difference between amoled and lcd display made in china

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When we purchase a new smartphone we go through a list of specifications that includes the processor, software, cameras, display type, battery, etc. The display of the smartphone is something which has always been a concern for people. And smartphone technology has advanced so much in the past decade that you get several display technology options to choose from.

Today, a smartphone is not just a means to send and receive calls and texts. It has become a general necessity, so choosing the right technology should be your main priority. Coming back to displays, as we said there are plenty of display types available right now.

Two of the main contenders for display technologies that are widely available are AMOLED and LCD. Here in this article, we will be comprising AMOLED vs LCD and find out which one is better for you.

Starting with the AMOLED first, it is a part of the OLED display technology but with some more advanced features. To completely know about it must understand its all three components. The first one is LED, “Light Emitting Diode”. Then we have “O” which stands for organic and makes the OLED.

It actually means that organic material is placed with two conductors in each LED, which helps to produce the light. And the “AM” in AMOLED means Active Matrix, it has the capability to increase the quality of a pixel.

The AMOLED display is similar to the OLED in various factors like high brightness and sharpness, better battery life, colour reproduction, etc. AMOLED display also has a thin film transistor, “TFT” that is attached to each LED with a capacitor.

TFT helps to operate all the pixels in an AMOLED display. This display might have a lot of positives but there are a few negatives too let’s point both of them out.

It comes with individual LEDs so, the pixels can be turned on and off individually. This will show you true black colours, as the pixels on the black part of the image will be turned off.

A major issue with these displays is of burning of pixels. After showing a specific image or colour for a longer period of time, the pixel can get burned. And if there is a problem with a single pixel it will affect the entire display.

Low outdoor visibility, usually the AMOLED Displays are quote not bright in direct sunlight and outdoor readability could be a problem for some devices but average screen brightness.

The LCD stands for “Liquid Crystal Display”, and this display produces colours a lot differently than AMOLED. LCD display uses a dedicated backlight for the light source rather than using individual LED components.

The LCD displays function pretty simply, a series of thin films, transparent mirrors, and some white LED lights that distributes lights across the back of the display.

As we have mentioned, an LCD display always requires a backlight and also a colour filter. The backlight must have to pass through a thin film transistor matrix and a polarizer. So, when you see it, the whole screen will be lit and only a fraction of light gets through. This is the key difference comparing AMOLED vs LCD and this is what differentiates these two display technologies.

The LCD displays are cheaper compared to the AMOLED as there is only one source of light which makes it easier to produce. Most budget smartphones also use LCD displays.

LCD displays have bright whites, the backlight emits lots of light through pixels which makes it easy to read in outdoors. It also shows the “Accurate True to Life” colours, which means it has the colours that reflect the objects of the real world more accurately than others.

LCDs also offer the best viewing angle. Although it may depend on the smartphone you have. But most high-quality LCD displays support great viewing angles without any colour distortion or colour shifting.

The LCD displays can never show the deep blacks like AMOLED. Due to the single backlight, it always has to illuminate the screen making it impossible to show the deep blacks.

The LCDs are also thicker than other displays because of the backlight as it needs more volume. So, LCD smartphones are mostly thicker than AMOLED ones.

Both of these display technologies have their own Pros and Cons. Taking them aside everything ends up with the user preferences as people might have different preferences among different colours and contrast profiles. However, a few factors might help you to decide which one fits perfectly for you.

Let’s start with the pricing. Most AMOLED display smartphones always cost more than an LCD smartphone. Although the trend is changing a bit. But still, if you want to get a good quality AMOLED display you have to go for the flagship devices.

The colors are also very sharp and vibrant with the AMOLED displays. And they look much better than any LCD display. The brightness is something where LCDs stood ahead of the AMOLED display. So using an LCD display outdoors gives much better results.

The last thing is battery consumption, and there is no one near the AMOLED displays in terms of battery. As of now, all smartphones feature a Dark Mode and most of the apps and UI are dark black with a black background. This dark UI on smartphones doesn’t require any other light, it gives the AMOLED displays a boost in battery performance.

Looking at all these factors and comparing AMOLED vs LCD displays, the AMOLED displays are certainly better than the LCDs. Also, the big display OEMs, like Samsung and LG are focusing more the OLED technologies for their future projects. So, it makes sense to look out for AMOLED displays. That being said, if we see further enhancements in the LCD technology in terms of battery efficiency and more, there is no point to cancel them at this moment.

Apart from processors, which we discussed in our recent article MediaTek vs Qualcomm: Which smartphone processor should you choose? another notable factor in choosing a smartphone can be the display. Because, to be honest, the display is where we see all the magic happen, so it got to be on our priority list. Most often, the resolution numbers are directly proportionate to the quality, but, the technology used for those pixels is often where most of us get bemused. If we take smartphones, the two major technologies used are AMOLED and LCD. However, how exactly these displays differ and what should you choose?Let’s first find out how they work.

Let’s start with AMOLED displays. Now, a lot of you might have already guessed the technology here as AMOLED is actually a variant of the famous OLED display technology used in Televisions. To start with, LED stands for Light Emitting Diode and the O here adds up as Organic LED. Further, AM is an abbreviation for Active Matrix which actually helps to light up a particular pixel when needed. So we now know what actually AMOLED stands for, but how does it work?

As the name suggests, OLED displays generate light from individual pixels. In other words, each LED pixel when provided the adequate current can light up for itself. Further, all AMOLED displays also contain a TFT (Thin Film Transistor) which makes the whole process of sending the current to the right pixel a lot more smoother and quicker. Further, having an Active Matrix in place, the TFT also helps to grab the right control to operate various pixels. For example, in AMOLED displays, some pixels can be completely switched off while others are on, thus, producing deep blacks.

