the many budget phones. However, there isn"t one type of OLED technology. Depending on your device, you may have an OLED, AMOLED, or POLED display.

OLED promises inky blacks, high contrast, low response times, and incredible brightness. There are a few downsides (primarily the burn-in phenomenon), but overall it"s the best screen technology you"ll find. We explain the background behind the acronyms, the difference between POLED and AMOLED, and which is better, helping you choose the right phone.

Every OLED screen comprises millions of diodes, hence the name organic light-emitting diode. Viewed under a microscope, each screen consists of a series of red, green, and blue diodes that can be individually turned on and off. Behind this, the light-emitting pixels of an OLED display emit blue and yellow light. The yellow and blue light combine to form white light, passing through the red, green, and blue subpixels to produce a single pixel. Because each pixel handles its light and color, OLED displays do not need a separate backlight.

As an OLED screen doesn"t need a backlight, black is produced by turning off the pixels, resulting in deep, consistent blacks. This allows manufacturers to implement things like an always-on display without quickly burning through battery life.

Another critical advantage of OLED tech is high contrast ratios. Technically, OLED displays offer "infinite contrast," or 1,000,000:1 contrast ratios. This is because OLED displays reproduce black by turning off pixels entirely, and contrast is measured by comparing the brightest part of the screen to the darkest part. Improved contrast makes on-screen content more vivid and makes bright highlights look more impressive. This also means that OLED screens can reach higher brightness than the best IPS LCD screens.

OLED displays can display more colors with greater color accuracy than their LCD peers. This is great for photographers and videographers using their phones to preview, edit, and create content.

OLED displays have near-instantaneous pixel response times. Older LCD screens often have lower response times because to change from one color to another, they must physically change the orientation of a liquid crystal, which takes time. An OLED display turns a subpixel on or off with an electrical charge, giving them a faster pixel response time.

The omission of a separate backlight and the use of fewer components means OLED displays can be thinner than LCDs, making them more versatile in their applications. This means they are more fragile and prone to damage in high-impact or high-stress situations. Engineers combat this by using technologies like Gorilla Glass and robust metal frames. Mitigation strategies like these raise the cost of OLED screens.

OLED displays can also be transparent, depending on the materials used. Transparent displays are helpful for in-display fingerprint readers and under-display cameras, which allow manufacturers to design smartphones with fewer and smaller bezels, notches, and display cutouts. When notches and cutouts are necessary, OLED displays have more even brightness around those cutouts and notches compared with LCDs, where the backlight has to make it around the cutout, and things get a little messy.

Of particular import to smartphones, OLED displays often consume less power, especially when displaying dark images or UI elements, thanks to the pixel-level regulation of brightness. However, at max brightness, an OLED screen usually uses more power than an equivalent LCD.

As with any new technology, OLED tech is not without its flaws.OLED displays are prone to degradation from age and UV exposure, resulting from the organic nature of the molecules that make up the diodes. The organic nature of OLED displays also leads to a phenomenon called screen burn-in, where static UI elements like menus, navigation bars, and status bars (elements that are on-screen for long periods) leave a permanent ghost image, even when they are not displayed. However, burn-in has been somewhat mitigated by pixel shifting and technological advancements in recent years.

Early OLED screens placed all the organic materials on a glass substrate. However, glass is rigid, so a flexible plastic substrate is needed to create foldable display screens, leading to the creation of POLED screens.

POLED (polymer organic light-emitting diode) offers advantages in terms of durability and versatility. The replacement ofglass substrates with plastic ones makes them more shock-resistant. Another unique advantage is in the implementation. Designers can reduce bezel size by folding the electronics underneath an edge of the display instead of having it be on the same plane. POLED displays are also significantly thinner than OLED displays with glass substrates.

Note the difference between P OLED and pOLED. pOLED is the trademark that LG Display uses to brand its plastic OLED displays. It produces these displays for a variety of applications and companies. Google used pOLED displays on the Pixel 2 XL, LG used them on theLG Velvet and several wearables,and Apple reportedly used LG pOLED displays on some Apple Watch models. LG"s pOLED displays seem to suffer from an increased risk of burn-in, as users of the Google Pixel 2 XL complained of burn-in after a few months of use.

