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I really hope it doesn't turn out to be fatal for them but I also hope it breaks the Samsung monopoly over Android and let brands like LG, HTC shine. OLED disp

I really hope it doesn't turn out to be fatal for them but I also hope it breaks the Samsung monopoly over Android and let brands like LG, HTC shine. OLED displays are so good they still sell themselves, and Samsung is the only handset maker that seems to be committed to the technology. I doubt this will change much.

paulcole 10y ago
You mean except for 12 or 24 months from now when the OLED iPhone is announced.
- Uupis 10y ago
  With the strong push for color _quality_ (please excuse my lack of a better term) on iOS devices lately, I find the OLED-equipped iPhone rumors a bit confounding. Last I recall they looked a bit off. Nice, but a bit off. That said, my experience with OLED screens is a bit dated, so maybe the color reproduction has improved.
  - B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
    I expect paulcole is right ... I was recently in the market for a phone, and considering an iPhone SE. But unfortunately I've got hooked on Lumia OLEDs, so I'm taking one last cheap hit from the rapidly cooling MS pipe while Apple gets that duck lined up ;-)
    - pawadu 10y ago
      Have a cheap "Lumia OLED" myself. There was nothing unfortunate about thay buy. Great display, pretty good phone overall, and the money I saved went to a new tablet. Also, I now have an excuse to not install the stupid apps friends and family and random guy at the bus stop recommend.
acchow 10y ago
What's so great about OLEDs? They consume much more energy and don't produce the most accurate colors.
- vardump 10y ago
  Properly calibrated OLEDs look at least a lot better to my eye than any LCDs. Much deeper blacks and more pure colors that go past what an LCD can reproduce.
- Inconel 10y ago
  I'm fairly sure the new OLED displays from Samsung can produce extremely accurate colors. I don't remember exactly where I read so, perhaps AnandTech, but I believe the Samsung displays were considered some of the most accurate smartphone displays prior to the new iPhones. I should note that for some reason it seems like most smartphone manufacturers, basically everyone aside from Apple, way oversaturate their displays, this is especially true in the case of Samsung. Even the Nexus 6P display looked horrendous to me out of the box. Fortunately there is a setting in the developer options to enable sRGB mode which makes a huge difference. Regarding power consumption, I think OLED mostly loses out on efficiency when generating white backgrounds, but I'm not sure how much of a battery hit this causes in normal use scenarios. As to what's so great about OLED, for me, as someone who frequently uses their phone in relatively low light situations, I absolutely love the deep blacks and the fact that when I have the phone on low brightness using a dark theme it barely produces any ambient light. On that note, Google seriously needs to introduce a system wide dark theme. I don't have an iPhone but I'm really interested to see if/when Apple adopts OLED whether they redesign iOS to take advantage of it. I know many people dislike the bright white UI of iOS and Android.
  - CountSessine 10y ago
    I absolutely love the deep blacks and the fact that when I have the phone on low brightness using a dark theme it barely produces any ambient light Yup - completely agree. When I got my Tab S, I knew that the exynos 5420 was grossly inferior to the a8x in the Air 2, but I wanted my tablet for watching videos in bed at night. I was right; the 5420 is execrable and makes web browsing very painful compared to the Air 2 (my kids have Air 2's). But the display is so much better than the Air 2's in every way you'd care to mention or measure. It's unbeatable for its intended purpose. <sigh>
usaphp 10y ago
Isn't "burn in" a big drawback for OLED screens?
- Inconel 10y ago
  From what I've read online the newer generation Samsung displays, those from say the last 1-2 years, have supposedly made big strides in dealing with "burn in". Apparently it's much less of an issue now, although still more common than LCD. Also, if I understand correctly, OLED doesn't actually suffer from "burn in" like LCD does, instead it's more "burn out" as the pixels, particularly the blue ones, degrade faster than other colors. For what it's worth I have a Nexus 6P which uses a Samsung display and I haven't noticed any burn in yet, although I'm probably a very moderate user so that's not really saying much.
  - B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
    The Lumia 925 from 2013 had a gorgeous OLED display, and no burn-in or ghosting problems that I noticed for a couple of years. They did take care of shifting the (beautiful, built-in) nightstand clock screen a bit around, I think. (Adjustable color reproduction, you could go for "vivid" if you wanted, normal was fine.)
    - Inconel 10y ago
      I had no idea the Lumia clock screen did that, it's a simple but brilliant solution to mitigate the problem. I'd love to see more work go into subtly shifting persistent UI elements around to avoid the issue. In particular I'd like to see the navigation keys and status bar on Android adopt something like that. I wonder if the UI elements would even need to shift locations or if it would be enough to shift colors so it isn't one particular color that degrades unevenly.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  Anecdotally, my Moto X 2014 hasn't suffered anyburn-in, even on the taskbar or buttons, and I haven't heard other owners even commenting on it. Also, I haven't taken any measures to reduce it. I just love it for the near-zero brightness available through my Twilight/Flux app, no problems checking notifications in the dark!

paulcole 10y ago

You mean except for 12 or 24 months from now when the OLED iPhone is announced.

