vendredi 29 décembre 2017

ASUS ZenFone 4 is getting Android Oreo via OTA

In early December, we reported that ASUS was planning to bring Android Oreo to its newest mid-range smartphone, the ZenFone 4, before the end of the month. On Friday, the company made good on its promise and announced that it's issued a software update to the ZenFone 4 (ZE554KL).

The Android Oreo update (which the carries build number 15.0405.1711.76) is based on ZenUI 4.0, the latest version of ASUS's custom skin. After updating, ZenFone 4 users can look forward to all the standard Android Oreo features and optimizations, including picture-in-picture mode (PiP), Notification Dots, a built-in password manager, improved Doze mode, faster boot times, and more.

Along with all the Oreo goodies, the update also packs a new version of the default application launcher. There's a swipe-up gesture that pulls up installed applications, new customizable application icons, and a streamlined Settings menu.

For the uninitiated, the ZenFone 4 is a mid-range offering from Asus that packs a 5.5-inch Full HD IPS display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 system-on-a-chip (SoC), 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a 3,300mAh battery. It originally launched in European markets alongside the ZenFone 4 Pro and Max back in September, and subsequently hit U.S. retailers on October 31.

The update has begun rolling out over-the-air (OTA), and if you're carrying a ZenFone 4, you'll see it in the coming days. Alternatively, you can check for the update manually by heading to Settings > About > System Update. As is always the case with staged software rollouts, though, it might take some time for the update to reach your phone.


Source: ASUS ZenTalk Forums



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ZTE’s Blade V9 Marketing Materials Leak, Show 18:9 Display

ZTE first made waves in the smartphone market the Axon 7, an affordable premium phone that went head-to-head with the venerable OnePlus 3. Now, the China-based smartphone maker is gearing up to release a new budget phone, the Blade V9, and its Spanish-language website spilled the beans a little early.

The Blade V9 is a budget phone like its predecessors, but with a few features you might associate with high-end devices. It has a 5.7-inch Full HD display with a 18:9 aspect ratio, 2GB/3GB/4GB RAM (depending on the model),  16GB/32GB/64GB of internal storage, and a premium all-glass front and back.

ZTE's upcoming smartphone also has a LED-equipped dual camera setup consisting of a 16MP, f/1.8 autofocus sensor and a 5MP fixed-focus sensor. The Blade V9's front-facing camera is 13MP, and there's a fingerprint sensor on the back, plus a hybrid dual SIM slot, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a 3200mAh battery.

But the Blade V9 won't be the most powerful smartphone on the block. It's rocking a Qualcomm's Snapdragon 450, a low-end, 1.8GHz octa-core chip that's commonly found in budget phones. It won't tear through applications and tasks like, say, the Google Pixel 2 XL, but assuming the price is right, the Blade V9 could be a new budget device heavyweight.

According to the leaked marketing materials, the Blade V9 will launch in two color variants — black and gold — and it'll ship with Android Oreo. We expect to see it officially announced at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.


Source: Stuff



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Amazon Blocks YouTube on the Amazon Fire TV Before Google’s Deadline

In recent months, Google and Amazon have had what can only be described as a petty fight. Amazon prevented Google's Chromecast from playing Amazon Prime Video and delisted Chromecast devices from its store. Google, for its part, blocked Amazon's Echo Show speaker from accessing YouTube, and announced it would no longer support the YouTube application on Fire TV devices after January 1st, 2018. If all that wasn't bad enough, Amazon this week disabled the Fire TV app before Google's deadline.

Fire TV users who try to open the YouTube application are encouraged via a pop-up message to install web browsers like Amazon's Silk or Firefox. It's unclear if Google will attempt to block YouTube on Fire TV-optimized web browsers, but there's precedent — Amazon's workaround on the Echo Show, which used a browser to pull up YouTube videos, was disabled by the search giant earlier this month.

Things might not be as bad as they seem, though. Chromecast listings recently reappeared on Amazon's store, and a Google spokesperson confirmed to Variety that the two companies are in talks:

"We are in productive discussions with Amazon to reach an agreement for the benefit of our mutual customers. We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon."

That's good news. Many people opened up an Alexa-enabled device this Christmas, if the uptick in downloads of the Alexa app on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store are any indication. Fire TV users, for now, can use the aforementioned web browser workaround to view YouTube, but here's hoping that a more elegant solution's in the works.


