Types of mobile phone screens
A modern phone is a whole set of various modules, chips and microcircuits that replaces a camera, an organizer, a GPS navigator, and a host of other devices that you cannot immediately recall. And, of course, the screen began to play far from the last role.
Let's make a reservation right away - we won't talk about resistive and capacitive screens here. You can read about this in a separate section. Today we will consider the main types of screen matrices, so that incomprehensible terms in the specifications do not introduce additional confusion into our already rather complex world.
What does an ordinary user need from a phone screen? Of course, a high-quality image. This, in turn, implies a large screen itself, high resolution, good color rendering, contrast and a lot of other parameters. But the trouble is, the phone is a mobile device, which means that it has its own power source, moreover, it is often used far from favorable conditions. Therefore, in pursuit of a high-quality image, one should not forget that quality is quality, but you have to look for a compromise. Otherwise, you risk every day sadly looking at the disappearing percentages of the battery charge and frantically remembering where you left the charge today.
Siemens S10 - the world's first mobile phone with a color display (1997)
Perhaps someone does not need a high-quality screen at all - an elementary monochrome display with the function of showing the dialed number is enough. Someone, on the contrary, uses the phone in any way, but not for its intended purpose, and therefore the main selection parameter will be a large bright screen. Fortunately, there are more phones on the market now than guests at Genghis Khan's party, so you can find the right option for even the most demanding user.
Most telephones on the market are equipped with liquid crystal displays (LCD), which, in turn, can be based on passive or active matrices, each of which again has several subspecies.
The very term "passive matrix" makes you a little wary. The basic principle of the image is that the voltage is applied to the pixels sequentially, line by line, which negatively affects the image refresh rate. In modern phones, it can be found in three forms: in the simplest and most inexpensive models (for example, in Samsung E1175 or Nokia 1280), in additional external screens on clamshell phones or in specialized phones (for example, the so-called "grandmother phones" - Fly Ezzy or Just5 CP10).
Samsung's management, probably having come to their senses after another corporate party in honor of the unprecedented success and realizing that in the near future they will not be able to squeeze more out of their factories, began to hastily think about what to come up with so as not to lose much quality and the pace of sales do not reduce.
As a result, another player appeared on the scene - together with the Sony corporation, the technology was presented to the world SLCD, which was designed to compensate for the lack of SAMOLED screens. Although it has undoubted advantages (a clearer image), it still loses in quality to SAMOLED (which give out more saturated colors, better black color). Its main difference from previous LCD-matrices is in a slightly different positioning of the subpixels.
In fairness, it should be noted that there are several concepts: Super Clear TFT, Super Clear LCD and SLCD... But since the scope of the article does not allow dwelling on every nuance in detail, at the moment we will make the assumption that we are talking about one "generalized" SLCD technology, especially since sometimes they do not even differ in the specifications.
Thus, the South Korean craftsmen, on the one hand, did not lose much in quality - no matter what they say, but the quality of the SLCD screen is still very good, and on the other hand, they were able to maintain the pace. And the society once again got an excellent reason to argue on the topic "whose dad is stronger."
with SLCD screen
By the way, phones with an SLCD screen stood out in a separate series within the main one - keep this in mind when choosing. For example, Samsung Galaxy S (SAMOLED) and Samsung Galaxy S (SLCD), also Google Nexus S I9020 (SAMOLED) and Google Nexus S I9023 (SLCD).
In conclusion, we will consider three more types of screens, which, although not as popular as the ones described above, occupy a certain place in the world of modern technologies.
The first one is, of course, Retina-display. This is exactly what is put on the latest from. Despite all its attractiveness, there is nothing particularly interesting in this screen - it is the same LCD technology with a denser arrangement of pixels (in this place the solemn story of Steve Jobs' speech should follow, in which he declares the limit of 300 dpi, determined by the human eye , and about 326 dpi used in Retina-screens).
with Retina display
Despite all its quality and beauty, the future of these screens is rather vague - this is evidenced by at least the fact that Apple seriously considered using SAMOLED as the main screen, but was later forced to return to Retina solely for economic reasons.