Samsung markets this technology as Super AMOLED because the South Korean giant actually blends in the capacitive touch screen right inside the display which not only makes the display thinner but also makes it a tad bit better in terms of responsiveness.

Coming to LCDs, which is relatively more common on smartphones, stands for Liquid Crystal Display. Unlike AMOLED displays where each pixel lights up for itself, LCD displays have a dedicated backlight which is white in colour or maybe with a blue tint because white light is basically the combination of all the other colours. In most cases, we have a blue light which is then passed through a yellow phosphor filter resulting in a white light.

This white light is then passed through a couple of filters (first vertical than horizontal) after which the crystal elements are passed through Red, Blue and Green filters forming sub-pixels which further form pixels spread across the entire display. Also, LCD displays can have both active and passive matrix depending on the requirement and the cost involved.

For comparison, the process here is a lot more complicated and requires a lot more steps to complete, hence, this is why LCD displays are relatively less battery friendly when compared to the AMOLED.

However, is one technology better than the other? Although AMOLED displays apparently points out to the future, both the display technologies have their own pros and cons which, in our opinion, will be enough for you to decide as to which one is better. So how exactly do they differ?

The first difference which I want to highlight is the cost of both the technologies. The probability of you finding an AMOLED display on a budget smartphone is a lot less than LCD displays. This is primarily because LCD displays are cheap to manufacture and procure while AMOLED or OLED displays, in particular, involve much higher cost.

Well, this is probably one of the important differences. A display’s quality is generally measured by the sharpness and colours it produces. Furthermore, to rate a display better only based on its technology might not be possible because displays tend to behave differently even when the same manufacturer uses the same technology. Nevertheless, if we consider colours specifically high contrasting colours like Red, Blue and Green, AMOLED displays will serve you much better all day. This is because, in an AMOLED display, each pixel emits it own light while in an LCD, the light is sourced from a backlight. In other words, AMOLED displays put up more vibrant colours and hit high bars in saturation.

While an AMOLED display has a much larger colour gamut, LCD displays will pop cleaner whites. This is why most of the AMOLED displays are warmer in nature as they come with a yellow or red tint to the whites.

The backlight on an LCD display helps it win in this department as AMOLED displays are often criticised to have low brightness levels. So if you are the one who is mostly out under the sun using your smartphone, an LCD display might be a much wiser choice. To contradict, AMOLED displays, especially Samsung’s Super AMOLED displays are slowly reaching there in terms of brightness.

There are tonnes of other things sucking your smartphone’s battery but the display generally top the charts, so battery consumption is important. Pixels on an AMOLED display can be completely shut off, so naturally, it saves more juice when you are operating on a black background as the pixels for that part of the displays will be switched off. LCD display, on the other hand, relies on a dedicated backlight which still remains switched on even if you are on a completely black screen. This is why features like Always On Display or Active Display on Moto smartphones make a lot more sense on an AMOLED display while it will definitely affect your battery stats on an LCD display. So think twice before using the ‘Always On’ display feature on your LCD display smartphones.

Taking in the majority of the pros and cons for both the displays, AMOLED panels will any day outperform an LCD panel if colour and battery consumption is a concern. Further, even though AMOLED panels struggle a bit with brightness levels, it slowly catching up and in our opinion and is hardly noticeable in most cases.

One of the biggest and most important parts of any smartphone is the display. The display is something you interact with dozens of times every day. It’s your window into the apps and tools that make up a smartphone. Displays have gotten ridiculously good over the years, but they still fall under two types.

Every smartphone today has one of two displays types: AMOLED or LCD. These displays are very different, but both have advantages. AMOLED is what you’ll find main on Samsung phones and a few other random devices. The majority of smartphones, including the iPhone, have LCD displays. So what’s the difference between the two? Let’s dig in.

AMOLED stands for “Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode.” These displays are made up from a very thin layer of polymers that light up when given an electric current. There are two main benefits to AMOLED. Due to the design, AMOLED panels can be very thin and they don’t require a backlight.

You’ve probably heard people say that AMOLED displays have “pure blacks.” This is because the black pixels are not lit up by a backlight. There is literally no light coming from black pixels. The result is vivid colors with high contrast. AMOLED displays can be more energy efficient, since not all of the pixels are lit up.

LCD stands for “Liquid Crystal Display.” These displays are far more common to have. Your TV and laptop probably have LCD displays. As the name implies, LCD is literally made from liquid crystals. But that means it requires dual glass panels and a backlight. LCD displays are not as thin as AMOLED.

Since LCD displays have a backlight, even black pixels are slightly illuminated. Colors are not as vibrant and the contrast isn’t as high. The advantage to LCD is that colors generally look more realistic. You don’t see “pure black” colors a lot in the real world.

A common term that goes with LCD displays on phones is “IPS,” which stands for “in-plane switching.” IPS offers wider viewing angles than other types of LCD displays, which is why it’s preferred for smartphones.

AMOLED and LCD both have their respective advantages and disadvantages. A lot of people prefer the vivid colors and pure blacks of AMOLED displays. The pure black is especially nice if you look at your phone at night a lot. However, the color on AMOLED displays (especially Samsung phones) is not realistic.

LCD displays often look more dull and muted compared to AMOLED because they don’t have the same level of contrast. This is actually a good thing if you want colors to appear more true-to-life. Another thing to compare is power consumption. AMOLED displays don’t require a backlight. LCD displays do. This makes AMOLED displays slightly more energy efficient. You can use a pure black wallpaper to save energy because the pixels aren’t lit up.

