Maybe an odd question for XDA, but a question I need answered before I pull the trigger on this phone. Earlier this year while buying a new television set, I learned that I am amongst a small minority of people who are sensitive to LED-lit electronic displays that use pulse width modulation to control brightness. Apparently, I can look at a PWM CCFL-backlit (i.e. my 5-year-old computer monitor or my Nexus 5) screen or a DCM LED-backlit screen (my television set) for hours with no issue whatsoever but I can only focus on a PWM LED-lit screen briefly before I start experiencing symptoms of eyestrain and motion sickness. It's like looking at a CRT that flickers because the refresh rate is set too low. Now I know an AMOLED lacks a backlight layer, but it still has to adjust for brightness, so if it uses PWM to do so, then I have to presume it will cause the subtle flicker leading to the same problems that I've experienced with LED-LCD displays. Is there anyone here who could possibly shed some light (no pun intended) on this issue?
LED's are on/off only devices, so in order to have a "dim" LED, PWM is a requirement. The rate at which PWM is done can vary, so it may still be fast enough for you to not notice it. If you are sensitive, your best bet is to stop at a Verizon store and check out a running demo (call around first though, some stores only have "dummy" display models), or ask to look at the display of someone who has one locally. Checking it out on Verizon doesn't mean you are obligated to buy from them.
It does use PWM. I saw in some videos.
LED backlit without PWM exists. See Macbook Pro, iPad, some Surface devices, LG V10/V20. AMOLED without PWM is more rare.
It's kind of a head scratcher. I compared it with my 3T and is pretty noticeable as on the 3t the colors are better. Was it to keep cost down?
Screen on time is much better than amoled when viewing mostly white content such as web pages.
Amoled tends to over saturate colours, lcd is more subdued but also more natural looking.
Rgb matrix gives better sharpness than the pentile matrix typically used in amoled screens.
Possible issues securing sufficient quantities if amoled panels.
Mate 9 screen is also brighter.
My last three daily drivers were the Note 7, Oneplus 3 and s7. There's definite advantages to amoled but there's advantages to lcd as well. Personally I have no complaints, Huawei have used a very high quality ips panel, so I'd be surprised if cost was the main motivator.
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Exactly. People tend to hear AMOLED and think it's clear cut. It's not. Each tech has its own pros and cons.
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I forgot to mention screen burn in - a problem that lcd panels don't face and which they still can't solve for amoled.
The screen on the Mate 9 is gorgeous, I've caught myself just staring at it a few times. Not once have I felt like it is a downgrade from the s7, and the s7 is a better panel than what the Oneplus has.
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hackdrag0n said:
Screen on time is much better than amoled when viewing mostly white content such as web pages.
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Tell that to LG. Their phones are LCD yet have terrible battery life. Yet my Pixel XL and Samsung phones have had much better battery life despite using AMOLED... so this is not necessarily true.
hackdrag0n said:
Amoled tends to over saturate colours, lcd is more subdued but also more natural looking.
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Again, color calibration/saturation has NOTHING to do with screen tech. The manufacturer sets the color calibration/target. The Mate 9 IS OVER SATURATED. Not as much as most AMOLED phones, but it is not calibrated to sRGB by ANY means. AMOLED phones have typically over saturated because AMOLED has had much higher color coverage capability, and it was a strong selling point. I dislike over saturated colors, but love AMOLED when it is set to a reasonable target (sRGB or Adobe RGB). Contrast is extremely important for image quality, ESPECIALLY in dark viewing conditions. Fast pixel response time is hugely important for a smartphone to maintain a "clean" looking display when scrolling. The Mate 9 LCD is one of the worst I've seen. It has bad ghosting and/or overshoot artifacting which makes the problem even worse.
hackdrag0n said:
Rgb matrix gives better sharpness than the pentile matrix typically used in amoled screens.
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This is true. Maybe Samsung will bring back RGB for the S8. They used to have RGB AMOLED in older phones at one point, you know?
hackdrag0n said:
Mate 9 screen is also brighter.
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Not true. Samsung panels have high brightness modes under sunlight and other bright light sources. I can trigger this mode whenever I want using root and a kernel. My Pixel XL is brighter than my Mate 9.
Governa said:
Exactly. People tend to hear AMOLED and think it's clear cut. It's not. Each tech has its own pros and cons.
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It is clear cut. AMOLED is superior. It's why I spent nearly $6,000 for TWO TV's in my house that are AMOLED. The quality is mind blowing on a large screen, and once you realize its benefits there, you will never want an LCD again... even on your smartphone. At least that's the case with me. It's also why Apple is going for AMOLED with the iPhone 8... because they know it's better.