The second type is electronic ink screens ( E Ink). The main niche of this technology is electronic readers, but some attempts to introduce E Ink into mobile phones are still underway. True, more in the style of "we firmly know that this can be applied somehow, but so far we do not know exactly how." It is believed that this is the most comfortable technology for the eyes, while the screen does not emit light, but reflects, which has an extremely positive effect on energy consumption.
F3 (left) and W61H (right) are models using E Ink technology
On the other hand, these screens are very sluggish, that is, serious problems arise when watching videos or even the simplest animation. In addition, when using the phone in low light conditions, additional backlighting is required, which negates all the advantages in terms of power consumption. Now these are mostly single copies or experimental prototypes, so it is unlikely that you will encounter such a screen live.
And finally, the last type is technology CBD(Clear Black Display) from. True, this is not a completely new type of screen, it is just an additional polarizing layer inserted into the SAMOLED screen. CBD improves contrast, eliminates reflections and produces deeper blacks.
One might get the impression that the market for screens for mobile phones is very confusing and diverse, but this is not entirely true.
Second life - a prototype phone with two screens (SAMOLED and E Ink)
Experimental options aside, all technologies are divided into two types - screens based on liquid crystals (LCD) and screens based on OLED technology. The clear leader in quality here is, of course, SAMOLED screens and their latest modifications. At the opposite end, there are still quite simple LCD-displays on passive matrices, but their field of application is rather limited.
Almost the entire class "above average" is now represented by LCD-screens on an active matrix (TFT), therefore, buying a phone from the middle (and higher) price category, in most cases you will get exactly a TFT-matrix, which will be more than enough for most functions ... Alongside all this are Apple's Retina screens (which, in principle, are not at all opposed to switching to SAMOLED and, most likely, will do so if possible), as well as SLCD technology in the role of "interim" SAMOLED and with an unclear future. That, in fact, is all.
Nokia Morph - the future promises to be interesting
According to the old tradition, the Internet simply rages with arguments of specialists (and not so much) about which screen is the best and in which case you will get the "most real" picture. What can be added here ... If you just need a phone and you are not particularly upset by the lack of sixteen million shades, then you just have to firmly decide on your needs and calmly choose what you need, and not the marketers or managers in the salon.
Just remember this. There is one golden rule - never go to the grocery store when you are hungry. Roughly the same applies here. I remember my emotions when, possessing an old model from ASUS, I played with the SAMOLED Plus screen for the first time. Impressive. But then a sober question arose: is there any point in paying extra for all this beauty, if the same functionality with a picture of very decent quality can be obtained three to four times cheaper?
For myself, I answered this question. It's your turn.
How to choose from the variety of modern smartphones what is right for you? Today the bad-android team has prepared a material with useful advice on the selection of displays.
How not to overpay for a device? How to figure out what to expect from it by the type of display?
Matrix types
Modern smartphones use three basic types of matrices.
The first one, called it, is based on organic light-emitting diodes. The other two types are based on liquid crystals - IPS and TN + film.
It is impossible not to mention the common abbreviation TFT.
TFT- these are thin-film transistors that control display subpixels (subpixels are responsible for three primary colors, on the basis of which "full" "multicolor" pixels are formed, which we will talk about a little later).
Technology TFT applied in all three the types of matrices listed above. That is why the frequently encountered comparison TFT and IPS is absurd in nature.
For many years, amorphous silicon has been the main material for TFT matrices. At the moment, an improved production of TFT matrices has been launched, in which the main material is polycrystalline silicon significantly increasing energy efficiency. The size of the transistors has also decreased directly, which allows you to achieve the highest performance. ppi(pixel density).
So, we figured out the base of matrices, it's time to talk directly about the data types of matrices.
TN + film matrix
These matrices were the first to appear in smartphones. At the moment, they remain the most primitive and, accordingly, the cheapest.
