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iPhone 4 Retina Display vs. Galaxy S Super AMOLED... fight! (updated)
If the title of this post isn't enough to entice you, we don't know what else to say. We've gone and run some sunlit comparisons between Apple's brand spanking new phone's Retina Display and Samsung's equally fresh and exclusive Super AMOLED panel on the Galaxy S. We don't know if we'll be able to settle the argument, but we're certainly going to subject both superphones to an expansive visual inspection. Follow us after the break for video exploration of this most pressing topic. Update: Due to the Galaxy S having a separate setting for browser brightness, which we didn't max out in the original investigation, we've gone back and collected some truly 100 percent illuminated pictures. See the gallery after the break. Keep in mind that this shouldn't discredit most of the work done here, as we were more interested in pixel-level detail than brightness.%Gallery-96227%
iPhone 4's yellow spot issue goes away with a bit of time?
We're starting to hear a few reports of the dreaded yellow spots disappearing from the iPhone 4's display after a day or so of use. Interestingly, someone posting on the AppleInsider forums seems to know why: Apple is using a bonding agent called Organofunctional Silane Z-6011 to bond the layers of glass. Apparently, Apple (or more likely Foxconn) is shipping these products so quickly that the evaporation process is not complete. However, after one or two days of use, especially with the screen on, will complete the evaporation process and the yellow "blotches" will disappear. How do I know? I was involved in pitching Z-6011 to Apple. If this can be trusted, it's very good news for those afflicted -- though hopefully Apple will keep to its usually painless replacement policy for defective phones either way. We are still seeing some mentions of the spots sticking around, fading in and out based on the heat of the phone, but we'll give it another day or two to really see how much of a problem is going to be. Let us know how yours fares. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
iPhone 4 and iPhone 3G screens go head-to-head under the microscope
We got up pretty close to the iPhone 4's retina display in our review, but we can't say we got quite as close as PhD candidates Ryan White and Bryan Gauntt of Penn State University, who have kindly provided us with some images of the screen under a microscope (along with an iPhone 3G for comparison). According to their measurements, the iPhone 3G's pixels measure 13 x 40 microns, while the iPhone 4's measure 6.5 x 20 microns, which adds up to exactly four times as many pixels. As impressive as sounds that sounds, however, it's the pictures that really tell the story -- hit up the gallery below to check them out. %Gallery-96159%
Poll: is your iPhone 4 retina display seeing yellow spots? (update: losing bars in the hand?)
Out, damned spot! out, I say! One; two: why, then, 'tis time to do 't. Hell is murky! Fie, my lord, fie! Reports are coming in from some of those lucky early iPhone 4 users that there may exist a not-so-lucky yellow coloration in the bottom right corner of the IPS LCD. We haven't seen this ourselves on any new iPhones, but maybe you've had different experiences. Tell us, is your iPhone 4 seeing yellow? Update: As a number of readers have pointed out, there seems to be an issue with how many bars are displayed on screen -- perhaps even a correlation to how it's being held in the hand. According to Walt Mossberg's review, Apple has acknowledged the issue as something that has to do with "the way the bars are presented, not the actual ability to make a call," and that a fix is forthcoming. Indeed, as noted in our review, we've had "far, far fewer dropped calls than we experienced on our 3GS." We're not seeing very many videos showing more dropped call, but the bar change is interesting. Still, to be sure, we're adding another poll. Update 2: Our iPhone 4 purchased in Japan has a pale yellow bar along then entire bottom edge. Picture after the break.%Poll-48460% %Poll-48475% [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
iPhone 4 early shipments include some defective Retina displays
Which is worse: the heartbreak of knowing you're not getting an iPhone 4 by launch day, or receiving one early but slightly defective? I'm going with the latter, myself. Several folks who've received an iPhone 4 early are tipping us and reporting to Apple that the fancy, new Retina displays on their new iPhones are defective and showing odd, colored splotches near the bottom edges of the screen. One report notes: "In the bottom 10% of the screen there are three blotches about the size of shirt buttons that discolor the screen a brown/yellow color." You can see a demonstration of that anomaly in the image to the right. Seeing as there's quite a shortage of iPhone 4's right about now, if you're experiencing this issue and report it to Apple, it may be some time before you see a fresh, undamaged one in your hands. In fact, we're told Apple won't take tech support calls for the iPhone 4 until after its official release tomorrow. Thanks Robert!