LCD displays tend to look more blue, while AMOLED displays tend to look more yellow. This is another reason why AMOLED is generally better on your eyes. Blue light is what keeps you up at night. LCD displays usually have color temperature settings to filter out the blue, but you’ll never be able to get the pure blacks.

It’s impossible to say one display is better than the other. Not all LCD displays look the same, just like not all AMOLED displays look the same. Ultimately, it comes down to user preference. Some people love the punchy color of AMOLED, other people hate. The same can be said for LCD.

People will argue about what technology is superior, but at the end of the day, all that matters is what looks better to your eyes. The good news is there are excellent options for both. Samsung makes excellent AMOLED displays. LG and HTC have phones with great LCD displays. Android is all about choice, so decide which you like best and enjoy.

When you buy a smartphone and while reading the specifications of the phone, you often do not pay attention to the type of phone screen. Screen types abbreviations can be a bit confusing and most people don’t usually take them into consideration due to their ignorance. Don’t worry now we will give you everything you need to know about the main types of screens which are LCD, OLED and AMOLED.

Previously, there were only two main types in the smartphone industry, LCD and LED. But with the advancement in technology, many other types such as OLED, AMOLED, sAMOLED, and Retina have appeared. LCD screens are used in most mid-range phones from Xiaomi, Realme and other Chinese manufacturers and OLED in their top-end devices. Samsung uses AMOLED and sAMOLED displays, while Apple uses Retina displays. Let us discuss each of these types one by one.

LCD (abbreviation for Liquid Crystal Display). The oldest type of screen, it relied on backlighting as the only light source to illuminate the pixels. Also, LCD screens are brighter than most other types of screens, which makes them suitable for use in smartphones in bright sunlight. However, these screens suffer from less accurate colors. Smartphones use two main types of LCD screens:

TFTstands for Thin Film Transistor. TFT monitors are an advanced version of LCD monitors. While TFT has a relatively lower production cost and provides better image quality than previous generations of LCD monitors, it has higher power consumption, lower viewing angles and lower color representation.

IPSstands for In-Plane Switching. It is an improved version of TFT. Availability Provides better viewing angles and color representation by utilizing more powerful backlighting. It consumes less power than TFT, but its cost is higher overall.

OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode). The presence of this type is the main reason for the emergence of curved displays and foldable smartphones. Unlike LCD screens, which use backlighting, OLED screens do not require this because they contain a layer of organic matter that emits light when exposed to an electric current. OLED displays display more saturated and vibrant colors. Because of the luminance per pixel, OLED displays provide darker levels of black. Because the pixels that don’t get caught are in a sleep state, OLED screens usually use less power and give better battery life. These screens are of two main types:

AMOLEDstands for Active Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode. Similar to an OLED screen but has Thin Film Transistors (TFT) on the back panel. This ensures faster and more precise control as it can turn on or off any pixel individually, and it also has a storage capacitor which eliminates screen size limitations and provides the possibility of a larger screen. We will explain AMOLED screens in more detail due to their great popularity.

PMOLEDstands for Passive Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode. It is cheaper than other LED screens but its life span is short and it cannot work for long periods of time. It has a simple control system in which each row of the screen can be controlled sequentially. Due to its low efficiency, it is generally used in devices whose screen size is less than 3 inches.

AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode). Improved OLED screens. The most important component of these displays is the TFT element that controls the flow in each pixel. With two TFTs per pixel, one to start and one to stop charging the storage capacitors this allows each LED to operate individually and generate light for itself. Due to its great flexibility it can be used in foldable phones.

You may have seen the term sAMOLED or Super AMOLED. These monitors were invented by Samsung and are available in their high-end models. This type provides a variety of colors with greater clarity. Super AMOLED displays can handle sunlight better than other AMOLED displays, while consuming less power.

Each of the above types of screens has its own advantages and disadvantages. In general, AMOLED is superior to LCD screens. Our primary comparison criteria are higher refresh rates, better color representation, and battery consumption. As for OLED versus AMOLED, we already mentioned that AMOLED is an improved version of OLED as it offers better image quality to battery consumption. Due to their low usability under sunlight, Super AMOLED screens are the best choices.

In the end, it all boils down to your needs and budget. If you’re on a tight budget, an LCD monitor isn’t a bad deal. But if your budget is good, you should definitely opt for the newer AMOLED screen especially for TVs.

Mobile display technology is firmly split into two camps, the AMOLED and LCD crowds. There are also phones sporting OLED technology, which is closely associated with the AMOLED panel type. AMOLED and LCD are based on quite different underlying technologies, leading manufacturers to tout a number of different benefits depending on which display type they’ve opted for. Smartphone manufacturers are increasingly opting for AMOLED displays, with LCD mostly reserved for less expensive phones.

Let’s find out if really there’s a noticeable difference between these two display technologies, what sort of differences we can expect, and if the company marketing hype is to be believed.

We’ll start alphabetically with AMOLED, although to be a little broader we should probably start with a little background about OLED technology in general.

It’s hidden in the name, but the key component in these display types is a Light Emitting Diode (LED). Electronics hobbyists will no doubt have played around with these little lights before. In a display panel, these are shrunk down dramatically and arranged in red, green, and blue clusters to create an individual pixel that can reproduce white light and various colors, including red, green, and blue.

The arrangement of these sub-pixels alters the performance of the displays slightly. Pentile vs striped pixel layouts, for example, results in superior image sharpness, but lower pixel life spans due to the smaller pixel sizes.

The O part in OLED stands for organic. Simply put, there are a series of thin organic material films placed between two conductors in each LED, which is then used to produce light when a current is applied.