Advantages:
Affordable cost
Flaws:
Small viewing angles (maximum 60 degrees)
Invert the image even at small tilt angles
Low contrast
Poor color rendering
Most manufacturers have practically abandoned the use of this type of matrix due to too many shortcomings.
IPS matrix
At the moment, this type of matrix is the most common. Also, IPS matrices are sometimes denoted by the abbreviation SFT.
Story IPS-matrix dates back to several decades. During this period, many different modifications and improvements were developed. IPS-displays.
When listing the disadvantages and advantages of IPS, it is necessary to take into account the specific subtype... To summarize, for the list of IPS strengths we will take the best subtype (respectively, the most expensive), and for the cons we will mean the cheapest subtype.
Advantages:
Excellent viewing angles (maximum 180 degrees)
High-quality color rendering
Capable of producing high ppi displays
Decent energy efficiency
Flaws:
Picture fading when the display is tilted
Possibly oversaturation or, on the contrary, insufficient color saturation
AMOLED matrix
The matrix provides the deepest blacks compared to the other two types of matrix. But it was not always so. The first AMOLED matrices had incredible color reproduction and insufficient color depth. The acidity of the picture was present, the brightness was too intense.
Until now, due to incorrect internal settings, some displays are almost identical in perception to IPS. But in super-AMOLED displays, all flaws have been successfully fixed.
With the list of advantages and disadvantages, let's take a conventional AMOLED matrix.
Advantages:
The highest quality picture among all existing types of matrices
Low power consumption
Flaws:
Occasionally unequal LED life (different colors)
The need for careful tuning AMOLED display
Let's summarize the intermediate result. It is obvious that the matrix is the leader in image quality. It is AMOLED displays that are installed on the most top-end devices. In second place are IPS matrices, but you should be careful with them: manufacturers rarely indicate the matrix subtype, and this is what plays a key role in the final image level. An unequivocal and firm "no" should be said to devices with TN + film matrices.
Subpixels
The determining factor in the final quality of the display is often hidden display characteristics. Image perception is strongly influenced by subpixels.
In case of LCD the situation is quite simple: each color ( RGB) a pixel is made up of three subpixels. The shape of the subpixels depends on the modification of the technology - the subpixel can be in the form of a "check mark" or a rectangle.
In the implementation of displays in terms of subpixels, everything is somewhat more complicated. In this case, the subpixels themselves act as the light source. As you know, the human eye is less sensitive to blue and red, in contrast to green. That is why the repetition of the IPS subpixel pattern would significantly affect the picture quality (of course, in worst side). To preserve the realism of color reproduction, technology was invented.
The essence of the technology is to use two pairs of pixels: RG (red-green) and BG (blue-green), which, in turn, consist of the corresponding subpixels of the corresponding colors. A combination of subpixel shapes has been applied: green are elongated, and red and blue are almost square.
The technology turned out to be not very successful: the white color was frankly "dirty", and also there were jagged edges at the joints of different shades. With a low rate ppi a grid of subpixels became visible. Such matrices have been installed on a number of smartphones, including flagships. The last flagship that was "lucky" to get the PenTile-matrix was Samsung Galaxy S III.
Naturally, it was impossible to leave the situation with poor-quality implementation of subpixels in the same state, so it was soon produced upgrade above the described technology, which received the prefix Diamond.
By increasing the ppi Diamond PenTile allowed to get rid of the problem with jagged borders between colors, and white became much "cleaner" and more pleasing to the eye. And it is this development that is installed in all Samsung flagships, starting with the Galaxy S4.
But IPS-matrices, although they are generally considered to be weaker than theirs, however, have never encountered such problems.
What conclusion can be drawn? You should definitely pay attention to the amount ppi in the case of purchasing a smartphone with a matrix. A high-quality picture is possible only with an indicator from 300 ppi... But with IPS matrices there are no such strict restrictions.