No, it's your opinion that amoled is superior. It's not a hard fact.
I'm also not sure how your pixel can be brighter when review sites have it listed at under 400 nits and the Mate 9 is listed at over 600.
Actually, I'll rephrase that: if contrast ratio is the most important factor to you then yes amoled is a must. Other than that I still maintain that there are still areas where lcd has advantages.
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There are a lot of misconceptions about display technology.
As mentioned they each have advantages and disadvantages.
LCD has a very flat power consumption due to the fact that it's essentially white LEDs shining through color filters whereas AMOLED consist of individual pixels that combine to create color meaning that each LED will vary in consumption according to what is displayed meaning white requires all of them to shine at maximum to create white which is why AMOLED uses more power in that situation and no power when displaying pure black. LG has somewhat solved that on their TVs because they use 4 sub pixels: RGBW. They therefore create white separately and can save power that way.
AMOLED is only oversaturated because it is naturally a wide gamut display. When uncalibrated it will look oversaturated because all content is pretty much sRGB which is a limited color space. Many manufacturers including Huawei don't bother calibrating their displays for accuracy.
Huawei most likely used LCD for the regular Mate 9 because no decent 6" AMOLED was available which explains why the Pro variant has a 5.5" display.
LCD has poor latencies which is also why the regular 9 doesn't support Daydream. OLED displays naturally has low latencies which is why all Daydream compatible phones are AMOLED.
AMOLED is more prone to burn-in and is also prone to display degradation due to each sub pixel aging at varying rates.
LCD displays have higher peak brightness and is therefore more easy to see in sunlight. On the other hand, AMOLED have individually controlled brightness meaning pure blacks can be attained (turning off pixels completely) whereas LCD have edge lit displays with poor control resulting in light bleeding and above-zero blacks resulting in grey-ish blacks because there will always be some light shining through. So the contrast is much greater and only limited by peak brightness on the AMOLED display.
AMOLED doesn't have RGB but RG-BG sub pixels resulting in some odd problems including potentially green tint and reduced display quality and sharpness. Pentile sucks but the yields are better I guess and it does have some advantages such as decreased power consumption.
Finally, an often overlooked issue: many modern LCD displays use voltage controlled display brightness regulation where all AMOLED displays use PWM. Why is this important? PWM can cause eye strain and headaches. Especially due to the low frequency of 240 Hz that many AMOLED displays use. Your eyes won't necessarily notice the flickering but they can be irritated by it anyway.
PS. Typed this on my phone... Should have switched to laptop. What a pain to do this write-up.
↑ now THAT is a great post. Kudos.
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hackdrag0n said:
No, it's your opinion that amoled is superior. It's not a hard fact.
I'm also not sure how your pixel can be brighter when review sites have it listed at under 400 nits and the Mate 9 is listed at over 600.
Actually, I'll rephrase that: if contrast ratio is the most important factor to you then yes amoled is a must. Other than that I still maintain that there are still areas where lcd has advantages.
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Look at the world of TV's. As is sits, LG's OLED TV's are the pinnacle of displays. They are the absolute best. No question, no contest, every quality review site agrees, as do the owners (myself included). I said the Pixel is brighter because I have enabled the Samsung panel brightness boost mode via root and a custom kernel - it acts just like the sunlight brightness boost on the S7/S7E, except I can enable it whenever I want. It is just as bright, if not brighter, than the Mate 9. The only advantage LCD has today is higher peak brightness, and that is only true in TV's since they have much larger backlights. Cellphones, AMOLED is actually much better in terms of outdoor viewing as tested by GSM Arena, due to a combination of peak brightness and lower reflectivity. Other than the potential for burn-in/image retention, there is zero benefit to an LCD in a cell phone.
Trixanity said:
LG has somewhat solved that on their TVs because they use 4 sub pixels: RGBW. They therefore create white separately and can save power that way.
Huawei most likely used LCD for the regular Mate 9 because no decent 6" AMOLED was available which explains why the Pro variant has a 5.5" display.
AMOLED is more prone to burn-in and is also prone to display degradation due to each sub pixel aging at varying rates.
AMOLED doesn't have RGB but RG-BG sub pixels resulting in some odd problems including potentially green tint and reduced display quality and sharpness. Pentile sucks but the yields are better I guess and it does have some advantages such as decreased power consumption.
Finally, an often overlooked issue: many modern LCD displays use voltage controlled display brightness regulation where all AMOLED displays use PWM. Why is this important? PWM can cause eye strain and headaches. Especially due to the low frequency of 240 Hz that many AMOLED displays use. Your eyes won't necessarily notice the flickering but they can be irritated by it anyway.