Source: FastCompany



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Alphabet’s Tacotron 2 Text-to-Speech Engine Sounds Nearly Indistinguishable From a Human

Alphabet's subsidiary, DeepMind, developed WaveNet, a neural network that powers the Google Assistant's speech synthesis, in October. It's capable of better and more realistic audio samples than the search giant's previous text-to-speech system, and what's more, it generates raw audio — not spliced-together sounds from voice actors. Now, researchers at Alphabet have developed a new version, Tacotron 2, that uses multiple neural networks to produce speech almost indistinguishable from a human.

Tacotron 2 consists of two deep neural networks. As the research paper published this month describes it, the first translates text into a spectrogram, a visual representation of a spectrum of audio frequencies. The second — DeepMind's WaveNet — interpret the chart and generates corresponding audio elements. The result is an end-to-end engine that can emphasize words, correctly pronounce names, pick up on syntactical clues (i.e., stress words that are italicized or capitalized), and alter the way it enunciates based on punctuation.

It's unclear whether Tacotron 2 will make its way to user-facing services like the Google Assistant, but it'd be par for the course. Shortly after the publication of DeepMind's WaveNet research, Google rolled out machine learning-powered speech recognition in multiple languages on Assistant-powered smartphones, speakers, and tablets.

There's only one problem: Right now, the Tacotron 2 system is trained to mimic one female voice. To generate new voices and speech patterns, Google would need to train the system again.


Tacotron 2



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jeudi 28 décembre 2017

Multiple Verizon Google Pixel 2 Owners are Reporting their Bootloaders can be Unlocked

The Google Pixel 2/2 XL is my personal favorite smartphone of 2017, despite the fact that the custom development scene is rather sparse. The stock Pixel experience is enough to make many die-hard Android modders decide to forego running a custom ROM or kernel. However, there's still a sizable group of users on our forums who prefer to unlock their bootloader, install Magisk, and flash various modifications. Those users who still go that route tend to avoid buying their phone from carriers because carrier phones tend to be locked down. This is true of the Google Pixel 2 sold on Verizon Wireless, where the bootloader cannot be unlocked, however multiple users on our forums are reporting tonight that they have successfully unlocked the bootloader of the Verizon Google Pixel 2.

An XDA member by the name of D3RP_ posted a thread on our Pixel 2 forum seeing if it would be possible to unlock the bootloader of the device. Last year's Verizon Google Pixel and Pixel XL were unlockable thanks to an exploit, but no such exploit has been discovered for the latest generation Pixel 2 smartphone series. Yet, it appears that an exploit isn't necessary at all. Simply sending a simple fastboot command on the Verizon Google Pixel 2 (sorry Pixel 2 XL owners!) appears to bring up the menu to unlock the bootloader.

Here are the steps to try this on your own Verizon Google Pixel 2:

  1. Download the latest ADB & Fastboot binaries for your computer.
  2. Go to Developer Options and Enable USB Debugging. If you haven't yet enabled Developer Options, you'll need to enable it by going to Settings –> System –> About Phone and then tap on "Build number" 7 times. Then, Developer Options will show up in Settings –> System.
  3. On your computer, open a command prompt or terminal and enter: adb reboot bootloader
  4. This reboots you to your bootloader. Now type: fastboot flashing lock_critical
  5. This should hopefully bring up the bootloader unlock screen even though we never enabled OEM Unlocking. Use your volume keys to select the "UNLOCK THE BOOTLOADER" option.
  6. Press the power button to confirm. THIS WILL WIPE ALL DATA ON YOUR INTERNAL STORAGE.
  7. Once done, you can now flash TWRP and Magisk!

Thus far, we have confirmation from XDA Members D3rp_, zinchalk, enzyne, abs0lute, Lightn1ng, Ips1014, Spaniard85, dodendemise, and mamarcac that this works. We have no idea why this works, but this definitely shouldn't be possible on the Verizon model, so we don't expect this to last long.

It's possible that all 9 of these users somehow got their hands on Pixel 2 phones from Verizon that are actually the same batch as the regular ones sold by Google, though. That would mean that this is isolated to only a few lucky users. We'll try to find out how exactly this works, but if you own a Verizon Google Pixel 2 and want your bootloader unlocked, now may be your only chance. Try this out and let us know if it worked for you!