Finally, the AM part in AMOLED stands in for Active Matrix, rather than a passive matrix technology. This tells us how each little OLED is controlled. 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 LED. This way, when a row and column are activated to access a pixel, the capacitor at the correct pixel can retain its charge in between refresh cycles, allowing for faster and more precise control.

One other term you will encounter is Super AMOLED, which is Samsung’s marketing term for a display that incorporates the capacitive touchscreen right into the display, instead of it being a separate layer on top of the display. This makes the display thinner.

The major benefits from OLED type displays come from the high level of control that can be exerted over each pixel. Pixels can be switched completely off, allowing for deep blacks and a high contrast ratio. Great if you want a display capable of playing back HDR content. Being able to dim and turn off individual pixels also saves on power ever so slightly. The lack of other layers on top of the LEDs means that the maximum amount of light reaches the display surface, resulting in brighter images with better viewing angles.

The use of LEDs and minimal substrates means that these displays can be very thin. Furthermore, the lack of a rigid backlight and innovations in flexible plastic substrates enables flexible OLED-based displays. Complex LCD displays cannot be built in this way because of the backlight requirement. Flexy displays were originally very promising for wearables. Today, premium-tier smartphones make use of flexible OLED displays. Although, there are some concerns over how many times a display can flex and bend before breaking.

LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Display and reproduces colors quite differently from AMOLED. Rather than using individual light-emitting components, LCD displays rely on a backlight as the sole light source. Although multiple backlights can be used across a display for local dimming and to help save on power consumption, this is more of a requirement in larger TVs.

Scientifically speaking, there’s no individual white light wavelength. White light is a mixture of all other visible colors in the spectrum. Therefore, LCD backlights have to create a pseudo white light as efficiently as possible, which can then be filtered into different colors in the liquid crystal element. Most LCDs rely on a blue LED backlight which is filtered through a yellow phosphor coating, producing a pseudo white light.

The really complicated part comes next, as light is then polarized and passed through a crystal element. The crystal can be twisted to varying degrees depending on the voltage applied to it, which adjusts the angle of the polarized light. The light then passes through a second polarized filter that is offset by 90 degrees compared with the first, which will attenuate the light based on its angle. Finally, a red, green, or blue color filter is applied to this light, and these sub-pixels are grouped into pixels to adjust colors across the display.

All combined, this allows an LCD display to control the amount of RGB light reaching the surface by culling a backlight, rather than producing colored light in each pixel. Just like AMOLED, LCD displays can either be active or passive matrix devices, but most smartphones are active these days.

This wide variation in the way that light is produced has quite a profound difference to the user experience. Color gamut is often the most talked-about difference between the two display types, with AMOLED providing a greater range of color options than LCD, resulting in more vibrant-looking images.

OLED displays have been known for additional green and blue saturation, as these tend to be the most powerful colors in the sub-pixel arrangement, and very little green is required for white light. Some observers find that this extra saturation produces results that they find slightly unnatural looking. Although color accuracy has improved substantially in the past few years and tends to offer better accuracy for wider color gamuts like DCI-P3 and BT-2020. Despite not possessing quite such a broad gamut, LCD displays typically offer 100% sRGB gamut used by most content and can cover a wide gamut and most of the DCI-P3 color space too.

As we mentioned before, the lack of a backlight and filtering layers weighs in favor of OLED over LCD. LCD displays often suffer from light bleed and a lower contrast ratio as the backlight doesn’t switch off even when pixels are supposed to be black, while OLED can simply switch off its pixels. LCD’s filtering layer also inherently blocks some light and the additional depth means that viewing angles are also reduced compared to OLED.

One downside of AMOLED is that different LEDs have different life spans, meaning that the individual RBG light components eventually degrade at slightly different rates. As well as the dreaded but relatively rare burn-in phenomenon, OLED display color balance can drift very slightly over time, while LED’s single backlight means that color balance remains more consistent across the display. OLED pixels also often turn off and on slower, meaning that the highest refresh rate displays are often LCD. Particularly in the monitor market where refresh rates exceed 120Hz. That said, plenty of OLED smartphones offer 90, 120, and even 144Hz support.

There are some pros and cons to both technologies and some reasonable user preferences between the different color and contrast profiles. Although the prevalence of multiple display modes available in modern smartphones makes this somewhat less of an issue these days. However, the falling production costs and additional benefits of OLED displays have made them a more popular choice than ever across a wide range of price segments. OLED dominates the high-end smartphone and TV spaces owing to its wider color gamut, superior contrast ratio, while still supporting decent refresh rates. Not to mention its flexible characteristics for brand new mobile form factors.

Major display manufacturers, such as LG Display and Samsung Display, are betting big on OLED technology for the future, making major investments into additional production facilities. Particularly when it comes to its use in flexible display technology. The AMOLED panel market is expected to be worth close to $30 billion in 2022, more than double its value in 2017 when this article was first published.

That said, developments in Quantum Dot and mini LED displays are closing the already small performance gap between LCD and OLED, so certainly don’t count LCD out of the race just yet.

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In recent time, China domestic companies like BOE have overtaken LCD manufacturers from Korea and Japan. For the first three quarters of 2020, China LCD companies shipped 97.01 million square meters TFT LCD. And China"s LCD display manufacturers expect to grab 70% global LCD panel shipments very soon.

BOE started LCD manufacturing in 1994, and has grown into the largest LCD manufacturers in the world. Who has the 1st generation 10.5 TFT LCD production line. BOE"s LCD products are widely used in areas like TV, monitor, mobile phone, laptop computer etc.