Uupis 10y ago
With the strong push for color _quality_ (please excuse my lack of a better term) on iOS devices lately, I find the OLED-equipped iPhone rumors a bit confounding. Last I recall they looked a bit off. Nice, but a bit off. That said, my experience with OLED screens is a bit dated, so maybe the color reproduction has improved.
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
  I expect paulcole is right ... I was recently in the market for a phone, and considering an iPhone SE. But unfortunately I've got hooked on Lumia OLEDs, so I'm taking one last cheap hit from the rapidly cooling MS pipe while Apple gets that duck lined up ;-)
  - pawadu 10y ago
    Have a cheap "Lumia OLED" myself. There was nothing unfortunate about thay buy. Great display, pretty good phone overall, and the money I saved went to a new tablet. Also, I now have an excuse to not install the stupid apps friends and family and random guy at the bus stop recommend.

acchow 10y ago

What's so great about OLEDs? They consume much more energy and don't produce the most accurate colors.

vardump 10y ago
Properly calibrated OLEDs look at least a lot better to my eye than any LCDs. Much deeper blacks and more pure colors that go past what an LCD can reproduce.
Inconel 10y ago
I'm fairly sure the new OLED displays from Samsung can produce extremely accurate colors. I don't remember exactly where I read so, perhaps AnandTech, but I believe the Samsung displays were considered some of the most accurate smartphone displays prior to the new iPhones. I should note that for some reason it seems like most smartphone manufacturers, basically everyone aside from Apple, way oversaturate their displays, this is especially true in the case of Samsung. Even the Nexus 6P display looked horrendous to me out of the box. Fortunately there is a setting in the developer options to enable sRGB mode which makes a huge difference. Regarding power consumption, I think OLED mostly loses out on efficiency when generating white backgrounds, but I'm not sure how much of a battery hit this causes in normal use scenarios. As to what's so great about OLED, for me, as someone who frequently uses their phone in relatively low light situations, I absolutely love the deep blacks and the fact that when I have the phone on low brightness using a dark theme it barely produces any ambient light. On that note, Google seriously needs to introduce a system wide dark theme. I don't have an iPhone but I'm really interested to see if/when Apple adopts OLED whether they redesign iOS to take advantage of it. I know many people dislike the bright white UI of iOS and Android.
- CountSessine 10y ago
  I absolutely love the deep blacks and the fact that when I have the phone on low brightness using a dark theme it barely produces any ambient light Yup - completely agree. When I got my Tab S, I knew that the exynos 5420 was grossly inferior to the a8x in the Air 2, but I wanted my tablet for watching videos in bed at night. I was right; the 5420 is execrable and makes web browsing very painful compared to the Air 2 (my kids have Air 2's). But the display is so much better than the Air 2's in every way you'd care to mention or measure. It's unbeatable for its intended purpose. <sigh>

usaphp 10y ago

Isn't "burn in" a big drawback for OLED screens?

Inconel 10y ago
From what I've read online the newer generation Samsung displays, those from say the last 1-2 years, have supposedly made big strides in dealing with "burn in". Apparently it's much less of an issue now, although still more common than LCD. Also, if I understand correctly, OLED doesn't actually suffer from "burn in" like LCD does, instead it's more "burn out" as the pixels, particularly the blue ones, degrade faster than other colors. For what it's worth I have a Nexus 6P which uses a Samsung display and I haven't noticed any burn in yet, although I'm probably a very moderate user so that's not really saying much.
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
  The Lumia 925 from 2013 had a gorgeous OLED display, and no burn-in or ghosting problems that I noticed for a couple of years. They did take care of shifting the (beautiful, built-in) nightstand clock screen a bit around, I think. (Adjustable color reproduction, you could go for "vivid" if you wanted, normal was fine.)
  - Inconel 10y ago
    I had no idea the Lumia clock screen did that, it's a simple but brilliant solution to mitigate the problem. I'd love to see more work go into subtly shifting persistent UI elements around to avoid the issue. In particular I'd like to see the navigation keys and status bar on Android adopt something like that. I wonder if the UI elements would even need to shift locations or if it would be enough to shift colors so it isn't one particular color that degrades unevenly.
LeifCarrotson 10y ago
Anecdotally, my Moto X 2014 hasn't suffered anyburn-in, even on the taskbar or buttons, and I haven't heard other owners even commenting on it. Also, I haven't taken any measures to reduce it. I just love it for the near-zero brightness available through my Twilight/Flux app, no problems checking notifications in the dark!