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Pixel 2 XL XDA Display Analysis: A Well-Calibrated Package with a Some Critical Mistakes

In the past few months, the Pixel 2 XL has been the topic of many controversies, with conflict existing even before the phone's release. After the dust settled, it's a commonly-held belief that the Pixel 2 XL's display is plagued with issues, including premature screen burn-in, angular color shift, "muted" colors, "black crush", and "black smear". While some of these issues can be chalked up to poor display production, others require a more thorough look. In our detailed analysis of the Pixel 2 XL's display performance, we will attempt to cover each in as much depth as we can.

Pixel 2 XL Home Screen, Natural Profile

The Pixel 2 XL is the big stepbrother in Google's 2017 flagship phone lineup, bearing a 5.99-inch POLED display manufactured by LG. The screen looks very sharp thanks to its resolution of 2880×1440 pixels, the pixels of which are situated in a PenTile Diamond Pixel array.

The PenTile Diamond Pixel array provides intrinsic subpixel anti-aliasing and increases panel longevity by using fewer blue subpixels, which deteriorate much more quickly than red and green subpixels. Consequently, the PenTile subpixel arrangement has one-third fewer total subpixels than the conventional RGB stripe subpixel pattern found on most LCDs, but the PenTile subpixel arrangement exploits the human visual system's color sensitivity to green and greater sensitivity to luminance compared to chrominance. It maintains a 1:1 green subpixel-to-pixel ratio, giving the PenTile display the same luma resolution as a conventional RGB stripe display but introducing potential color fringing, and at  the Pixel 2 XL's pixel density, no fringing is visible and the screen appears perfectly sharp to the eye in most scenerio. The notable exception is VR, but the Diamond Pixel shape does help mitigate the screen-door effect.

It is not Google's first time using this display technology in its phones; the Google Pixel, Google Pixel XL, Nexus 6P, Nexus 6, and Galaxy Nexus all have OLED panels with a PenTile subpixel arrangement. Furthermore, all of the phones' OLED displays are capable of outputting color that is outside of the sRGB color gamut. Almost all content color is deliberately described with respect to the sRGB color gamut, so it is important for a display to be able render those colors correctly. The problem is that these phones originally did not color-manage content in their native display mode, resulting in colors with much more chrominance than the original content creator intended. Google took initiative in tackling this problem with the release of Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, along with Android Oreo, which introduces color management for devices that support wide color.

With the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, Google states that "[o]ne of [their] design intents was to achieve a more natural and accurate rendition of colors". We will assess the Pixel 2 XL's display performance, and conclude if their efforts in color accuracy deserve merit.


Color Difference Metrics

We will be using the color difference measurement CIEDE2000 (shortened to ΔE), compensated for luminance, as a metric for chromatic accuracy. Other color difference metrics exist as well, such as the color difference Δu'v' on the CIE 1976 u'v' chromaticity diagram, but these metrics are inferior in perceptual uniformity, as the threshold for a just-noticeable-difference (JND) between color can wildly vary; for example, a color difference of 0.008 Δu'v' is not visually noticeable for blue, but the same measured color difference for yellow is very noticeable. CIEDE2000 is the industry-standard color difference metric proposed by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) that best describes the perceptually-uniform differences between color. This metric normally considers luminance in its computation since luminance is a necessary component to completely describe color, which is helpful when calibrating a display to a certain brightness. But smartphone displays constantly change brightness, and the overall error can be volatile when measuring different display brightness levels. For this reason, luminance error will be compensated for in our ΔE values so only chromaticity is being measured. Display color measurements will be taken with a display brightness of 200 cd/m2 to ensure consistency, and presented luminance errors will be according to the standard sRGB gamma power function of 2.2 for reference.

In general, when the color difference ΔE is below 3.0, the difference in color can only be noticeable in diagnostic conditions, such as when the measured color and target color appear right next to each other on the display being measured. Otherwise, the color is not visually noticeable and appears perfectly accurate. However, a ΔE of 1.0 or less is said to be completely indistinguishable from perfect, and will appear identical to the target color even when adjacent to it.