TianMa Microelectronics is a professional LCD and LCM manufacturer. The company owns generation 4.5 TFT LCD production lines, mainly focuses on making medium to small size LCD product. TianMa works on consult, design and manufacturing of LCD display. Its LCDs are used in medical, instrument, telecommunication and auto industries.

TCL CSOT (TCL China Star Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd), established in November, 2009. TCL has six LCD panel production lines commissioned, providing panels and modules for TV and mobile products. The products range from large, small & medium display panel and touch modules.

Everdisplay Optronics (Shanghai) Co.,Ltd.(EDO) is a company dedicated to production of small-to-medium AMOLED display and research of next generation technology. The company currently has generation 4.5 OLED line.

Established in 1996, Topway is a high-tech enterprise specializing in the design and manufacturing of industrial LCD module. Topway"s TFT LCD displays are known worldwide for their flexible use, reliable quality and reliable support. More than 20 years expertise coupled with longevity of LCD modules make Topway a trustworthy partner for decades. CMRC (market research institution belonged to Statistics China before) named Topway one of the top 10 LCD manufactures in China.

Founded in 2006, K&D Technology makes TFT-LCM, touch screen, finger print recognition and backlight. Its products are used in smart phone, tablet computer, laptop computer and so on.

Established in 2013, Eternal Material Technology is committed to the research, development and manufacturing of electronic materials and providing technical services. EMT is leading the industry with its products of OLED and color photoresist materials.

The Company engages in the R&D, manufacturing, and sale of LCD panels. It offers LCD panels for notebook computers, desktop computer monitors, LCD TV sets, vehicle-mounted IPC, consumer electronics products, mobile devices, tablet PCs, desktop PCs, and industrial displays.

Founded in 2008，Yunnan OLiGHTEK Opto-Electronic Technology Co.,Ltd. dedicated themselves to developing high definition AMOLED (Active Matrix-Organic Light Emitting Diode) technology and micro-displays.

In Topway, we work side by side to help you overcome any technical and none technical challenges that may arise during product design, manufacture or installation. We can even take care of component sourcing and manufacturing for you.

Both screens are made up of Pixels. A pixel is made up of 3 sections called sub-pixels. The three sections are red, green and blue (primary colors for display tech).

The light is generated from a “backlight”. A series of thin films, transparent mirrors and an array of white LED Lights that shine and distribute light across the back of the display.

On some lower quality LCD screens, you can see bright spots in the middle or on the perimeters of screens. This is caused by uneven light distribution. The downside to using backlights, is that black is never true black, because no matter what, light has to be coming through, so it will never have as dark of a screen as an AMOLED screen. Its comparable to being able to slow a car down to 2 mph versus coming to a complete stop.

Each pixel is its own light source, meaning that no backlight is necessary. This allows the screen assembly to be thinner, and have more consistent lighting across the whole display.

Very often your only connection with the world is your phone"s display. With the advent of smartphones, their screens are becoming windows to the information world, as you want to see it. Google"s Eric Schmidt called it the other day the era when you will never be alone, or bored. Some people don"t really care what screen they are looking at – they want to quickly check time, call, read messages and answer to email, without worrying too much about tidbits like resolution and color saturation. Others spend hours browsing rich websites, watching YouTube videos, or reading e-books on their smartphone screens.

That second category will only be growing, as it is hard to resist all the multimedia noise easily accessible from your phone. Moreover, in developing nations, the whole desktop PC/cable internet era might be skipped altogether for some regions, and people"s first Internet access there could very well be via a smartphone tied up to a data plan. That is the reasoning behind the big battles among Google, Microsoft, Apple, Nokia and others, big and small, these days. And that is why screen technologies are becoming a major selling point -it is amazing what achievements have been reached in the span of just a few years, in terms of brightness, clarity and durability of today"s touchscreens.

The two existing mainstream technologies for smartphone displays are LCD and OLED. Their advanced iterations in those gizmos are IPS-LCD, as found in Apple’s iPhone 4, and Super AMOLED, as present in the Samsung Galaxy S. Therefore, after a brief overview of the technology behind them, we will compare the two flagship smartphones displaywise, try to pierce through the marketing fluff, and come up with a conclusion, more suited for real-life decision making. Bear in mind that these two technologies are future-proof, and will be utilized in smartphones for the next few years as well.

Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), has been around for a while. We won’t go as far back as 1888, when an Austrian botanist discovers liquid crystals, but rather mark 1972 and 1973 when the first LCD watch and calculator were introduced. Then rapid advancements followed, adding colors, and improving the viewing angles, brightness and efficiency of the then power-hungry technology, which requires backlighting. Most major display companies make LCDs, the technology is very mature, without much production and supply issues.

Organic Light-Emitting Diodes (OLED) is a much newer development than LCD. Luminescence of organic materials when electric current is applied to them, was first observed in the 1950s by French researchers. Cambridge scientists reached the stage of efficient light emission from a green organic polymer in 1990, and the first commercial OLED devices came in the early 2000s, three decades after LCD ones. Below is a funny setup to explain the process of organic light emission, demonstrated on a pickle by Vladimir Bulovic from MIT:

A lot of the companies that were producing OLED screens, such as Sony, or Toshiba, have currently shelved their R&D and production plans due to cost-cutting. Thus Samsung is becoming the OLED industry juggernaut. The Koreans hold 98% of the world’s Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED) market in 2010.