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Someone who actually knows something about AMOLED too on XDA! It's like finding a unicorn... just a few things to add...
LG does add a 4th white subpixel in their TV's, but it's moreso to increase peak brightness and not really save power. When display white, there are actually 3 subpixels turned on (I believe it's red, blue, and white) so it's not making much difference there... but it is certainly brighter because ALL the subpixels are WHITE subpixels (red, blue, and green have color filters), so having a white subpixel without a color filter eliminates brightness loss on those subpixels.
It blows my mind that Huawei couldn't get a decent ~6" AMOLED panel. Motorola did it for the Nexus 6. And hell, Samsung made them a custom 6.6" AMOLED display for the Honor Note 8! Oh well... maybe Samsung wanted less competition against the S8.
I will say that AMOLED phone panels have had a nasty tendency to burn-in. I can't say how the 2016 panels perform in normal usage (store burn-in is not a fair baseline), but it seems to improve every year. Neither of my 2016 LG OLED TV's show any burn-in, and 1 of them has been used as a PC monitor its entire time. I have taken a few steps to mitigate it (I hide icons behind browser windows, have the task bar set to auto-hide, and turn the brightness down slightly), but nothing major and it is perfectly fine. Image retention and uneven wear on the display is often confused with burn-in. For instance, the nav bar on my Pixel XL is clearly visible if I go fullscreen on a gray background (the most obvious color for burn/IR tests), but that is mostly because the black pixels there just never get used... so they're actually brighter, ever so slightly, than the rest of the screen. By running a manual compensation cycle when I'm not using the phone (such as white noise, or inverted colors), it mostly fixes the issue. That is an acceptable trade-off to me, especially considering the fact that the nav bar is always there. My TV's run black-screen compensation cycles automatically every 8 hours or so (after shutdown), so this is the nature of the beast.
True about the RG-BG pentile garbage. But that's Samsung's doing since they have terrible yields with full RGB. They did make at least 1 phone years ago that had true RGB AMOLED, and they marketed that specific feature too, literally telling customers how much sharper RGB is compared to pentile! - funny how they went away from it. Probably why their OLED TV division failed as well, since RGB AMOLED is clearly impossible to produce good yields right now, especially at larger sizes. I am hoping that the S8 brings back RGB AMOLED in the mobile world... rumors say it will.
AMOLED phone panels certainly do use PWM, but LG OLED TV's do not use PWM.
Nitemare3219 said:
Look at the world of TV's. As is sits, LG's OLED TV's are the pinnacle of displays. They are the absolute best. No question, no contest, every quality review site agrees, as do the owners (myself included). I said the Pixel is brighter because I have enabled the Samsung panel brightness boost mode via root and a custom kernel - it acts just like the sunlight brightness boost on the S7/S7E, except I can enable it whenever I want. It is just as bright, if not brighter, than the Mate 9. The only advantage LCD has today is higher peak brightness, and that is only true in TV's since they have much larger backlights. Cellphones, AMOLED is actually much better in terms of outdoor viewing as tested by GSM Arena, due to a combination of peak brightness and lower reflectivity. Other than the potential for burn-in/image retention, there is zero benefit to an LCD in a cell phone.
Someone who actually knows something about AMOLED too on XDA! It's like finding a unicorn... just a few things to add...
LG does add a 4th white subpixel in their TV's, but it's moreso to increase peak brightness and not really save power. When display white, there are actually 3 subpixels turned on (I believe it's red, blue, and white) so it's not making much difference there... but it is certainly brighter because ALL the subpixels are WHITE subpixels (red, blue, and green have color filters), so having a white subpixel without a color filter eliminates brightness loss on those subpixels.
It blows my mind that Huawei couldn't get a decent ~6" AMOLED panel. Motorola did it for the Nexus 6. And hell, Samsung made them a custom 6.6" AMOLED display for the Honor Note 8! Oh well... maybe Samsung wanted less competition against the S8.