Brightness

100% APL Brightness Device Reference Chart

Our Pixel 2 XL unit reaches a maximum brightness of 474 cd/m2 at 100% APL or average picture level (the average active luminance percentage of each subpixel, relative to the set display brightness), which is a respectable increase from the Pixel XL's 412 cd/m2 and the Pixel 2's 432 cd/m2. Note that this measurement was taken after the Android 8.0 update in November 2017, which Google says decreases the maximum brightness of the Pixel 2 XL by 50 nits (cd/m2). This decrease is likely only noticeable at lower APLs at which the Pixel 2 XL should be plenty bright. In any case, it's competitive with the Note 8's measured brightness of 480 cd/m2 at 100% APL on automatic brightness with brightness overdrive enabled.

The average APL for media consumption on the Pixel 2 XL hovers around 40%, though, so brightness measurements around that APL range are much more practical. At 50% APL, our Pixel 2 XL measures 530 cd/m2, which is adequately bright for outdoor use, but trumped by the likes of the Note 8, which we measured 643 cd/m2 at 50% APL. Unlike the Note 8, the Pixel 2 XL does not offer a brightness overdrive feature when exposed to intense light, and maintains the same maximum brightness with Adaptive Brightness on or off.

The display drops down to 4.1 cd/m2 on the lowest brightness with Adaptive Brightness off. With Adaptive Brightness enabled, the display drops to 1.6 cd/m2, about as low as most other smartphone displays.


Grayscale Accuracy and Intensity

An accurate grayscale and white point are fundamental to producing accurate color. A shift in grayscale will propagate error throughout a display's entire color gamut (with the exception of the 100% primaries—red, blue, and green), so it is absolutely crucial to analyze a display's grayscale to evaluate primary sources of error when measuring for color accuracy. Google states that it calibrated  Pixel 2 XL displays to a D67 white point, which isn't a great start to any pursuit of accurate color.

Pixel 2 XL Correlated Color Temperature Chart, Natural Profile

The average correlated color temperature is indeed at about Google's claimed 6700K. The white point at the higher intensities become even colder, peaking at 7239K at 95% white, which is in the range of most content backgrounds. From this breakdown, we can see that the display is blue-shifted at nearly all intensities, which will affect color mixtures — especially the secondary colors. Note, too, that the grayscale for the Natural and Boosted color profiles are exactly the same.

Pixel 2 XL Luminance Chart

The Pixel 2 XL's display gamma is somewhat concerning. The standard target gamma for sRGB/Rec.709 is a consistent power curve of 2.2. However, the Pixel 2 XL's display gamma seems to be following a power curve of 2.4, which was popularly used in HDTVs before the BT.1886 recommendation. As a result, color mixtures may appear darker on phone's display, and the luminance range among the blacks will increase. This is helpful because the human eye is much more sensitive to changes in darker colors than changes in brighter colors, though it is only really noticeable if the viewer is in a dark environment. This is not wrong to target—many HDTVs still target this power curve—but Google failed to see the consequences of applying this darkening power curve to a smartphone. The higher gamma power is meant for cinema and larger TVs in dark environments. Smartphones are smaller devices that are used in a variety of lighting conditions, so the resulting lower-intensity colors are not ideal in some of the conditions in which the average person would use their smartphone, like outside during a sunny day. Such scenarios are better served by a lower gamma power function, like 2.0, that provide better visibility to low-intensity colors.

Additionally, the Pixel 2 XL's higher power curve further clips the blacks near 0% intensity. "Crushed blacks" are an inherent hardware limitation of current-generation OLED displays, as they have an absolute minimum non-black level usually isn't dim enough to provide full 8-bit depth intensity except for at very high brightnesses. For the display calibrators insistent on using a display gamma of 2.4, the BT.1886 recommendation partially remedies the black clipping issue by suggesting an initial lower power curve for the lower intensities that ramps up to the power curve of 2.4. The lower gamma near the black level will help brighten up those few initial luminance steps, and this gamma specification is much more suitable for OEMs that wish to apply that cinematic feel to their smartphone displays while minimizing crushed blacks.