Innovative technologies
Time does not stand still, talented engineers continue to painstakingly work to improve all the characteristics of smartphones, including matrices. One of the latest major developments is the technology OGS.
OGS is an air gap between the screen itself and the projected capacitive sensor. In this case, the technology met expectations by 100%: the quality of color rendition, maximum brightness and viewing angles increased.
And over the past few years OGS It is so deeply embedded in smartphones that it is possible not to meet the implementation of the display with a “hamburger” stuffed with an air gap only on the simplest devices.
In their search for display optimization, designers stumbled upon another interesting opportunity to improve the picture on phones. In 2011, experiments began on form glass. Perhaps the most common form of glass among the unusual has become 2.5D- with the help of the curved edges of the glass, the edges become smoother, and the screen is voluminous.
Company Htc released a smartphone Sensation, the glass of which has been concave in the center of the display. According to HTC engineers, this increases the scratch and shock resistance. But glass concave to the center has not received widespread use.
The concept of bending the display itself has become more popular, and not just glass, as it was done in. One of the side faces of the display got a curved shape.
A very interesting characteristic to look out for when buying a smartphone is sensor sensitivity... In some smartphones, a sensor with increased sensitivity is installed, which allows you to fully use the display even with ordinary gloves. Also, some devices are equipped with an inductive substrate to support the stylus.
So for those who like to write in the cold or use a stylus, the sensitive sensor will definitely come in handy.
Known Truths
It's no secret that screen resolution also has a big impact on the final image level. Without further comment, we bring to your attention the table of correspondence between the display diagonal and the resolution.
Conclusion
Each matrix has its own characteristics and hidden characteristics. You should be careful with -disks, or rather, with the ppi pixel density: if the value less than 300 ppi, then the quality of the picture you frankly will disappoint.
For IPS-matrix is important subtype, and depending on the subtype, the cost of a smartphone is logically proportionally increased.
Curved glass 2.5D will significantly increase the attractiveness of the picture, like the technology OGS.
The issue of display size is purely individual, but with multi-inch "shovels" a high resolution will be appropriate.
We wish you pleasant shopping, friends!
Stay tuned, there is more to come lot interesting.
Technology does not stand still, and LCD production is no exception. However, due to the constant development and release of new technologies in the manufacture of screens, as well as due to special marketing approaches to advertising, many buyers when choosing a monitor or TV may have a question, which is better than an IPS or TFT screen?
To answer this question, you need to understand what IPS technology is and what a TFT screen is. Only by knowing this, you will be able to understand what is the difference between these technologies. This, in turn, will help you make the right choice of a screen that will fully meet your requirements.
1. So what is a TFT display
As you might have guessed, TFT is the abbreviated name for the technology. It completely looks like this - Thin Film Transistor, which in translation into Russian means a thin-film transistor. Basically, a TFT display is a type of liquid crystal display that is based on an active matrix. In other words, it is a conventional active matrix liquid crystal display. That is, the control of liquid crystal molecules occurs using special thin-film transistors.
2. What is IPS technology
IPS is also short for In-Plane Switching. It is a kind of active matrix LCD. This means that the question of which is better than TFT or IPS is erroneous, since they are essentially the same thing. More precisely, IPS is a type of FTF display matrix.
The IPS technology got its name due to the unique arrangement of the electrodes, which are on the same plane with the liquid crystal molecules. In turn, liquid crystals are located parallel to the plane of the screen. This solution made it possible to significantly increase the viewing angles, as well as increase the brightness and contrast of the image.
Today, there are three most common types of active matrix TFT displays:
- TN + Film;
- PVA / MVA.
Thus, it becomes obvious that the difference between TFT and IPS lies only in the fact that TFT is a type of LCD screen with an active matrix, and IPS is the same active matrix in a TFT display, or rather one of the types of matrices. It should be noted that such a matrix is the most common among users all over the world.