I will say that AMOLED phone panels have had a nasty tendency to burn-in. I can't say how the 2016 panels perform in normal usage (store burn-in is not a fair baseline), but it seems to improve every year. Neither of my 2016 LG OLED TV's show any burn-in, and 1 of them has been used as a PC monitor its entire time. I have taken a few steps to mitigate it (I hide icons behind browser windows, have the task bar set to auto-hide, and turn the brightness down slightly), but nothing major and it is perfectly fine. Image retention and uneven wear on the display is often confused with burn-in. For instance, the nav bar on my Pixel XL is clearly visible if I go fullscreen on a gray background (the most obvious color for burn/IR tests), but that is mostly because the black pixels there just never get used... so they're actually brighter, ever so slightly, than the rest of the screen. By running a manual compensation cycle when I'm not using the phone (such as white noise, or inverted colors), it mostly fixes the issue. That is an acceptable trade-off to me, especially considering the fact that the nav bar is always there. My TV's run black-screen compensation cycles automatically every 8 hours or so (after shutdown), so this is the nature of the beast.
True about the RG-BG pentile garbage. But that's Samsung's doing since they have terrible yields with full RGB. They did make at least 1 phone years ago that had true RGB AMOLED, and they marketed that specific feature too, literally telling customers how much sharper RGB is compared to pentile! - funny how they went away from it. Probably why their OLED TV division failed as well, since RGB AMOLED is clearly impossible to produce good yields right now, especially at larger sizes. I am hoping that the S8 brings back RGB AMOLED in the mobile world... rumors say it will.
AMOLED phone panels certainly do use PWM, but LG OLED TV's do not use PWM.
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This is the first time I've been called a unicorn. I like it.
Thanks for the correction on the LG OLED TVs. I was under the impression they used the W-pixel to both produce higher brightness and reduce the added power consumption from going full tilt on each of the other pixels. I did not know they used filters like that actually. I thought they used similar tech to Samsung but apparently not But that also explains why their yields are so different.
About Pentile: that phone was the Samsung Galaxy S2 (coincidentally my first Android phone) - released in 2011. I guess the yields weren't good enough and at the same time they wanted to increase screen density. Maybe it made the yields plummet and then pushing towards HD and full HD made it unfeasible. The S2 had a 800x480 resolution by the way.
I'm hoping the S8 can do away with both Pentile and PWM. Then I'd probably buy it instantly but that's wishful thinking.
PWM is apparently used to avoid hue shifts which I suspect might be because of the Pentile arrangement but I'm not sure. I've not seen measurements on the S2 but I've heard anecdotal evidence that it was actually not using PWM.
It might also explain why LG doesn't use it on their TVs; that they simply don't have that problem with hue shifts because their panels are so different. I wish LG would get back in the OLED display game for smaller screens including phones, tablets, laptops and monitors. It would be so awesome with some competition.
By the way, interesting note on the peak brightness. Can the brightness boost be maintained indefinitely or does it dim after a while? I know LG had a booster on their recent LCDs (of all things) and it dimmed shortly after. One thing I should note that the Mate 9 reaches up to 700 nits and that's not limited to auto brightness like Samsung's is meaning that you can manually boost it to that at all times. The Pixel XL only manages 400 in the same scenario but if you can boost the peak brightness through a mod and keep it there (perhaps even without auto brightness?) then that's impressive especially if goes over 700. I do believe 700 nits is about as bright as you'll get on a smartphone LCD. The only reason we even need it is because of sunlight. 700 nits would be blinding to my eyes in any other scenario
If only they could invent a display that could switch between being emissive and reflective with few drawbacks - that would solve a lot of problems.
Edit: forgot to address the Huawei panel. Whether Huawei could get a 6" panel for the phone or not is uncertain. I'm just guessing; I have no sources to back that up but it seems to be the case that they couldn't find a panel that suited their needs. They probably also had a good deal with JDI since they've used their panels for some years and AMOLED was only just about to become the expected standard. We've long seen LCD being used by most manufacturers - it's only in the recent year or two that it has spread to other brands than Samsung. I mean Apple, LG, HTC, Sony and Huawei have all been using LCD either exclusively or primarily. That's about to change in the coming years.
I'm thinking the AMOLED panels they could get weren't up to the standard they were looking for. The LCD panel they used was pretty damn good although poorly calibrated. Although now that I think of it the reason the Pro is is 5.5" might be more to do with the requirement for a curved display which limits their options quite a bit. Also, keep in mind a custom display is expensive so producing a phone on the scale of a Mate 9 would probably limit them to off-the-shelf components to avoid gutting their profit margins. I'm sure they could have gotten any display they wanted if they were willing to pay the price.
With that being said: there are probably many reasons not to go AMOLED for the regular Mate 9 and all we can do is guess what their reasons are.
Trixanity said:
About Pentile: that phone was the Samsung Galaxy S2 (coincidentally my first Android phone) - released in 2011. I guess the yields weren't good enough and at the same time they wanted to increase screen density. Maybe it made the yields plummet and then pushing towards HD and full HD made it unfeasible. The S2 had a 800x480 resolution by the way.