Pixel 2 XL Lower Luminance Range, Natural Profile

In the Pixel 2 XL's case, it seems that Google is using an abnormally high initial gamma power function — even higher than 2.4 — for the lower luminance ranges. This will clip blacks even further than normal for OLED displays and will negatively impact viewings of darker films and videos. Looking at a full-step measurement for the lower 20% luminance range, our Pixel 2 XL's intensity scale looks jagged and clips intermediary steps, as seen by the straight horizontal lines and sudden, steep changes for the first 6% of the luminance range. Anything below 3% will be crushed. Note that with casual media consumption, lighter shades will be crushed black, as the threshold for clipping to black increases with content APL. Furthermore, the exaggerated black crushing and jagged intensity scale appears to be the result of Google improperly transferring the Pixel 2 XL's intensity scale when calibrating the display to sRGB:

Pixel 2 XL Lower Luminance Range, Saturated Profile

When the Pixel 2 XL is set to its native display gamut, the intensity scale becomes much smoother, and the threshold for clipping to black decreases from 3% to 2.4%, putting the Pixel 2 XL in line with the Note 8 with regards to black clipping. Both the Pixel 2 XL and Note 8 would benefit greatly from having a higher initial gamma to brighten up the blacks and to minimize black clipping.

Pixel 2 XL Correlated Color Temperature Chart, Saturated Profile

What's even more surprising is that the Pixel 2 XL has one of the most accurate grayscales on any smartphone display in its native display gamut, surpassing even our Note 8.

Color Temperature Devices Reference Chart

Grayscale Devices Reference Chart

Despite the higher gamma and the intentional white point variation, the Pixel 2 XL's grayscale is still accurate to the sRGB/Rec.709 specification. The grayscale on the Natural and Boosted color profiles yield an average color temperature of 6740K and an average grayscale color difference ΔE = 2.01. On the Saturated color profile, which is the Pixel 2 XL's native display gamut, the Pixel 2 XL has an astounding, perceptually near-perfect average grayscale color difference ΔE = 1.22. One wonders how much better it might have been if Google provided an sRGB color profile with their native gamut grayscale accuracy, or better yet, a color temperature slider like Samsung and others have been doing. This is an overall improvement to the Pixel XL's sRGB grayscale accuracy, though the Pixel XL does have a superior gamma power function of 2.2. The Pixel 2 XL's grayscale on the Natural and Boosted color profiles is not as accurate as the Note 8's grayscale on the Basic screen mode, but the Pixel 2 XL's grayscale accuracy is just fine, and, without diagnostic reference, is visually accurate.


Saturation and Color Accuracy

Out of the box, the Pixel 2 XL defaults to Google's Boosted color profile, which targets the sRGB color gamut, expanded by 10% in all directions to slightly increase color vibrancy. Google claims to have defaulted to this profile since "[h]umans perceive colors as less vibrant on smaller screens, such as on a smartphone". While this may seem like a good idea, Google did not account for the human eye's non-uniform sensitivity to light: Reds appear slightly boosted,  greens and yellows get a bigger boost that turns their high-intensity mixtures to a sickly neon, and blues look like they get almost no boost at all.

Before analyzing the Pixel 2 XL's default profile, we will first take a look at the phone's Natural color profile, which targets the sRGB color gamut with a D67 white point.


Natural Color Profile

 

Pixel 2 XL Saturation Sweep Measurements Plot, Natural Profile

Pixel 2 XL Saturation Sweep CIEDE2000 Chart, Natural Profile

Pixel 2 XL Saturation Sweep Luminance Error Chart, Natural Profile

Saturation Devices Reference Chart

On the CIE 1976 u'v' chromaticity diagram, the Pixel 2 XL covers about 92.3% of the sRGB color gamut, falling short most noticeably at near-100% intensity red. However, it's important to note that the CIE 1976 u'v' chromaticity diagram is not perceptually uniform, and that the perceptual color difference in red is much less severe than the diagram suggests; the chromatic difference of 100% red is actually only a ΔE of 1.34, which is visually undetectable. The blue-shifting in the grayscale becomes apparent in the secondary colors, shifting both magenta and cyan towards blue, and skewing yellow ever-so-slightly toward green. Despite the secondary color hue shifts, the Pixel 2 XL properly saturates most of its colors, with an average saturation color difference ΔE = 1.78 and a maximum saturation color difference ΔE = 4.22 at 100% cyan.

