Displays & Resolutions ~ Explained!

When we’re checking out the hot
new mobile gadgets hitting the
market, or shopping for an
upgrade, we’re often-times dazzled
by internal components. Does it
have a dual core or quad core
processor? How much memory
does it have? What kind of ports?
How big is the battery? Many of
us, though, don’t put quite as
much consideration into the one
key component that will have the
most use of all: the display. There
are so many kinds of mobile
display types, and sorting through
which display type offers which
kind of presentation experience can
be a little confusing. They may be
labeled as TFT LCD, AMOLED,
Super AMOLED, Super AMOLED
Plus, IPS, or many others. While
we’re busy picking from our
favorite designs, colors, or
included features, we sometimes
pass over just what display type
we’re taking home with us for the
next 18 months or more. Choosing
the right display can be the
difference in how rich your colors
are, how much power it consumes,
or how well you can see the
display when you take it outside.
However, you’ll never worry about
that again! Here’s a handy guide
to knowing your mobile display
types, and what they mean.

Display Types:

AMOLED

Short for Active Matrix Organic
Light Emitting Diode. Active matrix
is a designation referring to how
individual screen elements are
addressed. In an active matrix,
each pixel is attached to a switch
which actively maintains that
pixel’s state while other pixels are
being addressed. Passive matrix
displays were used in early LCDs.
A passive matrix display once
required pixels to maintain their
state until the next refresh. The
technology has advanced to the
point that bi-stable pixels are now
used, which allow pixels to
maintain their state indefinitely
without the need for individual
transistor elements at each pixel.
That’s all well and good, but what
impact does it have on your
display? The active matrix display
will offer provide higher refresh
rates than a passive matrix, or an
LCD, and also consume much less
power than their LCD counterparts.
Colors will be brighter, blacks
much deeper, but colors may be
unrealistically bold.

Super AMOLED

This newer version of AMOLED
displays has been brought
mainstream in many high-end
Samsung devices. The key
difference between AMOLED and
Super AMOLED displays is that the
layer that detects touch is actually
built into the display, rather than
being overlaid on top of the
display. Super AMOLED offers a
brighter display, reflects sunlight
very well, and is less power-hungry
than even a traditional AMOLED
display.

Super AMOLED Plus

This display type was first
introduced on the Samsung Galaxy
S II and Droid Charge. The
advantage of Super AMOLED Plus
is that it uses 3 subpixels, rather
than 2, to display much finer detail
in picture quality. It is also
brighter than Super AMOLED,
thinner, and 18% more power
efficient.

HD Super AMOLED

A much newer display technology
made by Samsung, HD Super
AMOLED made its debut on the
Galaxy Note, though it’s also
present on the Galaxy Nexus.
Changes in material and
manufacturing make this display
technology able to provide a
higher resolution and dpi (dots-
per-inch) than previous displays.
The Galaxy note offers a resolution
of 1280×800, while the Galaxy
Nexus is 1280×720. The trade-off
is that the technology requires a
reversion to the PenTile display,
which uses 2 subpixels, rather
than 3. This means that HD Super
AMOLED cannot produce the same
fine detail as the Super AMOLED
Plus display.

PenTile

PenTile is a display type also
trademarked by Samsung. It is
derived from from “penta” meaning
5, and tile, and describes the
geometric layout of the subpixel
arrangement developed in the
1990′s. This layout consists of 2
red, 2 green and 1 blue subpixel in
each unit cell. PenTile comes in
two types, RGBW and RGBG. RGBW
adds a white pixel, which allows
for a brighter display and lower
power consumption. Power
consumption versus a
conventional LCD display is about
50% less. You can find this type of
display on the Motorola Atrix 4G.
The RGBG PenTile display, instead
uses green pixels interleaved with
alternating red and blue pixels.
Because the human eye is most
sensitive to green light, especially
for high resolution luminance, this
display creates a color scheme
with fewer subpixels, but the same
measured luminance. This is the
type of display used in the Galaxy
Nexus. A PenTile display offers
better battery life, and produces
rich colors, however it doesn’t
provide the fine level of detail one
would find in a Super AMOLED
Plus display.

TFT LCD

TFT LCD is short for Thin Film
Transistor Liquid Crystal Display.
This variation on standard LCD
technology is an active matrix
display that was put in use to offer
better image quality over TN-
based LCD displays that were
developed as far back as the
1970′s. These displays are more
power-hungry than AMOLED-based
displays, but are also much
cheaper to produce. Since they
require a constant backlight,
however, they’re a poor choice for
outdoor use.

IPS LCD

IPS LCD displays use a technology
called in-plane switching. The term
refers to how the crystals in the
display are placed, as they are
always parallel to the panel’s
plane. IPS was created in 1996 by
Hitachi to solve the problems with
earlier LCD technology that
resulted in poor viewing angles
and low-quality color reproduction.
IPS displays have some
advantages, such as vivid and
clear pictures, and quick touch-
response time. Samsung, however,
has also developed Super PLS,
which will take the place of IPS
displays in short order. Super PLS
(plane-to-line switching)
technology offers 100%
improvements in viewing angles
and 10% improvements in
brightness over IPS.

Retina Display

Retina display is a term used by
Apple to describe their LCD screen
technology. Retina displays pack
in the pixel density to 326 ppi
(pixels per inch) to offer a very
high resolution. Retina displays
smooth out the pixels’ jagged
edges, and they claim that it is
impossible for the human eye to
distinguish individual pixels.
Retina displays excel at displaying
text.

Flexible Displays

The displays of the future will soon
change what kind of devices we
carry, and also how we interact
with them. Flexible displays are
currently in the works from the
likes of Samsung and Nokia. These
super-thin, flexible screens will one
day lead to devices you can roll
up, or fold up and put in your
pocket.

Accompanying the display type
when you look at a product will be
a resolution. You may see
something like WVGA or QVGA or
qHD. These refer to the screen
resolution, or how many pixels it
displays in width and height. This
is important because a higher
resolution will offer a finer, more
detailed display than a lower
resolution.

For a clear idea about Screen Resolutions Refer this CHART :

I hope this article was helpful in making you understand the basic displays used in todays Mobile phones and tablets
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