I'm hoping the S8 can do away with both PenTile and PWM. Then I'd probably buy it instantly but that's wishful thinking.
PWM is apparently used to avoid hue shifts which I suspect might be because of the Pentile arrangement but I'm not sure. I've not seen measurements on the S2 but I've heard anecdotal evidence that it was actually not using PWM.
It might also explain why LG doesn't use it on their TVs; that they simply don't have that problem with hue shifts because their panels are so different.
By the way, interesting note on the peak brightness. Can the brightness boost be maintained indefinitely or does it dim after a while? I know LG had a booster on their recent LCDs (of all things) and it dimmed shortly after. One thing I should note that the Mate 9 reaches up to 700 nits and that's not limited to auto brightness like Samsung's is meaning that you can manually boost it to that at all times. The Pixel XL only manages 400 in the same scenario but if you can boost the peak brightness through a mod and keep it there (perhaps even without auto brightness?) then that's impressive especially if goes over 700. I do believe 700 nits is about as bright as you'll get on a smartphone LCD. The only reason we even need it is because of sunlight. 700 nits would be blinding to my eyes in any other scenario
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The S2... man, long time ago. They probably only managed RGB because of the low resolution and/or realized then just how bad the yields were.
I've never noticed PWM, so it's no issue for me. I believe the color hue shifts when viewing at an angle is actually because the display is pentile. LG's OLED TV's have mind blowing viewing angles - it is essentially perfect no matter where you view from in terms of color, AND the brightness does not decrease either like on an LCD - forgot to mention that too! LCD panels get much dimmer if you view off-axis... OLED do not.
As far as I know, the Pixel can maintain the brightness boost indefinitely. I have used it for upwards of 20 minutes or so before. I can manually enable it via widget, or have it set to function automatically as well. I'm not sure I want to test long periods of time though... there could be a downside to it over time (perhaps why Samsung does not allow it to be user enabled). I know LG's phones in the past have quickly turned down their peak brightness due to heat issues. I wonder if the Mate 9 could suffer from the same problem eventually? Probably not seeing as how Apple manages to have displays that bright as well without issue. I think LG's mobile division is just really, really lacking right now. Hopefully they bring OLED to their phones again soon (they've used P-OLED a few times, and I experienced it in their Watch Urbane LTE 2nd edition smartwatch, and that was fantastic).
Nitemare3219 said:
The S2... man, long time ago. They probably only managed RGB because of the low resolution and/or realized then just how bad the yields were.
I've never noticed PWM, so it's no issue for me. I believe the color hue shifts when viewing at an angle is actually because the display is pentile. LG's OLED TV's have mind blowing viewing angles - it is essentially perfect no matter where you view from in terms of color, AND the brightness does not decrease either like on an LCD - forgot to mention that too! LCD panels get much dimmer if you view off-axis... OLED do not.
As far as I know, the Pixel can maintain the brightness boost indefinitely. I have used it for upwards of 20 minutes or so before. I can manually enable it via widget, or have it set to function automatically as well. I'm not sure I want to test long periods of time though... there could be a downside to it over time (perhaps why Samsung does not allow it to be user enabled). I know LG's phones in the past have quickly turned down their peak brightness due to heat issues. I wonder if the Mate 9 could suffer from the same problem eventually? Probably not seeing as how Apple manages to have displays that bright as well without issue. I think LG's mobile division is just really, really lacking right now. Hopefully they bring OLED to their phones again soon (they've used P-OLED a few times, and I experienced it in their Watch Urbane LTE 2nd edition smartwatch, and that was fantastic).
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Just a heads up, I've added an edit to my previous post.
I wish I could afford an OLED TV One would be foolish not to pick up an LG OLED TV over any LCD display out there today (barring the price that is).
I don't think maintaining peak brightness is an issue unless you're standing out in direct sunlight all day with your phone. I mean you wouldn't switch to manual brightness and crank it up when you're inside. Most probably use auto brightness anyway and that means it won't be anywhere near the maximum unless you're outside. I'm sure it might reduce the lifespan of the LEDs or maybe increase the likelihood of a defect.
I was actually quite intrigued by LG's G Flex series (aka banana phone) which had a P-OLED display. It might be a bit gimmicky especially the 'self-healing' back cover but it looked different but it was plagued by poor sales and the second iteration was let down by the Snapdragon 810.
The G6 will have their new 18:9 (2:1 really) 5.7" LCD display. It will have 2880 x 1440 resolution. So not this time.