3. What is the difference between TFT and IPS displays: Video
The common misconception that there is any difference between TFT and IPS has arisen from the marketing gimmicks of sales managers. In an effort to attract new customers, marketers do not disseminate full information about the technology, which creates the illusion that a completely new development is coming out into the world. Of course, IPS is a newer development than TN, but you cannot choose which TFT or IPS display is better for the above reasons.
LCD, TFT, IPS, AMOLED, P-OLED, QLED are a partial list of display technologies that can be found in the mainstream consumer electronics market today. When you go to buy another gadget, you constantly come across this and scold yourself that you didn't figure it out in time.
So this is the chance. Read about the specifics of each and how they differ ...
Liquid Crystal Display, that is, a liquid crystal display - it was this technology in the late 1990s that made it possible to transform monitors and televisions from comfortable beds for cats with cathode ray tubes, harmful to humans, into thin, elegant devices. She also opened the way to the creation of compact gadgets: laptops, PDAs, smartphones.
Liquid crystals are a substance that is both fluid, like a liquid, and anisotropic, like a crystal. The latter quality means that with different orientations of liquid crystal molecules, optical, electrical, and other properties change.
In displays, this property of LCD is used to regulate light conductivity: depending on the signal from the transistor, the crystals are oriented in a certain way. In front of them there is a polarizer that "collects" light waves into the plane of the crystals. After that, the light passes through an RGB filter and turns red, green, or blue, respectively. Then, if not blocked by the front polarizer, it appears on the screen as a subpixel. Several of these light fluxes are connected to each other, and on the display we see a pixel of the expected color, and its combination with neighboring pixels is capable of producing a gamut of the sRGB spectrum.
When the display is turned on, the backlighting is provided by white LEDs located around the perimeter of the display, and is evenly distributed over the entire area thanks to a special backing. This is where the well-known "diseases" of LCD arise. For example, the light still reaches the pixels that should be black. In old and low-quality displays, "black glow" is easily distinguishable.
It happens that the crystals "get stuck", that is, they do not move even when receiving a signal from the transistor, then a "dead pixel" appears on the display. Due to the specifics of the light source, white flares are visible at the edges of LCD monitors, and smartphones with LCD cannot be absolutely frameless, although both generations of Xiaomi Mi Mix and Essential Phone strive for this.
TN, or TN + film.
In fact, Twisted nematic is a "basic" technology that involves polarizing light and twisting liquid crystals into a spiral. Such displays are inexpensive and relatively easy to manufacture, and at the dawn of their existence on the market they had the lowest response time - 16 ms - but at the same time they were characterized by low contrast and small viewing angles. Today, technologies have stepped forward a lot, and the more advanced IPS has come to replace the TN standard.
IPS (in-plane switching).
Unlike TN, the liquid crystals in the IPS-matrix do not twist into a spiral, but rotate all together in one plane parallel to the display surface. This made it possible to increase the comfortable viewing angles up to 178 ° (that is, in fact, to the maximum), significantly increase the contrast of the image, make the black color much deeper, while maintaining comparative safety for the eyes.
Backlight and LCD backing Apple iPod Touch
Initially, IPS matrices had a faster response time and power consumption than TN displays, since the entire crystal array had to be rotated to transmit the signal. But over time, IPS-matrices have lost these shortcomings, in part due to the introduction of thin-film transistors.
TFT LCD.
In fact, this is not a separate type of matrix, but rather a subspecies, which is characterized by the use of thin-film-transistors (TFT) as a semiconductor for each sub-pixel. The size of such a transistor ranges from 0.1 to 0.01 microns, making it possible to create small, high-resolution displays. All modern compact displays have such transistors, and not only in LCD, but also in AMOLED.
LCD advantages:
inexpensive production;
slight negative effect on the eyes.
Disadvantages of LCD:
uneconomical energy distribution;
"Luminous" black color.
Organic light-emitting diode, or organic light-emitting diode - roughly speaking, it is a semiconductor that emits light in the visible spectrum, if it receives a quantum of energy. It has two organic layers enclosed in the cathode and the anode: when exposed to an electric current, emission occurs in them and, as a result, light is emitted.
