measure smartphone display screens supplier

Premstaetten, Austria (7 January, 2019) --ams (SIX: AMS), a leading worldwide supplier of high performance sensor solutions, today announced the release of the TCS3701, an RGB light and IR proximity sensor IC which can accurately measure the intensity of ambient light from behind an OLED screen. This capability supports today’s industrial design trend to maximize smartphone display area by eliminating front-facing bezels, where an ambient light/proximity sensor is typically located.

By developing this ‘Behind OLED’ ambient light/proximity sensor, ams enables smartphone manufacturers to achieve the highest possible ratio of display area to body size while retaining crucial touchscreen disablement and automatic display brightness/color adjustment functions, which require an RGB/infrared light sensor.

Despite the constraint of operating behind an emissive OLED display screen, the TCS3701 senses the addition of the ambient light passing through the display to light emitted by the display’s pixels located just above the sensor. ams has developed unique algorithms which enable accurate detection of ambient light levels without knowledge of the display pixel brightness above the sensor.

Light transmission through an OLED screen is limited by its opacity, but the TCS3701’s ultra-high sensitivity to light means that it can still produce accurate light measurements in all lighting conditions.

The TCS3701’s 2.0mm x 2.5mm x 0.5mm OQFN package is small enough to be placed behind a smartphone’s OLED screen. It gives a smartphone designer the flexibility to mount an IR emitter to support the proximity sensing function in the best front-facing location. Cross-talk compensation algorithms provide for reliable proximity sensing performance.

“Smartphone OEMs today are striving to maximize their products’ screen-to-body ratio, reducing the bezel area as much as possible on the display’s face,” said David Moon, Senior Marketing Manager at ams. “The TCS3701 enables phone designers to take this trend to a new level, potentially eliminating the bezel entirely. This is only possible because the TCS3701 can operate behind an OLED display, a breakthrough enabled by the outstanding sensitivity of the device and by the implementation of sophisticated measurement algorithms to compensate for the optical distortion caused by the OLED display.”

While Samsung will continue to supply approximately 80 per cent of iPhone displays, rumours claim that a little-known company called BOE looks set to become Apple’s second-largest OLED supplier. Not only is this a sign that Apple’s lowest-cost iPhone 12 model will likely make the leap from LCD to OLED this year, but it’s also a sign that Apple is looking to diversify which manufacturers it uses, and potentially looking to ready itself for a move into the display market itself.

You, like many of us when we first read the rumours, are probably wondering who the hell BOE is, and how it managed to score such a big deal despite its relatively unknown status. However, BOE is, in fact, the largest display manufacturer in China, supplying screens for smartphones, TVs and other electronic devices and home appliances.

BOE’s display technology is currently being utilised in Huawei"s most popular smartphone models, including the high-end P and Mate series, and it reportedly will manufacturer the palm-stretching screen set to appear on this year’s Huawei Mate 40.

BOE even provided the flexible OLED used in the foldable Huawei Mate X, which has proven way more reliable than Samsung’s flexible OLED efforts. Perhaps, then, it’s somewhat unsurprising that Samsung is reportedly considering using BOE screens for its future devices, likely at the expense of its own industry-dominating Samsung Display unit.

BOE’s surprising alliance with Apple isn’t the only time the two companies have worked together, either; the Chinese manufacturer already makes LCD screens for Apple"s older iPhones, and its tiny OLED panels are currently used in some Apple Watch models. It’s unclear how much BOE and Apple’s latest deal is worth, but it’s likely in the billions. According to online reports, Samsung’s deal with the iPhone maker is thought to be worth around $20 billion annually, so if BOE manages to secure 20 per cent of Apple’s display orders going forward, such a deal could be worth as much as $4bn.

Although BOE has managed to muscle its way into Apple’s exclusive list of OLED suppliers, and has invested heavily in facilities and equipment in order to meet the firm’s demands, the new partnership hasn’t got off to a flying start. According to reports, the company’s flexible OLED panels have not yet passed Apple’s final validation. This means, according to rumours, that BOE’s screens might not show up in the first batch of iPhone 12 models, and will instead start shipping on handsets at the beginning of 2021, with Apple instead set to re-increase its reliance on LG in the short term.

Scenarios like this, along with the fact that Apple is clearly looking to lessen its reliance on big-name display makers, makes us think that it won’t be long until the company ultimately stops relying on others altogether; after all, it’s no secret that Apple wants to control every aspect of its hardware development.