Simpler construction – the thin layer of organic polymers emits light itself, when electric current is applied, so no additional backlighting is needed. On top of that, production methods can incorporate all the elements needed close to one another, and OLEDs can even be printed on an industrial printer, if some of the ongoing research makes it up to commercial scale. Thus OLED displays can be extremely thin, even bendable. Illustrated below are the elements, constructing a typical LCD, and a typical AMOLED screen:

Higher contrast ratio – black color from OLED screens is indeed black, due to the simple fact that the pixel is off at that time, whereas the LCD backlighting is still on, producing greyish black. The contrast ratio of AMOLED displays is extremely high;

Faster response times – the organic diodes fire up and emit light immediately when current is applied, whereas with LCDs, some motion blur might be present with fast moving objects;

Wider viewing angles – LCD suffers from picture deterioration when viewed from certain angles, due to the nature of the direction in which light travels through the liquid crystals, while OLED screens’ brightness and color gamut are left intact up to almost 180 degrees of viewing;

In recent years, smartphone displays have developed far more acronyms than ever before with each different one featuring a different kind of technology. AMOLED, LCD, LED, IPS, TFT, PLS, LTPS, LTPO...the list continues to grow.

As if the different available technologies weren"t enough, component and smartphone manufacturers adopt more and more glorified names like "Super Retina XDR" and "Dynamic AMOLED", which end up increasing the potential for confusion among consumers. So let"s take a look at some of these terms used in smartphone specification sheets and decipher them.

There are many display types used in smartphones: LCD, OLED, AMOLED, Super AMOLED, TFT, IPS and a few others that are less frequently found on smartphones nowadays, like TFT-LCD. One of the most frequently found on mid-to-high range phones now is IPS-LCD. But what do these all mean?

LCD means Liquid Crystal Display, and its name refers to the array of liquid crystals illuminated by a backlight, and their ubiquity and relatively low cost make them a popular choice for smartphones and many other devices.

LCDs also tend to perform quite well in direct sunlight, as the entire display is illuminated from behind, but does suffer from potentially less accurate colour representation than displays that don"t require a backlight.

Within smartphones, you have both TFT and IPS displays. TFT stands for Thin Film Transistor, an advanced version of LCD that uses an active matrix (like the AM in AMOLED). Active matrix means that each pixel is attached to a transistor and capacitor individually.

The main advantage of TFT is its relatively low production cost and increased contrast when compared to traditional LCDs. The disadvantage of TFT LCDs is higher energy demands than some other LCDs, less impressive viewing angles and colour reproduction. It"s for these reasons, and falling costs of alternative options, that TFTs are not commonly used in smartphones anymore.Affiliate offer

IPS technology (In-Plane Switching) solves the problem that the first generation of LCD displays experience, which adopts the TN (Twisted Nematic) technique: where colour distortion occurs when you view the display from the side - an effect that continues to crop up on cheaper smartphones and tablets.

The PLS (Plane to Line Switching) standard uses an acronym that is very similar to that of IPS, and is it any wonder that its basic operation is also similar in nature? The technology, developed by Samsung Display, has the same characteristics as IPS displays - good colour reproduction and viewing angles, but a lower contrast level compared to OLED and LCD/VA displays.

According to Samsung Display, PLS panels have a lower production cost, higher brightness rates, and even superior viewing angles when compared to their rival, LG Display"s IPS panels. Ultimately, whether a PLS or IPS panel is used, it boils down to the choice of the component supplier.

This is a very common question after "LED" TVs were launched, with the short answer simply being LCD. The technology used in a LED display is liquid crystal, the difference being LEDs generating the backlight.

One of the highlights from TV makers at the CES 2021 tradeshow, mini-LED technology seemed far removed from mobile devices until Apple announced the 2021 iPad Pro. As the name implies, the technique is based on the miniaturization of the LEDs that form the backlight of the screen — which still uses an LCD panel.

Despite the improvement in terms of contrast (and potentially brightness) over traditional LCD/LED displays, LCD/mini-LEDs still divide the screen into brightness zones — over 2,500 in the case of the iPad and 2021 "QNED" TVs from LG — compared to dozens or hundreds of zones in previous-generation FALD (full-array local dimming) displays, on which the LEDs are behind the LCD panel instead of the edges.

AMOLED stands for Active Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode. While this may sound complicated it actually isn"t. We already encountered the active matrix in TFT LCD technology, and OLED is simply a term for another thin-film display technology.

OLED is an organic material that, as the name implies, emits light when a current is passed through it. As opposed to LCD panels, which are back-lit, OLED displays are "always off" unless the individual pixels are electrified.

This means that OLED displays have much purer blacks and consume less energy when black or darker colours are displayed on-screen. However, lighter-coloured themes on AMOLED screens use considerably more power than an LCD using the same theme. OLED screens are also more expensive to produce than LCDs.

Because the black pixels are "off" in an OLED display, the contrast ratios are also higher compared to LCD screens. AMOLED displays have a very fast refresh rate too, but on the downside are not quite as visible in direct sunlight as backlit LCDs. Screen burn-in and diode degradation (because they are organic) are other factors to consider.Affiliate offer

OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode. An OLED display is comprised of thin sheets of electroluminescent material, the main benefit of which is they produce their own light, and so don"t require a backlight, cutting down on energy requirements. OLED displays are more commonly referred to as AMOLED displays when used on smartphones or TVs.

As we"ve already covered, the AM part of AMOLED stands for Active Matrix, which is different from a Passive Matrix OLED (P-OLED), though these are less common in smartphones.

Super AMOLED is the name given by Samsung to its displays that used to only be found in high-end models but have now trickled down to more modestly specced devices. Like IPS LCDs, Super AMOLED improves upon the basic AMOLED premise by integrating the touch response layer into the display itself, rather than as an extra layer on top.

As a result, Super AMOLED displays handle sunlight better than AMOLED displays and also require less power. As the name implies, Super AMOLED is simply a better version of AMOLED. It"s not all just marketing bluster either: Samsung"s displays are regularly reviewed as some of the best around.