While beautiful, oled tv's are **** for gaming due to the horrendous input lag. They can also suffer from burn in. Oled/amoled may be the technology of the future if they sort the niggling issues. Right now lcd still has merits. Quantum dot might bring lcd to the fore again though, time will tell
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hackdrag0n said:
While beautiful, oled tv's are **** for gaming due to the horrendous input lag. They can also suffer from burn in. Oled/amoled may be the technology of the future if they sort the niggling issues. Right now lcd still has merits. Quantum dot might bring lcd to the fore again though, time will tell
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I doubt the input lag stems from the panel technology. Input lag is usually related to processing lag in the display controller and other IC. However they can achieve 1 ms response time and theoretically 100000 Hz refresh rate, so it has the potential to be the best gaming display technology ever.
As previously mentioned: what many consider burn-in is merely image retention which is very much reversible and it does continue to get better in that regard.
Trixanity said:
I doubt the input lag stems from the panel technology. Input lag is usually related to processing lag in the display controller and other IC. However they can achieve 1 ms response time and theoretically 100000 Hz refresh rate, so it has the potential to be the best gaming display technology ever.
As previously mentioned: what many consider burn-in is merely image retention which is very much reversible and it does continue to get better in that regard.
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Well "burn-in" is actually the leds "burning" so there is no way to recover them.
Lodix said:
Well "burn-in" is actually the leds "burning" so there is no way to recover them.
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That doesn't really refute what I said. That's merely an explanation for what burn-in is. What I said is that many think image retention is burn-in when they're two different things (or more accurately you could say that the symptoms are the same but the prognosis is different especially if given the right medication - so to speak). Image retention is reversible as I said.
Trixanity said:
That doesn't really refute what I said. That's merely an explanation for what burn-in is. What I said is that many think image retention is burn-in when they're two different things (or more accurately you could say that the symptoms are the same but the prognosis is different especially if given the right medication - so to speak). Image retention is reversible as I said.
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But the problem with oled panels is the burn-in, not the retention. Maybe this year they have manged to solve it someway since Apple is implementing it in their iPhones and people are very nitpicking with their devices.
PD: I am all over AMOLED panels, it is one of the reason why I got the 9 Pro.
I don't mind a quality 1080 panel. Huawei makes me rethink my love of AMOLED displays.
I personally don't see a major difference unless it's the newest Samsung flagship. Not a major change from my 6p or Nexus 6 but these weren't cream of the crop AMOLED displays.
I truly thought this would be the mate that got the qhd AMOLED especially after the honor note 8 that released not long before this one. Extremely happy with the LCD panel.
Last 2 LCD phones I used was LeEco s1 and lg v10. The s1 had a great LCD panel that look AMOLED. Lg v10 just looked washed out most of the time.
hackdrag0n said:
While beautiful, oled tv's are **** for gaming due to the horrendous input lag. They can also suffer from burn in. Oled/amoled may be the technology of the future if they sort the niggling issues. Right now lcd still has merits. Quantum dot might bring lcd to the fore again though, time will tell
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You're wrong. In 2015, yes they were ****. I had an EG9600 and it had about 50ms of input lag. I have 2 2016 TV's now, a C6 and a B6. The B6 just got an update and it does 28ms of input lag at 4:2:2, but close to 70ms at 4:4:4. The C6 does 34ms of input lag at either setting (4:2:2, or 4:4:4). The lag is NOT noticeable at all, and part of this is because the pixels respond instantly to new frames (<.1ms) whereas IPS and VA can take MANY milliseconds to update the pixels - some panels take dozens of milliseconds for a full transition for some colors. OLED is the fastest refresh for a panel today. My C6 has hundreds of hours of PC use ONLY, and has ZERO burn in... NONE.
Lodix said:
But the problem with oled panels is the burn-in, not the retention. Maybe this year they have manged to solve it someway since Apple is implementing it in their iPhones and people are very nitpicking with their devices.
PD: I am all over AMOLED panels, it is one of the reason why I got the 9 Pro.
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The problem is a lot of people mistake burn-in for image retention because they don't come back and check again later after viewing different content on the display for awhile. I will say that burn-in can be an issue for phones though, depending on how you use them/set them up. My friend's S5 has the keyboard ghosted/burned into the display. He must text a LOT or something. Blew my mind when I saw that.
hackdrag0n said:
While beautiful, oled tv's are **** for gaming due to the horrendous input lag.
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Not in Gaming/PC Mode on the most recent models. On the 2017 OLED the input lag is 21ms in virtually all situations.
Trixanity said:
I wish I could afford an OLED TV One would be foolish not to pick up an LG OLED TV over any LCD display out there today (barring the price that is).