To get to the resolution and size of a phone, an AMOLED screen (active matrix organic light emitting diode) is needed. Older, passive matrix OLED displays (PMOLED) require higher voltages for higher pixels/resolutions. The higher the voltage, the lower the screen"s lifetime.

Thin-film transistor (TFT) arrays used in modern active-matrix OLED displays control the charging of the display"s storage capacitors. These TFTs control current flow, resulting in more energy-efficient OLED panels than PMOLED displays. This allows a larger display size without compromising resolution, lifetime, or power consumption.

QLED isn"t related to OLED displays—despite what the name may suggest—but it"s often slated as a competitor to OLED, and it aims to replace the technology by targeting both OLED"s successes and failures. QLED stands for quantum dot light-emitting diode. The core principle of QLED technology is the same as a regular OLED. A backlight is passed through red, green, and blue subpixel layers to generate an image. However, the backlight isn"t one large, uniformly-lit layer. Instead, QLED displays use an array of tiny individually-controlled LEDs to supply the backlight. Using individually-controlled LEDs means the display can produce a more accurate image with a higher contrast.

Generally speaking, QLED displays have similar benefits to OLED displays—high peak brightness, high contrast, perfect blacks, and good saturation. Still, they lack some OLED advantages, like image retention and reduced overall and sustained brightness.

QLED is found in TVs and large computer monitors because that"s where it sees the most benefit. OLED displays in phones are small enough, bright enough, and cheap enough that QLED wouldn"t be able to compete or offer any practical benefit to the end user.

Display type is only one part of the puzzle.What use is exotic technology if it doesn"t make any difference to the end user? Smartphone manufacturers use many approaches to improve their displays. Let"s look at a few things you should look for apart from the display type.

Resolution is the number of pixels a screen has. It is usually written as a ratio: pixels on the long side by pixels on the short side, for example, 1920 x 1080. Most smartphone displays have a resolution between 720p (1280 x 720) on the low-end and 4k (3480 x 2160) on some Sony models. While 4k is excessive and rare for anything under 15 inches, 720p, 1080p, and 1440p are all common smartphone resolutions.

The ideal smartphone screen resolution depends on the screen size. A metric called pixels per inch (PPI) describes the display"s number of pixels in a vertical or horizontal inch. For a 6-inch display, you should aim for at least 1080p or above 350 PPI. This will ensure that the text is crisp.

A subpixel is one of the light-emitting parts of a pixel—in the case of most displays, these are red, blue, and green—that combine in different quantities to display various colors in an image. Although RGB subpixel layouts have been the prevalent option for a long time, some display manufacturers elect to use subpixel arrangements like BGR, PenTile, RGBG, and WRGB. The reason these subpixel layouts exist is to combat the various shortcomings of the display technology.

As with resolution, the subpixel layout can affect perceived image quality. Over the brief course of display history, manufacturers and designers have settled on RGB as a standard, meaning content is generally optimized for that layout. When manufacturers decided to invent new subpixel layouts, the perceived quality took a bit of a hit.

So why do manufacturers use odd-pixel layouts? It depends on the manufacturer and its goals. Samsung uses PenTile displays, which use RGBG instead of RGB subpixels, to combat image retention on its AMOLED displays. WRGB displays add a separate white subpixel to boost brightness on OLED displays—a technology that is otherwise notoriously dim.

Refresh rate is the number of times per second a display refreshes, and higher refresh rates mean motion and animations look smoother. Generally, 60Hz is the lowest commonly-found refresh rate and is perfectly serviceable. Many modern flagship phones and a few mid-range phonesoffer 90Hz, 120Hz, 144Hz, and even 240Hz displays.

Response times on OLED displays are generally lower, meaning displays can reach these high refresh rates and look better at these higher refresh rates thanks to the reduced ghosting.