The display market could be Apple’s next target. Not only does the company already manufacturer screen technology in the form of its Pro Display XDR, but a recent Bloomberg report claims that Apple is “designing and producing its own device displays” and is making a “significant investment” in MicroLED panels. This technology utilises newer light-emitting compounds that make them brighter, thinner and less power-intense than the current OLED displays.

Today’s vivid, immersive displays rely on layers of Corning glass to provide a stunning viewing experience. Wherever you look for news and entertainment, chances are Corning glass is there, too.

We are the science and engineering powerhouse behind revolutionary display inventions, including glass cathode-ray tubes for the first televisions and the LCD glass that made smartphones and laptop computers commonplace. We set the standard for the industry with Corning® EAGLE XG® Slim Glass substrates, manufacturing over 25 billion square feet while eliminating more than the equivalent of 6,000 truckloads of heavy metals from entering the environment.

Corning’s latest glass innovation and product is enabling brighter, faster, and more lifelike images. Award winning Corning® Astra™ Glass is a precisely engineered, balanced glass substrate that enables high-performance displays for a variety of applications, including the tablets, notebooks, and 8K TVs.

Corning"s display portfolio is finding new opportunities in emerging technologies, including Quantum Dot, Micro LED and Mini LED. With our proven track record of navigating the display technology roadmap, our proprietary fusion manufacturing platform and reliable supply network, our commitment to our customers and innovation, and our innovative portfolio, we are excited to support the next generation of displays.

All screens flicker to some degree — be they TV screens, car navigation displays, monitors, tablets, and yes, even smartphone displays. In this article, we will talk a little about what flicker is, what can cause it (on smartphones in particular), and how we at DXOMARK test for it, quantify it, and measure its impact on the end-user experience.

Flicker is a quick oscillation of light output between on and off; it is measured in hertz (Hz) to quantify the frequency at which the oscillation occurs. While we may not be consciously aware of the flicker phenomenon, it’s important to understand that our eyes still physically respond to it — that is, our irises expand and contract in response to these changes in brightness. This involuntary physiological response can certainly explain why we may have a headache and particularly why our eyes can feel tired after looking at a display for an extended period of time — they have been working hard! (This is especially true when looking at a display in dark ambient conditions, such as reading in bed with the lights turned off, for reasons we’ll touch on a bit more below.)

Given the ubiquity of smartphones, it is unfortunate that the flicker on their displays (especially OLED displays) is still an issue for many people. But wait! Why do they flicker? Well, let’s remember that smartphone display hardware is based on either LCD (liquid crystal display) or OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology. LCDs don’t emit their own light; rather, they are back-illuminated by a strip of LEDs whose light intensity is quite powerful so as to compensate for the brightness drop due to the low transmission rate of the LCD panel (caused mainly by the RGB color filter). By contrast, in an OLED display, every pixel is itself an OLED that produces its own light.

Since both LCDs and OLED smartphone displays are composed of light-emitting diodes, let’s describe how these diodes are driven. Because of a diode’s intrinsic physical properties, it cannot be dimmed by changing the intensity of the current (mA) without impacting the color of the light. So how do phone manufacturers dim displays? They make use of a technique called pulse-width modulation (PWM), which means that they turn the diodes off and on at varying rates. Because we normally should not be able to see this switching between off and on (in other words, the flicker!), our brains are fooled into perceiving the screen as simply dimmer overall (a phenomenon known as the “brain averaging effect”). How dim depends on how long the diodes are off versus how long they are on: the longer they’re off, the dimmer the screen will appear.

So both LCDs and OLED displays power their light sources differently, but both technologies are subject to flicker effect; however, it is usually more noticeable on OLED displays than on LCDs. For one thing, OLED displays and LCDs show PWM at different frequency ranges — the PWM of OLED displays range from ~50 to ~500 Hz, whereas the PWM of LCDs starts at around 1000 Hz or higher. Second, as the human eye may experience flicker sensitivity up to about 250 Hz (at least for most people), it should come as no surprise that OLED displays are more likely to cause eyestrain than LCDs.

An on/off modulation pair is called a period, and the amount of time that the diode is switched on in a period is called a duty cycle. The chart below illustrates how different PWMs affect the perceived brightness of a display:

A significant disadvantage to using PWM technology can be that when a display adjusts to its minimum brightness in very dim or completely dark ambient light conditions, the duty cycle is very short and the interval when the diode is off is proportionately much longer (for example, minimum brightness may translate to a 10% duty cycle, meaning that the diode is off for 90% of the period). At lower PWM frequencies, flicker can become much more noticeable, which helps explain why reading text or watching videos in bed at night is more likely to cause headaches and eyestrain than when viewing screens in brighter conditions.