iPhone 4's resolution resolved
When Steve Jobs introduced iPhone 4, he claimed that its "Retina Display's" tiny pixels exceed what the human eye can differentiate. "It turns out there's a magic number right around 300 pixels per inch, that when you hold something around to 10 to 12 inches away from your eyes, is the limit of the human retina to differentiate the pixels," Jobs said. Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies, refuted the claim in a Wired article entitled iPhone 4's 'Retina' Display Claims Are False Marketing. Meanwhile, Phil Plait of Discover magazine's Bad Astronomy column responds by saying that Soneira is (mostly) incorrect, while Steve Jobs is (technically) right. Begun this week the war has.
Samsung: iPhone 4's retina display is nice, but it's no AMOLED
Samsung seems to have taken exception to a little sidenote made by Steve Jobs during his iPhone 4 announcement at WWDC10 this Monday. While waxing poetic on the virtues of IPS, Jobs let us know that he considers it an entirely superior display technology to OLED, and now the world's biggest display maker has a few words to say about it. According to a Samsung spokesperson, the high-res retina display on the iPhone 4 offers only a 3 to 5 percent advantage in sharpness over its own Galaxy S Super AMOLED screen, but sucks down a wasteful 30 percent more power. Moreover, Samsung believes its screens offer better viewing angles and contrast, and concludes by saying that "structurally, IPS LCD technology cannot catch up with AM-OLED display technology." And here we thought Samsung and Apple were getting along so well.
Great moments in reality distortion: the iPhone 4's Retina Display and Winnie the Pooh
Apple's making some big noise about the iPhone 4's new Retina Display and its ability to render print-like text quality, but apparently the iBooks team didn't get the memo: as New York Times design director Khoi Vinh noticed, there's a sad little moment in the iPhone 4 promo video when Scott Forstall says "the text is just perfect" just as a poorly laid out page of Winnie the Pooh flashes on the screen. Of course, almost every e-reader and e-reader app is capable of mutilating a layout, but it's crazy to think that this is what Apple actually chose to put up while hyping their new display -- and it's crazy to think that the same fastidious minds that created the iPhone would approve of iBooks doing this to Winnie the Pooh. Khoi's entire post is pretty interesting, so hit the source link to check it out -- and skip to about 3:02 after the break to see the RDF in effect for yourself.
Apple's iPhone 4 promo videos show Retina Display and video calling
Ready to be uplifted by soundtracks and low swooping device shots? Apple's just posted up its iPhone 4 design video, a video about the new Retina Display, and the new (leaked) FaceTime commercial directed by Sam Mendes, and they're all pretty fun. Check 'em after the break. Update: We're told this isn't actually the Sam Mendes video calling ad, but rather an Apple promo video produced internally. We'll just have to wait and see if Mendes can top these heartwrenching images of American beauty with his ad.
Brother, NEC look to invade your retinas next year
Brother may spend a big chunk of its time on things like printers and sewing machines, but it's also quietly been working on some decidedly more futuristic products, and it may just be set to deliver on one of them. While it wasn't offering much in the way of specifics the last time we heard about its retina display technology, Brother now seems to have a fully developed, fully functional prototype (pictured above), and it says it plans to commercialize the glasses sometime "next year." Naturally, there are a few considerable limitations compared to more traditional displays, but the company's as yet unnamed goggles do promise to beam an 800 x 600 image directly into your retina that'll appear as a 10-centimeter wide image floating about one meter in front of them -- which is certainly no small feat, even if it may not be the most practical one. Slightly less specific, but also working on a retina display of its own is NEC, which apparently hopes to incorporate a microphone into their display and use it as a real-time translation device that would quite literally display subtitles as you talk to someone. Ambitious, to be sure, but NEC is also saying it hopes to get it on the market in 2010. Read - Register Hardware, "Brother creates direct retinal imaging specs" Read - Far East Gizmos, "NEC develops Worlds first retina-display translation Eyeglasses" [Via Popular Science]