Do not mistake saturation for luminance. The Pixel 2 XL's display hits all its saturation targets with the exception of cyan, which it overshoots, but its cinematic display gamma produces colors that may seem dimmer than usual, as the gamma is more suited to low-light viewing. However, as a result of the Pixel 2 XL's overall blue shift at nearly all luminance levels, the red gamma is consistently higher, meaning reds will necessarily be slightly dimmer relative to other color mixtures, as seen in the above luminance difference chart.

 

Pixel 2 XL X-Rite ColorChecker Measurements Plot, Natural Profile

Pixel 2 XL X-Rite ColorChecker CIEDE2000 Chart, Natural Profile

Pixel 2 XL X-Rite ColorChecker Luminance Error Chart, Natural Profile

X-Rite ColorChecker Devices Reference Chart

The X-Rite ColorChecker, formerly the GretagMacbeth ColorChecker, is a set of colors to test for color accuracy on displays. It differs from the saturation sweep by presenting color mixtures that often appear in photographs and nature, such as skin colors and foliage, and that are known to be difficult to accurately reproduce digitally. A look at a display's X-Rite ColorChecker color accuracy is helpful in predicting a display's color performance in photographs and films, while a display's saturation sweep accuracy is better suited to more solid, vibrant content, such as app icons, logos, colorful wallpapers, animations, and app interface elements such as the action bar. The Pixel 2 XL fares very well in the ColorChecker, with an average X-Rite ColorChecker color difference ΔE = 1.85 and a maximum non-grayscale X-Rite ColorChecker color difference ΔE = 2.41 at the cyan color coordinate (0.1473, 0.4120).


Boosted Color Profile

Pixel 2 XL Saturation Sweep Measurements Plot, Boosted Profile

Pixel 2 XL Saturation Sweep CIEDE2000 Chart, Boosted Profile

Pixel 2 XL Saturation Sweep Luminance Error Chart, Boosted Profile

Jumping into the Pixel 2 XL's default Boosted color profile, we can see that it nearly covers 110% of the sRGB color gamut on the CIE 1976 u'v' chromaticity diagram. The near-100% intensity reds still seem to be lacking relative to the boosted color profile. That being said, 100% red on the Boosted color profile does have a larger, more noticeable chromatic difference ΔE = 3.01 than it does on the Natural color profile (ΔE = 1.34), though the red's lighter appearance in the Boosted profile compensates for its too-dark appearance in the Natural profile. Measuring against the normal sRGB gamut, the Boosted color profile has an average saturation color difference ΔE = 2.71, which is higher than in the Natural color profile (as expected).

Pixel 2 XL X-Rite ColorChecker Measurements Plot, Boosted Profile

Pixel 2 XL X-Rite ColorChecker CIEDE2000 Chart, Boosted Profile

Pixel 2 XL X-Rite ColorChecker Luminance Error Chart, Boosted Profile

Overall, the Pixel 2 XL's Boosted color profile is a good way to slightly increase the display's vibrancy while retaining accuracy. The main issue is that the increase in saturation isn't uniform, with the yellows and greens exhibiting the most perceptible difference.


Saturated Color Profile

Google hasn't explicitly mentioned that the Saturated color profile is calibrated to the DCI-P3 color gamut, but it has stated that it puts the Pixel 2 XL in its native display gamut, and the Pixel 2 XL spec sheet mentions that it covers 100% of the DCI-P3 color space. Its native gamut must be DCI-P3 or one that's larger, so we will measure it against the DCI-P3 color gamut.

Pixel 2 XL Saturation Sweep Measurements Plot, Saturated Profile

Pixel 2 XL Saturation Sweep CIEDE2000 Chart, Saturated Profile

Pixel 2 XL Saturation Sweep Luminance Error Chart, Saturated Profile

We can see that the Pixel 2 XL's native display gamut fits the DCI-P3 color space with an average saturation color difference ΔE = 1.69, which is more accurate than its Natural color profile's average saturation color difference (ΔE = 1.78). This mode is finely calibrated, with only two color target values having a color difference ΔE above 3: The white point and 100% cyan. The rest of the measured colors have unnoticeable color differences, and the colors on the Saturated color profile aren't darkened, but lightened. Most colors will appear slightly lighter on the Pixel 2 XL's display, but the blues will not.