The video below was shot with a Phantom VEO-E 340L camera at 1500 fps (as were the other videos further below), slowed down to 4 fps to show display pulse-width modulation (PWM) — the white areas separated by black lines that extend across the screen when brightness diminishes at regular intervals. You can see the difference between the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G on the left, which has a medium duty cycle (around 60%), and the Huawei P40 Pro and the Oppo Find X2 Pro, which have long duty cycles (roughly 90%; the black lines show that the OLEDs are turned off, albeit briefly):

So how does DXOMARK measure flicker? One major way is with a device called, appropriately enough, a flickermeter (specifically, a TRD-200 from Westar Display Technologies), whose sole purpose is to measure quick oscillations in brightness. Our engineers follow a strict protocol for measuring flicker on each smartphone display: all devices are individually tested using their default settings under the exact same dark (< 0.1 lux) ambient lighting conditions, and are placed at the same distance from the flickermeter. We chart the output on this graph (which we use to compare up to four phones in our display reviews; note that you can click on the name of a phone in the legend on the bottom of the graph to remove or redraw its results):

Yes, it’s a cool-looking graph, but what does it mean? How should we read this? Well, first of all, keep in mind that these results correlate with each device’s PWM — the on/off power cycle that helps control screen brightness. The horizontal X axis show the frequency of the oscillations over time measured with the flickermeter in hertz (Hz). The vertical Y axis shows the SPD(dB)— spectral power density in decibels, which is the amount of power associated with one frequency of the signal that the display generates.

Keep in mind that our engineers base their evaluations and the scores they assign to smartphone displays not only on the objective tests they perform with flickermeters and other instruments, but also on perceptual tests that they conduct after being specially trained to see flicker.

To further illustrate flicker, our engineers used a DSLR mounted on a translation rail and moved it quickly while it took a slow (1/10 second) shot of the three mounted smartphone displays shown below to imitate the effects of PWM. In the image of the Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G on the left, you can see each individual white dot; on the Huawei P40 Pro in the middle, the individual dots are much closer together, but are still largely discernible; in the image of the OnePlus 8 Pro, however, the dots look more like an almost continuous line. Unsurprisingly, flicker is stronger on the devices where the white dots are further from one another — that is, devices with a lower PWM frequency.

Let’s wrap things up by first repeating that flicker on smartphones is caused by the use of pulse-width modulation that turns light-emitting diodes off and on to control screen brightness levels. As we normally perceive flicker via our peripheral vision rather than via our “attending vision” (that is, what we specifically focus our eyes on), the small size of a smartphone screen makes it less likely that we will see flicker on it (unless we hold the phone very close to our eyes) than we might when viewing content on a laptop screen or monitor. When we do see flicker, however, it’s the PWM that is the culprit; and while flicker can be reduced on a phone with a higher refresh rate, you may sometimes see flicker on it anyway if the phone’s PWM is slow (as we saw with the Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G).

Finally, it’s also important to remember that some people are more sensitive to noticing flicker than others; in fact, even people who may not consciously perceive flicker may nonetheless be sensitive to it, winding up with headaches or eyestrain after overdoing their screen time. Such people could choose an OLED smartphone with an anti-flicker feature, or one with an LCD. As you can see in the table below, the last entry shows the data for the Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro; since it uses LCD technology, its PWM frequency is so high that it in essence eliminates the flicker issue.

This all said, you can rest assured that if our testers do discover a smartphone that has noticeable problems with flicker at its default settings, we will let you know about it as part of its Display review. (And by the way, we’ll also mention if a smartphone comes with a “flicker-free” feature or setting.)

The first iPhone, released way back in 2007, featured a 3.5 inch screen with a resolution of 320x480 pixels and 163 DPI. Smartphone screens have come a long way since then, with the latest iPhones offering up to 1242x2688 pixels and 485 DPI (the iPhone XS Max).

DeviceAtlas allows you to detect the viewport, resolution, screensize and DPI of almost 53,000 devices in real-time, giving your content optimization efforts the edge over your competitors.

Resolution and aspect ratio is also important. That’s because the resolution of different screens can affect how designers build their apps. Based on this information, there are certain

Understanding size and resolution can help you optimize your mobile app for a variety of devices. This refers to both smartphones, tablets, and even smart TVs or other screens where users can download your app.

Not every mobile cell phone is the same. Some of smartphones have bigger screens. I’ve seen smartphone screen sizes that won’t even fit in my pocket. All of this impacts pixel density, pixel size, width, and more.