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For pricing, you just have to wait until Black Friday for deals on the current year's models. That's the best time to buy a TV that will last you many years. Picked up the LG 65" C7P for $1900 last Fall. I wouldn't consider Samsung's QLED TV's over LG's RGBW OLED. However, there is the advantage of luminance. QLED have a higher luminance. Also keep in mind that although RGBW is not Pentile and doesn't suffer from inferior sub-resolution, you do lose color volume to an extent when using the higher levels of luminance (You'll be depending on the additional white sub-pixel). I'd say this is a fairly tertiary concern but could be important if you use the OLED in a bright living room. If using a dark room, there's absolutely no contest. Personally, I have the C7P in a living room and still completely satisfied. There's a reason why it's a champ on every review site. Oh and for reference, all the LG 2017 OLED have essentially the same panel irregardless of price.
Trixanity said:
About Pentile: that phone was the Samsung Galaxy S2 (coincidentally my first Android phone) - released in 2011. I guess the yields weren't good enough and at the same time they wanted to increase screen density. Maybe it made the yields plummet and then pushing towards HD and full HD made it unfeasible. The S2 had a 800x480 resolution by the way.
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The Samsung Galaxy Note II (2012) also had a Full RGB AMOLED Display (720P HD). That was the last time for phones. However, Samsung also still does Full RGB AMOLED for the larger 9.7" models in their premium lines of tablets (Galaxy Tab S2, Tab S3). Those have the same 4:3 resolution as the iPad (2048x1536). The 10.5" Galaxy Tab S has a 2560x1600 Full RGB AMOLED Display as well. I certainly hope Samsung turns away from Pentile sometime in the future, but I don't think they'll do so anytime soon for smartphones. However, there is some hope.
How is the LCD's black levels? Also at the lowest brightness.
SaladEsc said:
How is the LCD's black levels? Also at the lowest brightness.
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Hi. I got the device today and I'm fairly impressed with the black levels from this LCD display. Even with low brightness.
The panel, at least mine seems pretty homogeneous and viewing angles are good.
Ah, and I'm coming from an amoled screen (Samsung A71).
well thats brilliant and reassuring thanks Patoilo , I ordered mine a day ago and my context is as a movement and cognition impaired (light and sound sensitivity,reduced memory) disabled dude I keep inducing burn in on OLED displays after 1 year to 18 months AND the PWM brightness moderating method plus pentile subpixel arrangement all mess with my vision and comfort when trying to read. I was super excited to see this combination of 120hz, LCD, big battery etc - the physical size is the only draw back but its mitigated by the reliability of both the screen robustness (not going to burn in or discolor over time) and the fact this thing should last a long time even if I had to go to hospital halfway through it charging
Ill report back about the display when the phone arrives especially stuff like how pronounced any ghosting is at 120hz, how nice the 1080p+ clarity is now that im not on Pentile etc
Im very impressed with the display, coming from a oneplus3 oled, this display is so much better.
Colors are much more vibrant, black level is good and the display is massive in size.
Watching movies in 21:9 with the dual speaker is insane.
One think to note, with "dark mode" enabled it changes multiple colors like white to dark grey, yellow to dark orange etc. so dont keep that always enabled.
Today i was measuring s21 brightness in the store and was shocked i was getting 850lux readings (from s10+ sensor) meanwhile 12 pro max was showing 780 lux. I wanted to compare two phones next to eachother but guy says they cannot take the phones away from the table. Though, super lucky, the guy himself owned an s21(this is not a samsung store in case you missed) and lets me compare them side by side. I compare and s21 is noticably dimmer, very close to my s10+. Now im confused, i got brighter readings then why?
So i took his phone to the store s21 and there was a huge brightness difference. We updated both s21's and after letting them cool down (cuz they dim when hot) the results were still same. His s21 was nowhere near store s21's brightness. His s21 gave about 500lux reading meanwhile store one gave 850.
Take the numbers with a grain of salt since the sensor is s10+ and brightness reading changes depending on if you hold the measured device diagonal or straight.
But turns out review sites arent wrong. S21s manual brightness is rated at 400 nits which explains why its so close to my s10+(310) and so far from 12 pro max.(800) Meanwhile store s21 shows 800nits manually.
So if you were to buy it, you only get 400 nits manually. I suppose its a trick to make you believe the screen is super bright but its only in the store.
By enabling video enhancher and opening up youtube, guys s21 also goes up to 800nits, but only in that youtube app and video player (maybe one more thing i forgot too) Keep that in mind if you are shopping for a s21.