Smartphones are often used outside in bright sunlight, so display brightness is a huge factor. Display brightness is measured in nits or cd/m². Peak brightness is the momentary maximum brightness of a small portion of a screen, while sustained brightness is a more realistic representation of the brightness of the whole display. Aim for above 600 nits of sustained brightness since anything below may cause legibility issues in bright conditions. On the other hand, brightness is measured logarithmically, not linearly, meaning 1,200 nits is only twice as bright as 300 nits. This is important since many manufacturers lean heavily on high brightness metrics as a marketing point.

Display specifications are no different. While it is true that OLED displays may be the best option for some people, they command a premium, and a lot of people wouldn"t notice the difference.

Brightness, refresh rate, and resolution are all key factors, and performance as a whole should be the determining factor in selecting a display, not the shiny new technology involved. If you"re looking for a phone with an OLED display and a high refresh rate, check out the best Android phones you can buy.

One of such trade-offs that buyers often have to bear is choosing between a higher refresh rate or an AMOLED panel. But which is more important for a better experience: a fast 120Hz LCD panel or a 60Hz AMOLED one? Let"s find out.

How fast a screen can refresh affects how well it can simulate motion. In other words, it makes animations appear more natural and fluid as opposed to laggy and jittery. Earlier, the standard refresh rate for smartphones used to be 60Hz. But ever since OnePlus popularized high refresh rate displays, they have become common in the tech industry.

Unlike a regular LCD, an AMOLED display provides more vivid image quality, consumes less power, and does a better job at reducing screen glare. This means that any content you consume on your phone—from games to movies to social media—will appear brighter and more colorful, all while saving your battery life.

Each pixel produces its own light on an AMOLED panel, unlike LCD or IPS panels that use a backlight to illuminate the screen. Because of this, the former can show darker colors and deep blacks more accurately since it can just turn a pixel off to represent an absence of light. On the latter, the same colors appear washed out or faded.

When using Dark Mode (or Night Mode) on an AMOLED panel, the workload of the display is reduced since a measurable portion of the screen is basically turned off. Only the pixels that show colors need to be illuminated, whereas the black pixels can remain shut off. As a result, you save battery life while viewing dark content on an AMOLED screen.

If you"re a gamer, a high refresh rate display will serve you better than an AMOLED one, making your gaming experience much smoother. However, note that the higher the refresh rate, the faster you will drain your battery. Also, keep in mind that many mobile games only support 60Hz, so the benefit of having a 90Hz or 120Hz screen may be redundant.

​​​​On the flip side, if you"re someone who consumes a lot of video content like movies, TV shows, YouTube videos, or TikTok clips, then having an AMOLED panel is clearly the better choice since it will improve the color accuracy and vividness dramatically.

As premium features become more common, they"re quickly making their way into budget phones. Having a high refresh rate AMOLED display is obviously better if you can find such a device in the budget category. But if you can"t, you have to trade one for the other.

Since budget phones come with weaker chips, the games you play may not always take advantage of that high refresh rate screen, making them a bit unnecessary apart from smoother scrolling of social media feeds. However, an AMOLED panel will continue to enrich your viewing experience no matter what.

Smartphone display technology hasn"t changed for a while. However, with the advent of high refresh rates, we now get a chance to experience a smoother scrolling experience than ever before.

But, your smartphone refreshing 90 times or even 120 times per second can take a hard toll on your battery life. That"s where LTPO display technology comes in. Here"s everything you need to know about LTPO displays.

LTPO stands for low-temperature polycrystalline oxide. However, the full name doesn"t reveal much about the technology. LTPO is a backplane technology for OLED displays that allows displays to change the refresh rate dynamically depending on various conditions. Conditions, in this case, refer to what the user is doing.

For instance, if you"re playing a highly intensive game like Call of Duty Mobile, your screen needs to keep up with the rapid motions. In that case, an LTPO display will crank the refresh rate up to meet your needs. When you stop gaming and start doing the usual mundane things like scrolling through social media, you don"t need higher refresh rates. The display will therefore reduce the refresh rate.