Here’s how to measure phone screen size. You need to use diagonal measurement. Start from top left corner of the screen and measure the length to the opposite diagonal corner. It’s pretty straightforward, and anyone with a ruler can do this.

Screen resolution is a little bit different. The resolution is measured by the number of distinguishable pixels that can be displayed in each dimension.

Basically, you’ve got to realize that since screen size and screen resolution both play a role in determining the PPI, it can tell you how well an image gets displayed on that particular device.

If these trends continue, which I expect them to, QHD screens will become a thing of the past. But for now, you should still make sure your app, images, and designs can accommodate as many devices as possible.

There’s also a difference between HD and QHD screens. Even though screen sizes are moving toward a standard resolution, app designers still need to be aware that their app will be seen on many different kinds of screens.

What constitutes a great phone display? Is it the high resolution and pixel density? Well, that, and great screen quality test numbers, that"s why the Sony Xperia 1 IV specs with the 1644p 4K panel top our list. What about the high brightness and contrast that offer good outdoor visibility in the sun outdoors? That"s certainly important, but most of today"s flagships have HDR-certified panels that breach the 1000-nit barrier upwards to fit the standard, and their OLED tech ensures practically infinite contrast ratio, so it"s hard to pick on that merit alone.

Ditto for credible color gamut presentation, as per-unit display calibration is no longer a prerogative of Apple"s iPhones, while said HDR display flagships now cover both the standard RGB, and the wide P3 color gamut. Is it the actual white balance and DeltaE numbers then? It"s getting warmer, but throw in dynamically-adjusted refresh rate based on the content displayed, and you"ve narrowed it down to only a few choices when it comes to the best phone displays that we round up below.

Not only does Sony make the only phones with 4K display resolution, but it also calibrates them to a near perfect level. The flagship Sony Xperia 1 IV carries a 6.5" 4K display with the whopping 643 PPI pixel density, and our display benchmarks returned class-beating brightness, white balance and wide gamut color representation credibility levels, some of the best we"ve measured. Add the high dynamic refresh rate, and the Sony Xperia 1 IV has probably the best panel on a phone so far.

The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set (area) of colors that a display can reproduce, with the sRGB colorspace (the highlighted triangle) serving as reference. The chart also provides a visual representation of a display"s color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The "x: CIE31" and "y: CIE31" values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. "Y" shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while "Target Y" is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, "ΔE 2000" is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.

The Color accuracy chart gives an idea of how close a display"s measured colors are to their referential values. The first line holds the measured (actual) colors, while the second line holds the reference (target) colors. The closer the actual colors are to the target ones, the better.

The Grayscale accuracy chart shows whether a display has a correct white balance (balance between red, green and blue) across different levels of grey (from dark to bright). The closer the Actual colors are to the Target ones, the better.

Pay attention to that "brightest" part and the 1Hz-120Hz specs at the full 1440p resolution. Yes, that means that the S22 Ultra is equipped with the newest LTPO OLED display technology that allowed for both the record 1750nits of peak brightness, 15% less battery consumption than what"s on the S21/S21+, and the dynamically-allocated refresh rate that can go down to 1Hz when you are looking at static images, or rev up all the way to 120Hz when you scroll.

This brightness is what makes the S22 Ultra display, in particular, stand out, as the granularly adaptive refresh rate has been on Oppo and OnePlus phones before it.

If you are looking for the best foldable phone display, it"s again Oppo that delivers with its Find N line, rather than Samsung. We tested the Find N2"s display to be one of the most color-credible panel among all phones, not only bendy ones, and the brightest on a foldable phone.

The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set (area) of colors that a display can reproduce, with the sRGB colorspace (the highlighted triangle) serving as reference. The chart also provides a visual representation of a display"s color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The "x: CIE31" and "y: CIE31" values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. "Y" shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while "Target Y" is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, "ΔE 2000" is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.

The Color accuracy chart gives an idea of how close a display"s measured colors are to their referential values. The first line holds the measured (actual) colors, while the second line holds the reference (target) colors. The closer the actual colors are to the target ones, the better.

The Grayscale accuracy chart shows whether a display has a correct white balance (balance between red, green and blue) across different levels of grey (from dark to bright). The closer the Actual colors are to the Target ones, the better.

As usual with Oppo, ever since its partnership with Pixelworks, there is a per-unit factory Delta E calibration, color-blindness presets, and camera-to-display wide color management system. The LTPO panel is factory-calibrated and delivers one of the best color credibility Delta measurements we"ve ever taken, with only Google"s Pixels being better here.