Edit: (in case you are curious, store s21 showed 800nits whetever auto brightness was on or off)
Firmware.
blackhawk said:
Firmware.
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We updated both phones to latest if thats what you mean.
But i saw a "display mode"( i am from turkey so dont know exact translation) in store s21 which said stuff like " dont turn this on/off if you arent autohorized. It does stuff like reset the phone regularly" and some bunch of other stuff. It wasnt written there but i suppose this brightness boost comes from that "display mode" or "exhibition mode"
Maybe another one of tricks in the Samsung bag of marketing tricks that they are notorious for.
Operating at or near full brightness with a OLED display is never a good idea though.
You can kill them fast like this especially in direct sunlight.
It's not just the OLEDs in the display, there are thousands of mosfets in there too and very little heat sinking capacity for all of them. The brighter it is, the more heat the display needs to dissipate.
A lot of that heat is dissipated through the front of display it's self.
blackhawk said:
Maybe another one of tricks in the Samsung bag of marketing tricks that they are notorious for.
Operating at or near full brightness with a OLED display is never a good idea though.
You can kill them fast like this especially in direct sunlight.
It's not just the OLEDs in the display, there are thousands of mosfets in there too and very little heat sinking capacity for all of them. The brighter it is, the more heat the display needs to dissipate.
A lot of that heat is dissipated through the front of display it's self.
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Yea but moderation is key. Not like we will use max all the time, but being able to go max whenever we desire is a good experience. Much better than feeling like your display could do better.(know from my s10+)
I think heat isnt much of a concern either since all displays dim when phone reaches a certain temeperature, automatically.
Besides, subpixels wont be max intensity all the time when watching vids or playing games so its not that bad.
As long as you dont blast max brightness 7/24 it should be fine imo
theblitz707 said:
Yea but moderation is key. Not like we will use max all the time, but being able to go max whenever we desire is a good experience. Much better than feeling like your display could do better.(know from my s10+)
I think heat isnt much of a concern either since all displays dim when phone reaches a certain temeperature, automatically.
Besides, subpixels wont be max intensity all the time when watching vids or playing games so its not that bad.
As long as you dont blast max brightness 7/24 it should be fine imo
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High energy blue OLEDs fail first... there already been people reporting "burn in" with OLED displays.
They have a finite lifespan; the brightest stars burn the shortest.
As for thermal throttling, sometimes it works other times things get cooked.
blackhawk said:
High energy blue OLEDs fail first... there already been people reporting "burn in" with OLED displays.
They have a finite lifespan; the brightest stars burn the shortest.
As for thermal throttling, sometimes it works other times things get cooked.
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Burn in could be a display lottery i guess. Of course oleds are very susceptible to it but i think it happening in 1-2 years is too fast unless like, someone uses it at max brightness for few hours every day with white navigation showing(very static). I guess ill have to see how my s10+ fares, so far no issues kind of a heavy user here.
I like the phone and really want to buy it. However, one thing that keeps me hesitant is PWM on this phone. It’s actually lower than P6 pro had https://9apps.ooo/
I would really appreciate to hear some feedback from those who bought it and use it 5+ hrs SOT daily.
How does the display feels on your eyes in general ? How your eyes feel after reading in complete darkness or candle light for a while ?
lanesmang said:
I like the phone and really want to buy it. However, one thing that keeps me hesitant is PWM on this phone. It’s actually lower than P6 pro had
I would really appreciate to hear some feedback from those who bought it and use it 5+ hrs SOT daily.
How does the display feels on your eyes in general ? How your eyes feel after reading in complete darkness or candle light for a while ?
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First, not sure what PWM is and as for how it affects people's eyes is relative to each person's eyes. Not to mention screen settings are customizable per each person's preferences
By PWM do you mean Pulse Width Modulation ? That should not be a problem on any display as long as you don't have extreme high speed eyes.
Maybe refresh rate but starting with 60 hz it also should be easy on eyes, besides you can use 120 hz which is extremely smooth.
As a "wake up early and play with phone" fella I do not have any problems with flickering light or refresh rate.
I haven't had any issues with this phone but I don't seem to be PWM sensitive anyway.
There is far far more to it than just the PWM frequency! The "common" thought on this is that the LEDs are ON for the ON phase of the PWM cycle, and OFF for the OFF phase, but this isn't actually the case because the circuitry and LED cells have *capacitance*, which basically means that they smooth out the pulses, allowing them to blend together and not actually flicker.
Yes, some really really crappy screens will flicker, but these aren't those. The PWM frequency set will account for the capacitance of the circuits.