OLED Weaknesses

Pixel 2 XL (left), Pixel 2 (right)

One of the shortcomings of cavity-based OLED displays is their white angular dependence, which causes the display to shift color and brightness at different angles. On our Pixel 2 XL unit, the display lost little light when tilted at different angles, but experienced a severe case of angular color shifting toward blue when viewing the screen away from a perpendicular angle.

The color shifting on the Pixel 2 XL is much worse than that on the Pixel 2, which has an OLED display manufactured by Samsung. The two phones use different OLED design patterns to tackle angular color shift, with the Pixel 2 XL's LG panel LEDs gradually shifting into a different color as it is being viewed away from perpendicular and the Pixel 2's Samsung panel alternating between red and blue, increasing in severity as it's being viewed away from perpendicular until completely "rainbows out" near parallel.

Pixel 2 XL (left), Pixel 2 (right)

Another weakness of OLED displays is that the individual diodes take longer to turn on than they do to switch off (the blue subpixel the fastest to light up). This causes a ghosting, jelly, or "black smear"  effect when a low-luminance color is moved around a pure-black background. Our Pixel 2 XL unit exhibited normal levels of ghosting, comparable to the Note 8.

Note 8 (top), Pixel 2 XL (bottom)


Display Comparison

Pixel 2 XL (left), Note 8 (right)

When comparing photos of the Pixel 2 XL and Note 8's displays side by side, they appear to be very similar. However, the temperature differences of almost immediately become apparent. In the comparison above, the Pixel 2 XL's colder temperature is very prominent in the bluer sky and water, while the Note 8's warmer tone dials them back a bit and exaggerates the sun's heat, the highlights on the top-left, and the railings on the bottom. Neither gets the photo exactly correct — the Pixel 2 XL is too cold and the Note 8 is too warm. But the Note 8's less-punchy profile renders this photo more accurately.

Pixel 2 XL (left), Note 8 (right)

Moving onto this immaculate portrait selfie, the effect of display temperature on skin tones is noticeable. Colder temperatures will make skin tones appear pale, while warmer temperatures will make skin appear more rich in color. The human eye is very sensitive to skin tones, and once again, neither display gets this photo completely right, as the Pixel 2 XL makes skin appear too pale, and the Note 8 makes it too warm and saturated for the lower skin tone intensities. The Note 8, however, is once again the more accurate photo.

Here are some more side-by-sides:

The Pixel 2 XL overall renders photos very accurately, although being slightly colder due to Google's insistence on making the display feel "fresh". When sharing media with friends, most displays do tend to have colder white points, so you can feel secure in knowing that the grayscale will appear similar, and that others viewing it within the same color space, which are almost all computers and laptops, and iPhones, will see the same photo.


Conclusion

Although Google has made some questionable decisions in the calibration of the Pixel 2 XL's display, it is indeed well-calibrated and accurate in its Natural color profile; it should be even more accurate than most HDTVs, computer monitors, and many smartphone displays. Most color errors are unnoticeable in non-diagnostic conditions, with many being completely imperceptible, and the intentionally-colder tone is something that Google can hopefully address in a future update for those that do not want a colder display. However, some of Google's UI decisions, along with the darker gamma, makes it difficult to convince  users that the Pixel 2 XL is using the same color profile as the iPhones, such as the white gradient applied to the bottom of the devices' native launcher, or the opting for smaller app icons to fit five of them on a row—Apple's iPhone home screen appears much more colorful due to their larger icons and their shape (the rounded squares have a higher fill rate than circles), which also generally utilize less white space and more distinct colors than Android's and Google's app icons do.

The Pixel 2 XL's native gamut in the Saturated color profile is also accurately calibrated to the DCI-P3 color gamut, so we can expect the device to render wide color properly when more Android applications are color managed. Of course, when using the Saturated color profile to superficially make colors appear more vivid, then it shouldn't matter to the user. There is a substantial angular color shift towards blue, and more severe on our unit than on competitor's displays. However, many users have claimed and posted photos of their units that do not exhibit as much of an angular color shift, so it may ultimately come down to manufacturing quality control that perhaps Google and LG can tighten up in future-generation OLED displays; the upside to LG's panel is that it exhibits little angular luminance shift, and that it does not rainbow out at extreme angles like Samsung's do—once the display uniformly shifts colors, then the display appears perfectly uniform until parallel, where Samsung's display would be illegible moderately before parallel. Minimizing this color shift would be ideal and improvements could make it superior to Samsung's current color shifting solution of varying the hue and severity of color shift.