The latest evolution of the technology has been christened "Dynamic AMOLED". Samsung didn"t go into detail about what the term means, but highlighted that panels with such identification include HDR10+ certification that supports a wider range of contrast and colours, as well as blue light reduction for improved visual comfort.

In the same vein, the term "Fluid AMOLED" used by OnePlus on its most advanced devices basically highlights the high refresh rates employed, which results in more fluid animations on the screen.Affiliate offer

The technology debuted with the obscure Royole FlexPai, equipped with an OLED panel supplied by China"s BOE, and was then used in the Huawei Mate X (pictured above) and the Motorola Razr (2019), where both also sport BOE"s panel - and the Galaxy Flip and Fold lines, using the component supplied by Samsung Display.Affiliate offer

Resolution describes the number of individual pixels (or points) displayed on the screen and is usually presented for phones by the number of horizontal pixels — vertical when referring to TVs and monitors. More pixels on the same display allow for more detailed images and clearer text.

To make it easier to compare different models, brands usually adopt the same naming scheme made popular by the TV market with terms like HD, FullHD and UltraHD. But with phones adopting a wide range of different screen proportions, just knowing that is not enough to know the total pixels displayed on the screen.Common phone resolutions

But resolution in itself is not a good measure for image clarity, for that we need to consider the display size, resulting in the pixel density by area measured by DPI/PPI (dots/points per inch).Affiliate offer

Speaking of pixel density, this was one of Apple"s highlights back in 2010 during the launch of the iPhone 4. The company christened the LCD screen (LED, TFT, and IPS) used in the smartphone as "Retina Display", thanks to the high resolution of the panel used (960 by 640 pixels back then) in its 3.5-inch display.

The name coined by Apple"s marketing department is applied to screens which, according to the company, the human eye is unable to discern the individual pixels from a normal viewing distance. In the case of iPhones, the term was applied to displays with a pixel density that is greater than 300 ppi (dots per inch).

With the iPhone 11 Pro, another term was introduced to the equation: "Super Retina XDR". Still using an OLED panel (that is supplied by Samsung Display or LG Display), the smartphone brings even higher specs in terms of contrast - with a 2,000,000:1 ratio and brightness level of 1,200 nits, which have been specially optimized for displaying content in HDR format.

As a kind of consolation prize for iPhone XR and iPhone 11 buyers, who continued relying on LCD panels, Apple classified the display used in the smartphones with a new term, "Liquid Retina". This was later applied also to the iPad Pro and iPad Air models, with the name defining screens that boast a high range and colour accuracy, at least based on the company"s standards.

Nit, or candela per square meter in the international system (cd/m²), is a unit of measurement of luminance, i.e. the intensity of light emitted. In the case of smartphone screens and monitors in general, such a value defines just how bright the display is - the higher the value, the more intense the light emitted by the screen.

The result is smoother animations on the phone, both during regular use and in games, compared to screens that have a 60 Hz refresh rate which remains the standard rate in the market when it comes to displays.

Originally touted to be a "gimmick" in 2017, with the launch of the Razer Phone, the feature gained more and more momentum in due time, even with a corresponding decrease in battery life. In order to make the most of this feature, manufacturers began to adopt screens with variable refresh rates, which can be adjusted according to the content displayed - which is 24 fps in most movies, 30 or 60 fps in home video recordings, and so forth.

TFT(Thin Film Transistor) - a type of LCD display that adopts a thin semiconductor layer deposited on the panel, which allows for active control of the colour intensity in each pixel, featuring a similar concept as that of active-matrix (AM) used in AMOLED displays. It is used in TN, IPS/PLS, VA/PVA/MVA panels, etc.

LTPS(Low Temperature PolySilicon) - a variation of the TFT that offers higher resolutions and lower power consumption compared to traditional TFT screens, based on a-Si (amorphous silicon) technology.

IGZO(Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide) - a semiconductor material used in TFT films, which also allows higher resolutions and lower power consumption, and sees action in different types of LCD screens (TN, IPS, VA) and OLED displays

LTPO(Low Temperature Polycrystaline Oxide) - a technology developed by Apple that can be used in both OLED and LCD displays, as it combines LTPS and IGZO techniques. The result? Lower power consumption. It has been used in the Apple Watch 4 and the Galaxy S21 Ultra.

LTPO allows the display to adjust its refresh rate, adapting dynamically to the content shown. Scrolling pages can trigger the fastest mode for a fluid viewing, while displaying a static image allows the phone to use a lower refresh rate, saving the battery.

In 2022, flagship phones started using the so-called LTPO 2.0 tech, whose main advantage is being able to go down to a 1 Hz refresh rate, instead of the 10 Hz available in first-generation LTPO panels. Found in phones like the OnePlus 10 Pro and the Galaxy S22 Ultra, LTPO 2.0 promises even further energy savings.

Among televisions, the long-standing featured technology has always been miniLED - which consists of increasing the number of lighting zones in the backlight while still using an LCD panel. There are whispers going around that smartphones and smartwatches will be looking at incorporating microLED technology in their devices soon, with it being radically different from LCD/LED displays as it sports similar image characteristics to that of OLEDs.

A microLED display has one light-emitting diode for each subpixel of the screen - usually a set of red, green, and blue diodes for each dot. Chances are it will use a kind of inorganic material such as gallium nitride (GaN).

By adopting a self-emitting light technology, microLED displays do not require the use of a backlight, with each pixel being "turned off" individually. The result is impressive: your eyes see the same level of contrast as OLED displays, without suffering from the risk of image retention or burn-in of organic diodes.