Moreover, the Find X5 Pro has the best white balance score, nearest to the 6500K reference point that means the screens colors are spot on in terms of warmth, neither too yellowish, nor cold and blueish. Adding the high typical or peak brightness levels, the company has managed to beat its own best phone displays record.

The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set (area) of colors that a display can reproduce, with the sRGB colorspace (the highlighted triangle) serving as reference. The chart also provides a visual representation of a display"s color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The "x: CIE31" and "y: CIE31" values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. "Y" shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while "Target Y" is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, "ΔE 2000" is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.

The Color accuracy chart gives an idea of how close a display"s measured colors are to their referential values. The first line holds the measured (actual) colors, while the second line holds the reference (target) colors. The closer the actual colors are to the target ones, the better.

The Grayscale accuracy chart shows whether a display has a correct white balance (balance between red, green and blue) across different levels of grey (from dark to bright). The closer the Actual colors are to the Target ones, the better.

To take full advantage of its excellent display panel"s abilities, the Find X5 Pro employs a "multi-brightness color calibration," meaning that the screen is as color-credible in all lighting conditions, be it on the beach or in the dark.

Google managed to catch up with factory calibration and its Pixel 6 Pro display now delivers not only one of the most feature-rich panels in the Android universe - 1440p resolution, dynamic 120Hz refresh rate, and high brightness, but it is also in the top three in terms of color representation in our display benchmark database.

Birds of a feather, the OnePlus 10 Pro and Oppo Find X5 Pro, as they sport the same 6.7" 1440p LTPO OLED panel with dynamic refresh rate and individual display calibration at the factory level courtesy of the imaging specialists from Pixelworks. Thus, you get a near-perfect color accuracy, wide gamut coverage, and high average brightness, all for less than $900 barring any running OnePlus 10 Pro deals.

The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set (area) of colors that a display can reproduce, with the sRGB colorspace (the highlighted triangle) serving as reference. The chart also provides a visual representation of a display"s color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The "x: CIE31" and "y: CIE31" values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. "Y" shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while "Target Y" is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, "ΔE 2000" is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.

The Color accuracy chart gives an idea of how close a display"s measured colors are to their referential values. The first line holds the measured (actual) colors, while the second line holds the reference (target) colors. The closer the actual colors are to the target ones, the better.

The Grayscale accuracy chart shows whether a display has a correct white balance (balance between red, green and blue) across different levels of grey (from dark to bright). The closer the Actual colors are to the Target ones, the better.

These measurements are made using Portrait Displays" CalMAN calibration software.The high dynamic refresh rate is the best thing that happened to mobile displays since the introduction of the OLED technology, and there is no looking back once you"ve tried it while browsing and scrolling. Here"s the answers on our question how does it all work exactly:

The display is also basically able to do what MEMC TVs do, automatically increasing frames in video to up the rate, and take better advantage of the high refresh rate even with content that is usually shot with 24fps or 30fps. Detailing the panel"s virtues in a blog post, the OnePlus CEO also mentioned that:

In order to reach industry-leading color accuracy standards, we have added an additional automatic color calibration machine to the production line. By adding an extra 30 seconds to the production time, each display panel is automatically calibrated for color accuracy before it’s released.

Apple"s finest finally found the 120Hz refresh feature (say that 3 times quickly) and if you are already invested in the iOS ecosystem, there is nothing better than the brightest, toughest displays on an iPhone so far, the one on the iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 14 Pro.

Apple advertises it as having a record for a phone peak brightness level of 2000 nits, or more typical brightness of 1600 nits when consuming HDR content and 1000 nits otherwise. This is exactly what we measured and these displays are so advanced that only Samsung can make them at the moment with its 12th-gen OLED technology.

The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set (area) of colors that a display can reproduce, with the sRGB colorspace (the highlighted triangle) serving as reference. The chart also provides a visual representation of a display"s color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The "x: CIE31" and "y: CIE31" values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. "Y" shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while "Target Y" is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, "ΔE 2000" is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.

The Color accuracy chart gives an idea of how close a display"s measured colors are to their referential values. The first line holds the measured (actual) colors, while the second line holds the reference (target) colors. The closer the actual colors are to the target ones, the better.

The Grayscale accuracy chart shows whether a display has a correct white balance (balance between red, green and blue) across different levels of grey (from dark to bright). The closer the Actual colors are to the Target ones, the better.