An OLED matrix consists of many such diodes. In most cases, they are red, green and blue and together make up a pixel (we will omit the subtleties of various combinations of subpixels). But simpler displays can be monochrome and based on diodes of the same color (for example, in smart bracelets).
However, "lights" alone are not enough - a controller is required to display information correctly. And for a long time, the lack of adequate controllers did not allow the production of LED displays in their current form, since it is extremely difficult to correctly control such an array of individual miniature elements.
For this reason, in the first OLED displays, diodes were driven by groups. The controller in PMOLED is the so-called passive matrix (PM). It sends signals to the horizontal and vertical row of diodes, and the point of their intersection is highlighted. Only one pixel can be calculated per clock cycle, so it is impossible to get a complex picture, and even in high resolution. Because of this, manufacturers are also limited in the size of the display: a high-quality image will not come out on a screen with a diagonal of more than three inches.
A breakthrough in the LED display market occurred when it became possible to use thin-film transistors and capacitors to drive each pixel (more precisely, a sub-pixel) individually, and not in a group. In this system, called an active matrix (AM), one transistor is responsible for the beginning and end of the transmission of the signal to the capacitor, and the other for the transmission of the signal from the diode to the screen. Accordingly, if there is no signal, the diode does not light up, and the output is the deepest black color possible, because there is no glow in principle. Due to the fact that the diodes themselves, which lie almost on the surface, glow, the viewing angles of the AMOLED matrix are maximum. But when deviating from the gaze axis, the color may be distorted - go into a red, blue or green tint, or even go in RGB waves.
Such displays are distinguished by high brightness and contrast of the picture. Previously, this was a real problem: the first AMOLED screens were almost always "wry-eyed", they could get tired and hurt your eyes. Some displays used pulse width modulation (PWM) to prevent dark images from fading to purple, which also proved painful to the eyes. Due to the organic origin, the diodes sometimes burned out in two to three years, especially with prolonged display of an unchanged picture.
However, today technologies have gone far ahead, and the listed problems have for the most part already been solved. AMOLED displays are capable of delivering natural colors without heavy eye strain, while IPS displays, on the contrary, tightened in the area of richness of colors and contrast. In terms of energy consumption, AMOLED technology was initially about one and a half times more efficient than LCD, but according to tests of various devices, we can say that today this figure has almost leveled off.
Nonetheless, AMOLED is undeniably gaining in popularity in areas that are gaining popularity. We are talking about frameless gadgets, where LEDs are much easier to place than liquid crystals with side illumination, and curved (and in the future - bending) displays, for which LCD technology is unsuitable in principle. But this is where a new type of OLED comes into play.
In fact, there is some trickery in separating these displays into a separate category. Indeed, in fact, the fundamental difference between P-OLED (or POLED, not to be confused with PMOLED) from AMOLED is one thing - the use of a plastic (plastic, P) substrate, which allows the display to bend, instead of glass. But it is more difficult and more expensive to manufacture than standard glass. By the way, AMOLED displays are much thinner than LCD due to fewer "layers", and P-OLED, in turn, is thinner than AMOLED.
All smartphones with curved displays (mainly Samsung and LG) use P-OLED. Even in the flagships of Samsung in 2017, where, according to the manufacturer, there is both Super AMOLED and Infinity Display at once. The fact is that these are marketing names that have practically nothing to do with actual production technologies. From this point of view, OLED displays are installed there, which are controlled by an active matrix of thin-film transistors and lie on a plastic substrate - that is, the same AMOLED, or P-OLED. By the way, although the display does not bend in the LG V30, it still lies on a plastic substrate.
OLED advantages:
high contrast and brightness;
deep and not energy-consuming black color;
the ability to use in new form factors.
Disadvantages of OLED:
strong effect on the eyes;
expensive and complex production.
Marketing moves
Retina and Super Retina.
Translated from English, this word means "retina", and Steve Jobs chose him for a reason. During the presentation of the iPhone 4 in 2010, he said that the human eye is not able to distinguish between pixels if the display ppi exceeds 300. Strictly speaking, any corresponding display can be called Retina, but for obvious reasons, no one except Apple uses the term. The display of the future iPhone X has been called Super Retina, although it will have an AMOLED display, and not IPS, as in the rest of the company's smartphones. In other words, the name also has nothing to do with the screen manufacturing technology.
iPhone 4 - the first smartphone with a Retina display
iPhone X - the first and so far the only smartphone with a Super Retina display
Super AMOLED.
This trademark belongs to Samsung, which produces displays both for itself and for competitors, including Apple. Initially, the main difference between Super AMOLED and just AMOLED was that the company removed the air gap between the matrix and the touch layer of the screen, that is, combined them into a single display element. As a result, when deviating from the gaze axis, the picture ceased to delaminate. Very soon the technology reached almost all smartphones, and today it is not entirely clear why "super" is better than "regular" AMOLEDs produced by the same company.
Infinity Display.
Everything is quite simple here: "infinite display" means just an almost complete absence of side frames and the presence of minimal frames at the top and bottom. On the other hand, you can't imagine some ordinary frameless smartphone at the presentation - you have to name it beautifully.
Advanced technologies
Micro-LED or ILED.
This technology is a logical alternative to OLEDs: it is based on inorganic (Inorganic, I) gallium nitride, very small in size. According to experts, micro-LED will be able to compete with the usual OLED in all key parameters: higher contrast, better brightness reserve, faster response time, durability, smaller size and half the power consumption. But, alas, such diodes are very difficult to mass produce, so the technology will not yet be able to compete with conventional solutions on the market.
However, this did not stop Sony from showing at CES-2012 a 55-inch TV with a matrix of inorganic LEDs. Apple bought LuxVue, a research and development company in this area, in 2014. And although the iPhone X uses the classic AMOLED, future models may already have micro-LED matrices, which, we are assured, will increase the pixel density to 1500 ppi.
Quantum Dots, or QD-LED, or QLED.
This promising technology from Samsung has taken a bit of everything from the existing ones on the market. It got an internal backlight from LCD displays, but it does not "hit" into liquid crystals, but into very small crystals with a glow effect, deposited directly on the screen - quantum particles. The size of each dot depends on what color it will shine, the range is from two to six nanometers (for comparison: the thickness of a human hair is 100,000 nanometers). The result is vibrant, rich yet natural colors. But so far it is a very expensive technology to manufacture: the average cost of QLED TVs is about $ 2500-3000. Such displays are not used in mobile electronics, and it is not known whether and when they will be.
conclusions
In practice, modern LCD and AMOLED displays are becoming less and less different from each other in image quality and energy efficiency. But the future belongs to LED technologies in one form or another. Liquid crystals have already outlived their time and are kept on the market only due to their low cost and ease of production, although high image quality is also present. Due to their structure, LCD displays are thicker than LED ones and are unpromising in terms of new curvature and bezelless trends. So their withdrawal from the market is already on the horizon, while LED technologies are confidently developing in several directions at once and, as they say, are waiting in the wings.
The mobile phone screen is one of the main elements of the gadget, its original face and a window into the world of virtual reality. That is why, when choosing a device suitable for himself, a potential user first of all pays attention to the size of his display, as well as to the quality of the displayed picture. For this reason, manufacturers of mobile communicators are sparing no expense and are investing huge sums in the development of better screen technologies.
It is also worth noting that the mobile phone screen is the most vulnerable part of any modern touchscreen device. In order for it to continue to delight users with excellent color reproduction, it is necessary to ensure its safety. For this, various shapes and designs are intended.
Not all users understand how modern mobile screens differ from each other, as well as which ones are more practical and convenient to use. Let's take a look at ten of the main technologies used today in the production of displays for smartphones and other mobile devices.
