Display Technology Series on Twitter

I've started a Display Technology series on Twitter with tweets designed to clear up lots of common misconceptions about display technology held by many and possibly most consumers, videophiles, techies, technicians, some reviewers, and even manufacturers. There are now 80 entries, which are short and to the point factoids. Many include links for additional information.

http://twitter.com/DisplayMate

OLED and LCD Displays in Android 2.0 and 2.1 Phones

amirm said:

Really, really good stuff Ray! I am still catching up with your recent articles . This one was of special interest as I was thinking of upgrading to HTC Incredible from my Motorola Droid phone: http://www.displaymate.com/Nexus_Droid_ShootOut.htm

I believe the Incredible also uses the same OLED display and hence will suffer the same poor faith as Nexus. Have you tested it to be know for sure?

I have read the reviews complaining about "hyped up" colors on the Incredible but didn't realize what they meant until I read your article above. Again, very well done.

Click to expand...

There are a number of issues:
1. ALL Android 2.1 phones have 16-bit color in the Gallery, which is the main photo viewer. For the Android browser, some phones have 16-bit color and others have 24-bit color. I took a lot of heat from the OLED Association and Samsung for saying this - they claimed I didn't know what I was doing - but Google to it's credit admitted to the problem in this link:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362605,00.asp

2. The scaling algorithm that is used to fit images to the native resolution of the display is awful in Android 2.1. See the screen shots. Note that the Droid photo is before the upgrade to 2.1. After upgrading it looks exactly like the Nexus One.
http://www.displaymate.com/Motorola_Droid_ShootOut.htm#Figure1

3. The Motorola Droid has a fabulous LCD display, better than most HDTVs in terms of color and gray scale accuracy. I gave it a DisplayMate Best Video Hardware Award. Hopefully Amir you haven't upgraded from Android 2.0 to 2.1, because that downgrades the display from 24-bit color to 16-bit color. See the screen shot comparisons:
http://www.displaymate.com/Motorola_Droid_ShootOut.htm#Upgrade

4. All of the OLED displays that I've seen are absolutely awful in terms of color and gray-scale accuracy because the color gamut is way too large, the gamma is very irregular, and the factory calibration is poor - there are major color tracking errors. Compare the OLED and LCD displays here:
http://www.displaymate.com/Nexus_Droid_ShootOut.htm

5. I added a Test and Evaluate Your Own Display Online feature to the articles. You can test both the photo viewer and browser for mobile displays, monitors, HDTVs, etc.
http://www.displaymate.com/Motorola_Droid_ShootOut.htm#Test

Steve Williams said:

Great stuff Ray

Interested to know if you have compared the Droid to the iPhone as you did above.

Click to expand...

Indirectly - I compare the Nexus One to the iPhone - iPhone wins but it has major shortcomings.
http://www.displaymate.com/Nexus_iPhone_ShootOut.htm

And I compare the Nexus One to the Droid - the Droid wins big time! So the Droid significantly outperforms the iPhone.
http://www.displaymate.com/Nexus_Droid_ShootOut.htm

The Droid under Android 2.0 is an outstanding display. But not so good under 2.1.

There are detailed individual articles for the Nexus One, iPhone 3GS and Motorola Droid:
http://www.displaymate.com/Nexus_One_ShootOut.htm
http://www.displaymate.com/iPhone_3GS_ShootOut.htm
http://www.displaymate.com/Motorola_Droid_ShootOut.htm