Its 120Hz 6.7-inch AMOLED panel dynamically refreshes between 1Hz and 120Hz. It uses the full 120Hz when doing active things and switches to 24Hz while watching videos. And if you"re viewing a photo or reading text, the display lowers the refresh rate further to 1Hz.

Typical AMOLED displays use low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) in the thin film transistors (TFTs), which make up the display"s backplane. On the other hand, LTPO AMOLED panels use a combination of LTPS TFTs to take care of switching circuits and a different material for driving the display. This is what enables LTPO panels to vary the refresh rate dynamically.

In the case of Apple, it uses LTPS TFTs in combination with Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide (IGZO) TFTs. Samsung also has its proprietary technology for LTPO AMOLED panels using a combination of LTPS TFTs and Hybrid-oxide and Polycrystalline silicon (HOP).

After high-refresh-rate smartphone displays became a reality, smartphone companies stumbled across one issue—reduced battery life. While smartphones typically have poor battery life, cranking up the refresh rate to 90Hz, 120Hz, or even 144Hz means that screen time takes a beating.

Companies came up with LTPO technology to solve this problem by variably changing the refresh rate. As you might expect, high refresh rates consume more battery, and lower numbers translate to less battery use. By dynamically changing the refresh rate, OLED displays cut down power consumption.

In short, LTPO AMOLED panels are better than AMOLED. When shopping for a flagship phone, you"ll notice that some have AMOLED displays while others have LTPO AMOLED displays. It isn"t the same thing.

Although AMOLED panels are more power-efficient than their LCD counterparts, slapping a high refresh rate on top takes a toll on their efficiency. LTPO is an improvement to this, and it allows AMOLED panels to use high refresh rates and still be power efficient.

LTPO is a backplane technology for AMOLED which helps the best screen technology unlock a new capability of refreshing your display dynamically. That helps companies incorporate high refresh rate displays without compromising on battery life.

That"s all well and good, but it does come at a cost. In 2022, LTPO AMOLED displays still live in the premium segment of the smartphone market. However, as with all other newer technologies, it should trickle down to the rest of the market with time. But LTPO is not just available on smartphones. You"ll also find it in Apple"s Watch Series 5 and later.

Some tablets and smartphones ship with an AMOLED display. Newer ones are shipping with a "Super AMOLED" display. What so super about it, and what does all this alphabet soup even mean?

The short version is that a Super AMOLED touchscreen display integrates touch sensors with the glass surface panel, eliminating at least one layer of glass and with it, a layer of air. That"s what makes Super AMOLED super. Only Samsung makes it.

I said "at least one layer of glass" because AMOLED itself eliminates at least one layer in a display. The current Galaxy Tab, for example, uses a TFT-LCD (Thin-Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Display) screen. Until very recently, TFT-LCD has been the state of the art in thin color displays and is still the only cost-effective option in the vast majority of displays larger than a smartphone screen.

TFT-LCD has approximately four layers: a backlight, a TFT color filter, a touch-sensor panel, and an outer glass screen. AMOLED (Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode) eliminates the separate backlight. AMOLED, however, is known for having problems with glare and readability in direct sunlight, even relative to average LCD screens. By minimizing the number of reflective surfaces and power necessary to achieve vivid color, Super AMOLED was designed in part to address this.

Samsung introduced Super AMOLED to commercial devices this year with the Samsung Wave, which ran their own Bada OS. The Android-powered Samsung Galaxy series of smartphones made the displays popular, and it"s since appeared on Samsung"s Windows Phone 7 handsets as well.

There are other advanced color technologies in the market, all of them super, and all of them extra-expensive: Super LCD recently joined Super IPS and Advanced Super View. But only Super AMOLED has really captured the popular imagination.

A 7-inch Android tablet with an AMOLED display would probably be a serious advance over its current LCD screen. But if it"s "just" AMOLED, something about it would just seem ... less than super.