Say what you will about Google entering the fray here but the Pixels have very well calibrated displays and the new Pixel 6a is no exception. First off, its color credibility is better than the more established calibration champs here (just look at those DeltaE numbers below). It is also sufficiently bright, so if you are looking for a compact 5G Android phone with a great camera and display that won"t break the bank, the Pixel 6a would fit your narrative.

The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set (area) of colors that a display can reproduce, with the sRGB colorspace (the highlighted triangle) serving as reference. The chart also provides a visual representation of a display"s color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The "x: CIE31" and "y: CIE31" values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. "Y" shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while "Target Y" is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, "ΔE 2000" is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.

The Color accuracy chart gives an idea of how close a display"s measured colors are to their referential values. The first line holds the measured (actual) colors, while the second line holds the reference (target) colors. The closer the actual colors are to the target ones, the better.

The Grayscale accuracy chart shows whether a display has a correct white balance (balance between red, green and blue) across different levels of grey (from dark to bright). The closer the Actual colors are to the Target ones, the better.

Over the past 20 years, cell phones have evolved from simple devices made for mobile calling to smartphones that serve as mini computers. As phones got smarter, so did their screens. Take a journey back in time to see how modern phone displays came to be.

In 1992, 8 years before the new millennium, IBM debuted the first smartphone: the Simon Personal Communicator. It featured a black-and-white 160 x 293 LCD touchscreen measuring 4.5 inches by 1.4 inches. In fact, Simon is believed to be the first commercially available phone with a touchscreen, and it came with a stylus for streamlined navigation.

For the rest of the 1990s and into the 2000s, black-and-white passive matrix screens were the norm. The rows and columns combined to create text, giving off a blocky appearance.

In 2001, Nokia released the first smartphone to feature a monochromatic display. The Nokia 8250 allowed users to change the background from gray to a bright blue. That same year, the Sony Ericsson T68m and Mitsubishi Trium Eclipse were released, offering 256 colors.

Released in June 2007, the iPhone introduced many firsts. It was the first phone with an operating system, responsive touchscreen, and touch interface that replaced the traditional QWERTY keyboard. The phone screen itself comprised a video graphic array (VGA) display and offered a resolution of 320 x 480 – far exceeding other phones at the time.

Let’s start with LCDs. TFT LCD displays are considered the most common. They deliver quality images and higher resolutions. IPS LCDs, which are mainly found in higher-end smartphones, offer improved battery life and deliver wider viewing angles. These types of displays are often found in iPhones, but by Apple’s proprietary names, “Retina,” or “Super Retina.” Then, there are capacitive touchscreen LCDs, which rely on the touch of a human finger for input.

OLEDs are considered an up-and-coming display technology – they don’t require any backlighting to display pixels. Fundamentally, each pixel emits it own light, allowing for darker blacks and brighter whites. AMOLEDs combine a TFT display with an OLED display for energy savings, while Super AMOLED displays deliver even brighter screens and more power savings.

When choosing a new Net10 phone, you may feel overwhelmed with all the display options available. First, consider the phone screen size. The bigger the phone screen, the bigger the phone. If you’d like to be able to slip your phone easily inside a pocket or purse, opt for a smaller phone size, such as 4-inch, 4.7-inch, or 5-inch. If you’d prefer a bigger screen size for gaming or watching videos, you’ll benefit from choosing a phone with a 5.5-inch, 6.4-inch, or similar size.

Next, you’ll need to consider the display technology. OLED screens are known for their faster response times, better contrast, and longer battery lives. LCD screens, on the other hand, are better for outdoor viewing, deliver a natural color reproduction, and offer sharper images.

The screen, when combined with the touch element, is "the" major element of the user interface and as such we go to great lengths when testing screens during our review process to measure a displays quality by measuring Contrast Ratio, Color Calibration, Brightness and Sunlight Legibility.

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) displays consist of a matrix of Liquid Crystals. Liquid Crystals do not emit light themselves and are reliant on some form of back-light to illuminate the whole display. As a result LCD displays can be very visible in direct sunlight.

IPS-LCDs provide a superior viewing angle and better color reproduction than non IPS-LCDs due to the layout of the LCD"s themselves. This has become a common display type for mid-range to high-end phones.

OLED & AMOLED utilizes "organic" LEDs which emits light and in the majority of cases does away with the need for the back-light of an LCD display resulting in a potentially thinner panel.

They consume less power as opposed to LCDs which always have the back-light on. When a pixel is "black" on a OLED/AMOLED display the pixel is truly off.