On the other hand, the use of multiple diodes for each pixel poses a challenge in terms of component miniaturization. For example, a Full HD resolution has just over two million pixels (1,920 x 1,080 dots), which requires 6 million microscopic LEDs using a traditional RGB (red, green, and blue) structure.

Another thing to be wary of is the price - at 170 million Korean won (about US$150,330 after conversion), that is certainly a lot of money to cough up for a 110-inch display.

Each technology has its own advantages and disadvantages but in recent years, OLED screens have gained prominence, especially with the adoption of the component in high-end flagship smartphones. It gained an even greater degree of popularity after the launch of the iPhone X, which cemented the position of OLED panels in the premium segment.

As previously stated, OLED/AMOLED screens have the advantage of a varied contrast level, resulting from individual brightness control for the pixels. Another result of this is the more realistic reproduction of black, as well as low power consumption when the screen shows off dark images - which has also helped to popularize dark modes on smartphones.

In addition, the organic diodes that give OLED screens their name can lose their ability to change their properties over time, and this happens when the same image is displayed for a long period of time. This problem is known as "burn-in", tends to manifest itself when higher brightness settings are applied for long periods of time.

While that is a very real possibility, it is not something that affects most users, who often confuse burn-in with a similar problem - image retention, which is temporary and usually resolves itself after a few minutes.

In the case of LCD displays, the main advantage lies in the low manufacturing cost, with dozens of players in the market offering competitive pricing and a high production volume. Some brands have taken advantage of this feature to prioritize certain features - such as a higher refresh rate - instead of adopting an OLED panel, such as the Xiaomi Mi 10T.

As we all know, AMOLED screen is a screen made of self-luminous organic materials. It does not require LCD backlight. When current passes through organic materials, pixels will emit light by themselves. Therefore, compared to LCD screens, AMOLED has more Pure black, higher contrast and other display advantages.

However, being more "ideal" also means paying more. The "eye-damaging" of AMOLED displays stems from external dissatisfaction with the current widespread adoption of PWM low-frequency dimming by AMOLED manufacturers. Here is a brief explanation of the PWM low frequency dimming technology.

All displays have a brightness adjustment function, but due to the differences in materials, the dimming technology is different. The current mainstream brightness adjustment technologies for smart phones are DC dimming and PWM dimming.

LCD screens rely on LED backlight panels to emit light. Therefore, in the field of smart phones, LCD screens mostly use DC dimming. This is a technology that directly adjusts the brightness of the two sides of the light-emitting component to adjust the brightness. The smaller the current, the lower the brightness.

DC dimming is relatively straightforward, but it also has a big disadvantage. Due to the different wavelengths of the three primary colors, DC dimming can cause unavoidable color casts under extremely low brightness conditions, such as early LCD displays with DC dimming , At low brightness, there will be obvious problems of discoloration.

The DC dimming does not seem to be suitable for AMOLED screens. AMOLED screen is a technology that relies on organic materials to emit light. The display quality is greatly related to the material, and the color difference between pixels will be very obvious.

In fact, even though this problem has not been solved very well, maybe it is the case that PWM dimming has become another option and has entered everyone"s sight.

The introduction of PWM dimming solves the problem of low-brightness color cast in the early days of AMOLED displays, and in fact further improves color stability.

At present, Samsung ’s AMOLED screens use 250Hz low-frequency PWM dimming technology. When the screen brightness is lower, the possibility that the human eye can perceive becomes larger, and it is more likely to affect sensitive people.

AMOLED displays that use PWM low-frequency dimming for a long time do seem to affect vision, but do n’t think that LCD can survive. Even with DC dimming, it also has an irreversible effect on vision-cannot be ignored Blu-ray hazard.

Different from the AMOLED self-emission mode, the LCD screen uses a combination of backlight and filter imaging. In mainstream technology, many LCD screens will use blue LED backlight panels, which are covered with red, green and colorless three. This kind of filter forms three primary colors of RGB when blue light passes through these three filters.

Among them, the short-wave blue light emitted by the blue backlight board can cause harm to human eyes. Because short-wave light has a greater capacity density and is more penetrating, it will directly penetrate the lens to the retina, causing atrophy or death of retinal pigment epithelium cells.

From a technical point of view, whether it is an LCD or an AMOLED screen, the impact on vision is universal. As far as smartphones are concerned, it cannot be said that AMOLED screens are more eye-damaging than LCD screens.

Even if the LCD party held high the banner that PWM low-frequency dimming is harmful, it could not fully prove that AMOLED screens have an impact on vision, because everyone"s habits of using mobile phones are different, and the impact on everyone is different. There is no doubt that in the end, it is still the habits that need attention. For example, users should try to avoid watching the phone screen for a long time; reduce the viewing time of LCD and AMOLED low brightness in the dark environment.

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There"s a lot of buzz in the tech industry around flagship devices. After all, that"s where all the exciting innovation is happening. But flagships make up only a tiny portion of the global smartphone sales volume. Most of those numbers represent budget and mid-range devices which come with all sorts of dilemmas and trade-offs.

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.

​​​​Today, even some budget models come with a 120Hz refresh rate, mostly Chinese phones. You can notice the difference between a 60Hz and a 90Hz/120Hz panel when gaming and scrolling through apps or social media.

But before you get too excited, note that the jump in performance, i.e., how smooth the animations feel, doesn"t keep increasing consistently. A jump from 60Hz to 90Hz is a 50% upgrade, whereas a jump from 90Hz to 120Hz is only a 33.33% upgrade. And a jump from 120Hz to 144Hz is a negligible 20% upgrade. That means that you"re going to get to the point of diminishing returns beyond 120Hz, which is the sweet spot for smartphone refresh rates.

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.

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