LCD
LCD, or conventional liquid crystal display, is the most widely used type of flat screen mobile phone today. LCD screens use a backlit liquid crystal matrix to obtain an image. This type of display provides excellent color reproduction, but in comparison with competitors it suffers from low contrast. In addition, LCD screens are unable to display natural blacks, and in bright sunlight, the picture on them appears faded and washed out.
TFT
TFT screens, or thin film transistor screens, are an advanced type of active matrix LCD that is driven by these transistors. Such screens are distinguished by higher contrast and high performance. Each transistor built directly into the matrix drives a single pixel in the image, which greatly reduces the likelihood of cross-talk between cells and improves the overall clarity of the picture on the screen.
TFT color displays are mainly used in budget phones, but they provide a better picture quality than passive LCD screens.
IPS
IPS (In Plane Switching) screens are the next step in the evolution of TFT displays by Hitachi and LG. Such displays have improved color reproduction and wider viewing angles.
Today IPS-screens are the most advanced liquid crystal systems capable of providing high-quality display of information even at extremely sharp viewing angles.
Retina
Developed by the American company Apple, this type of LCD display uses pixels so small that the human eye cannot distinguish them. The density of the points on a unit of screen area is such that human vision simply does not see the gaps between them.
Such displays provide a uniform, crisp and eye-pleasing image. They are equipped with branded gadgets Apple iPhone 4S / 5C / 5S, iPad Air, the second generation iPad Mini, the fifth generation iPod touch, as well as 13- and 15-inch screens of Macbook Pro laptops.
OLED
OLED screens do not use backlighting, as they emit light on their own, which makes the device more energy efficient. In addition, they are capable of displaying real black, since they completely fade out at this moment.
The main strengths of OLEDs are their ability to display brighter, more saturated colors with high contrast and virtually unlimited viewing angles. In addition, they use less power and are significantly thinner than LCD screens (due to the lack of backlighting).
AMOLED
AMOLED screens represent the next stage in the development of OLED technology. In fact, this is the same OLED matrix, which is controlled by a layer of thin film transistors TFT. Thanks to this improvement, the new type of screen has become cheaper to manufacture, has acquired an expanded color gamut, has significantly "lost weight" and began to consume less energy.
Super AMOLED technology, developed and patented by Samsung, is essentially the same AMOLED. All changes concern the elimination of one layer of glass from the multilayer structure of the AMOLED matrix and the placement of sensor elements directly on the screen.
Samsung claims that the use of this technology can increase the clarity, brightness and color saturation of the picture displayed on the smartphone screen by 5 times. Plus, Super AMOLED screens have gotten even thinner.
Additional modifications of the Super AMOLED technology, Super AMOLED Plus, and HD Super AMOLED differ from the base technology only in the number of subpixels used.
S-LCD
S-LCD, or Super LCD technology, was developed by a subsidiary of Samsung, formerly a Sony subsidiary. S-LCD screens offer almost the same picture quality as AMOLED displays, but are much cheaper to manufacture. In terms of color rendering, S-LCD screens are ahead of AMOLED displays, but slightly lag behind them in image brightness.
ClearBlack
Nokia's proprietary development called ClearBlack uses a system of film filters that block external light falling on the smartphone screen, preventing glare. The technology allows you to actively read information from the screen even in bright sunlight.
The main advantage of such screens, in comparison with other types of displays, is their ability to display natural black color and extended viewing angles.
E-ink
E-Ink displays, familiar to many users from electronic readers, are now being actively implemented in mobile phones. Not so long ago, sales of the YotaPhone smartphone started in Russia, in which E-Ink is used as an additional information screen to the main LCD display.
This monochrome technology is energy efficient and does not tire the eyes, even if you look at the screen for a long time.
After purchasing any touchscreen phone, you need to remember that the phone will not always be in a case, so the screen will be vulnerable. To protect the screen, protective films for phones are used, which are specially made for a specific model.
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