Our unit also exhibited minor display grain, noticeable only when very close to the display. This also varies unit-to-unit, so it may be remedied with tighter quality control. Our Pixel 2 XL unit displays also feel hollow, producing audible sounds that are louder than usual when tapping or casually touching the top glass. This is due to excessive air being trapped under the top glass, which can be caused by poor screen adhesion when laminating the OLED screen to the smartphone chassis. This air pocket serves as a vessel for sounds and vibrations, causing audio from the speakers to vibrate the screen with greater feedback than on a tightly-fitted screen. The Pixel 2 and most other current-generation smartphones do not have this issue, but most older devices do. This design flaw is most likely an oversight by Google's first time working with 3D Gorilla Glass and shaping OLED displays.

The display gamma is what is the most conflicting, rendering many tones darker than what most users are used to. As a mobile device, the display gamma should be lower, or dynamic, but the higher gamma of the Pixel 2 XL may make viewing media in the sunlight more of a challenge, even though the display does get adequately bright. Once again, the display gamma, along with its improper transfer from the display's native gamut to sRGB (resulting in black crush), can all be changed in software—it just depends on whether Google finds enough reason to do so. Whichever display issue is most bothersome is personal to the user, some of which can seem overwhelming for a phone this expensive, but the same reason to buy Google's phones—their software—is also the bulk of the issues here, so make sure to let them know!


Check Out XDA's Pixel 2 XL Forums! >>>



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Smartphone Display Technologies and Terminology Explained: OLED, LCD, Strengths & Weaknesses

In light of recent conversations about smartphone displays, it's important to take a step back and consider all the terms we keep reading about in context. Phones like the Google Pixel 2 XL have been criticized for their displays, but on the other hand, consumers have generally praised OLED panels. With such a robust ecosystem, there's a lot to learn about our devices' screens in 2017, and the more we know about their strengths and weaknesses, the more we can get to the root of these online debates.

What is the difference between an AMOLED display and a P-OLED display, or between a LTPS display and a IGZO display? What makes one smartphone display better than the other? Should we base our assessments on objective data or on subjective impressions? This is where the topic of smartphone display analysis plays a key role.

Smartphone display analysis isn't an easy field, and to accurately measure the properties of smartphone displays, reviewers need hundreds to thousands of dollars worth of equipment, including (but not limited to) colorimeters, spectrophotometers, color calibration software, luminance meters, and more. But having the equipment isn't enough; smartphone display testers have to adopt stringent methodologies to ensure valid and replicable data that accurately showcases the differences across various panels. This is a field where tech jargon is used in abundance, yet often poorly explained, leaving most people who read reports from sites like DisplayMate a bit confused. That's just the tip of the market's iceberg of problems, though.

So why go to all the trouble of giving the smartphone displays a hard look? The reason is simple: Without their high resolution, high-quality touchscreen displays, modern smartphones wouldn't have the same appeal as they do now. Screens are the medium through which we interact with and consume the content that millions of creators and developers work hard to produce, and screens should do that content justice.

We can see how smartphone display quality has steadily improved over the years along with the problems that displays face today. For the purposes of this article, we're only considering display quality on touchscreen smartphones released on or after 2007.

You read the title, you know what this piece is about, so let's begin!


Evolution of smartphone displays

Apple's original iPhone, released in 2007. Source: Apple

The original iPhone had a 3.5-inch TFT display with HVGA (480×320) resolution. The first Android phone, the HTC Dream / T-Mobile G1, had a smaller 3.2-inch display with the same resolution. These displays were not IPS (an acronym for in-plane switching, which we 'll come back to later on), and they didn't have a 16:9 aspect ratio — indeed, to most people, their old 3:2 aspect ratios look a little outdated. In terms of display quality, the screens weren't usually calibrated for color accuracy, and brightness, contrast, and viewing angles were sub-par compared to today's screens.

Smartphone displays have come a long way since then. In 2009, the first Android phones arrived with WVGA (800×480) displays and  15:9 aspect ratios. