Samsung: iPhone 4's retina display is nice, but it's no AMOLED
By Vlad Savov 
posted June 9th 2010 7:41PM
posted June 9th 2010 7:41PM
posted June 9th 2010 7:41PM
Apple iPhone 4
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IMO, It's in the software.
Samsung, the made the battery bigger for a reason, DUH!!!
Apple really thinks every decision they make is a perfect one, well, hah! The build quality of my iPhone 3G SUCKED, so I got rid of it.
@kiezel
I can't believe people complain about build quality of iPhone, I am pre-orderi my iPhone 4 and currently using iPhone 3G - this phone is awmazing - nothing electronic device of mind as every gone through what it has gone through. It been drop several times in gym - so much that the screen protector has large niche and unit has be flawless.
My iPod Nano still works - even after my H2Oaudiio leak. Just left it alone for a month of two thinking it was dead and still works.
I can't wait for better battery life - but that still pretty good for such a device. I have absolutely no complaints on build quality of iPhone.
I heard you like Mudkips
It’s no AMOLED: That’s right Samsung, that’s the reason it can be used in sunlight as well
*ZING*
@Yoshi1080 Welcome to Super AMOLED. Which can be used in sunlight.
Retains all the positives of AMOLED and none-of the negatives. Super AMOLED is like the Blade of screens.
i don't understand why everyone says jobs is promoting this outdated lcd technology as the greatest thing while dismissing amoled. what is everyone else seeing? the one thing i've heard unanimously agreed upon by pundits, journalists and bloggers (anyone who has seen the iphone 4 in person) is that this display actually lives up to the hype and that it's amazingly vivid and real looking. these same people have also seen the best amoled screens too - unlike 99.9% of posters in here including myself. i know that engadget thrives on this tit for tat mentality but it's getting old. if you don't look at the sum of the parts or the user experience as a whole, then you're just comparing ram and hard drive and processors. that's a bullshit pc argument from the 90's. the mhz wars are over. apple proved that in the 90's and still prove it today by making the best overall user experience repeatedly. why else do you think samsung came out with this statement? their phone sucks in most ways except for its beautiful amoled screen and that's why they're forced to compare screens and not compare mobile os, or app store or user interface or marketshare.
by the way, there are amazing displays out there that outperform both apple's and samsung's display but you know what...they're expensive and cannot be produced quickly enough to meet consumer demands. right now the amoled can almost meet meager consumer demand while a high res ips lcd can almost meet it's demand. apple picks components based on pricing, quality and availability. amoled is none of these right now and in a year or two it will be. that's when apple will adopt it into the iphone system and actually use it to make the iphone experience better. meanwhile, samsung users can enjoy the "best" screen on a weak phone.
Well I think this photo comparious is not fair on Apple. Check out the following link for how good apples screen really is.
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/screenshots-2.png
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/screenshots-4.png
'
Steve Jobs makes a few claims that may be misleading but c'mon people he's selling his product. I know it makes for interesting fodder and gets the tech biz riled up but Steve's got to answer to his share holders that could give a shit what he says as long as he's increasing profits. He's doing a good job. Talk to any CEO and they'll too tell you their products are the BEST! A little perspective...
OLED takes a dump on everything
@lightforce. To put it bluntly - yes, it does.
There is a reason Samsung and specifically Samsung Mobile Display (SMD) are investing $2.2bn in their new generation AMOLED production facility. Meanwhile companies such as DuPont are also making significant progress in the organic materials themselves and, specifically, how they are printed onto the backplane more efficiently and precisely.
To take Samsung out of the equation - the same reasons surround LG's investment of $225 million and a goal to triple their OLED production capacity. As I'm sure many of you are aware LG produce a number of IPS displays under there own name, but also provide IPS panels for the likes of HP, Dell, NEC (and not to drop names - Apple) and others.
Anybody with a sound and deep understanding of the principles of LCD displays (in-plane switching or otherwise) and OLED displays (which includes Samsung and LG) will appreciate the advantages that eliminating the backlight and having pixels emit light directly brings to the table. I am not going to go into depth as to what these are as there is plenty of literature available on my website and elsewhere - but the principle is similar to a far more efficient, precise and high-resolution plasma display suitable for displays
What did you expect? It's just a screen with more pixels, except Jobs just decided to put a name on it to fool the confused sheep. It's nice that they decided to cram in more pixels, but you can't deny OLED screen is the future. For someone who loves future tech like Jobs, touting HTML5, not sticking with OLED screen just means he's a hypocrite. Then again, who wouldn't know that he is one?
@Yeria So, he decides to give display a name, so what? Why does that bother you? It's a technology that Apple designed and it's a huge feature of the iPhone, probably the biggest.
And, no, Steve didn't just pick HTML5 because it was a new technology, he picked it because if he got on that wagon early HTML5 could be optimized for Macs, and that's what Mac users needed. When I watched flash video on my 2.53GHz core 2 duo MacBook Pro my CPU usage was at 30-40% most of the time. If I were to watch that video and do a couple of tasks simultaneously, my computer would be in trouble. The fans would go at full speed, the system would be slow and then watching the video wouldn't even be worth it. Watching HTML5 video left my CPU usage at 6-11%. He picked HTML5 for a reason.
No thanks Samsung, I prefer to be able to use my phone outdoors.
I think the real question here is: Why is it 70 degrees (21 C) and snowing in Las Vegas on March 23rd? AccuWeather my butt.
What happened to the rest of my comment? Never mind... Further reading for you guys if you're interested - from somebody who has seen OLED prototypes at a size where the differences actually matter. Simply beautiful, stunning and very natural. http://www.pcmonitors.org/articles/oled-monitor-article
#0% more efficient is great, but I like to be able to see my phone's screen outside. I'm picky like that.
Super AMOLED displays work just fine outdoors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMEarDy0QgM&feature=player_embedded
Why don't you Engadget morons be fair and put a
The AMOLED display is awesome, but if what Apple says is true then thiers will be just as good. I think i have to go with the iPhone because of the pixel density. You can zoom for days and still keep the clarity of pics and print looking good.
Make a sentence out of the following words: brand, marketing, affluenza, hate, love, fanboy, belonging, hateboy, iPhone, tribalism, too, much, spare and time.
Who'd have thought a country dedicated to open-market competition would have so much trouble handling, well, competition!
Im watching now at my Galaxy's display in the sunlight ...and i see almost nothing... That's why i always have my ITouch64 with me... :) F-Off Samsung!
@Funker NL This AMOLED display is different. The touch layer is under the OLED layer which is glued beneath the glass layer providing for extreme contrastiness and outdoor visibility especially compared to traditional AMOLEDs.
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_s8500_wave-review-480p3.php
That said, the iPhone 4's display is still very nice.
@JRKScope
Sweet link, I never seen the screen before and that pretty much sums it all up!
It should be very interesting to see how the iPhone 4s retina display does against this.
See what you should do is get this phone, navigate to forum.xda-developers.com and read up on how to root your phone, then flash a Sense based ROM. Insta-win!
So Samsung, the primary producer of OLED, is saying it's better? Wow—who'd have thunk it. That's certainly an unbiased, objective opinion. ;)
OLED is an awesome technology. But let's be fair—it's not perfect and it's still in its early stages. It has shortcomings that IPS doesn't have, just like it has advantages over IPS.
I don't think it would've been technically possible to go that high res with an OLED (right now) anyway...
Anyone else think the Samsung phone in that picture looks really cheap? I'm sure it's a decent phone.
I have a bit of a dilemma here, folks. I'm waiting on a shipment after having just signing a 2 year contract with a carrier. I picked the HTC Desire cause I was ready to change things up from my iPhone 3G. The Desire looks to be the best Android phone out there, currently. However, if I return it, unopened, I can choose a different phone. I'm super tempted to just wait for the iPhone 4. But I'm not sure when it's launching in my current country. Should I wait or take the Desire?
IMO,
Wave's S-AMOLED screen has several advantages:
1) Lower power consumption
2) Better real contrast ratio
3) Outdoors readability
iPhone 4's IPS-LCD screen has several abilities too:
1) Better viewing angles
2) Cheaper (both to produce and to buy)
3) High-pixel density ("HD" screens, AKA "retina display")
Both screen-types have the "closer-to-the-glass" feeling, because they both eliminate the touch-detection layer and incorporate it into the display. So in the end, it all depends on what is more important to you? Do you want a cheaper, HD display with great viewing angles? Get an iPhone. Do you want a phone that is great for outdoors viewing and has lower power consumption? Get a Wave/GalaxyS.
However, I have a few arguments that for me, would make me choose an iPhone over a Wave....
1) Although in theory S-AMOLED screens waste less battery, it is not sure that the phone itself will take advantage of the extra juice. For example, multitasking in the Android phones is a power sink compared to iOS4 handling of multitasking (I know it is not "true" multitasking, but IMO you don't need "true" multitasking in a phone)
2) Outdoors experience with iPS displays has been not bad so far.... And really, to use a little shadow to check google-maps for example, is not that hard even in the sunniest day....
@yosoyleko
The viewing angles of an AMOLED are superior to any IPS screen.
@epwnym
"To take Samsung out of the equation - the same reasons surround LG's investment of $225 million and a goal to triple their OLED production capacity. As I'm sure many of you are aware LG produce a number of IPS displays under there own name, but also provide IPS panels for the likes of HP, Dell, NEC (and not to drop names - Apple) and others."
It's not about bias. It's about moving technology forwards.
I'll reserve judgment for a side by side comparison but i have a feeling samsung's is probably better.
I imagine that Apple simply chose IPS to avoid being constrained by OLED supply shortages. Saying that would not be very good PR, though.
That Samsung phone looks like the iPhone 3G why do they do that ?
I love that Samsung is so jealous, lol. Samsung admits Apple's retina display is better than their unreleased Galaxy S, but says the Retina consumes 30% more power. Ok, Samsung, I'd love to see your phone with 13 hours of video playback. If the iPhone is anything like the iPad, I bet i'd be able to squeeze 13 hours of video, anyways.
I'm sure Samsung's display is very nice...
and if that's all you care about.. display... fine...
but even if the iPhone's display is very close.... or even better in some
ways... Then I'd still choose the iPhone...
The App Store and UI is the real deal breaker for me...
Galaxy S is far different than any other smart phones ever made from samsung, check YouTube videos. It's useless argument which phone is better now that most of you don't have in them in your hand, no doubt iPhone 4G will be good also Galaxy S may as good,
phone companies all copy each other hard or
softwears, just like cars so don't be silly and wait next month than in a few months we will find out which one will be better includong eveo, N8 and some new smart phones
from what I hear AMOLED has a shorter product life and is harder to see in the sun, if that is true I don't want any part of AMOLED till they work that out.
Jobs added a new feature to his Retina display...according to various comments now coming in that some of the new displays are exhibiting yellow spots. YELLOW SPOTS. Take that Samsung!
So SAMOLED uses less power...and the iPhone still has 40-50% more battery life than any full android phones. SAMOLED matters why? Apple compensated for battery life in other areas than the display, AND it is 5% better clarity than samsung's display. It sounds like they made the right tradeoff--cheaper, higher clarity display while improving battery performance.
Team Sammy!!
This is ridiculous. Anyone vs. Apple is going to win on Engadget. There is more Apple haters here than anywhere else on the Web.
BTW, I think the Retina Display destroys Samsung's wannabe iPhone.
This is actually an a hit at LG, not Apple. LG made the retina display and are Samsung's biggest rival.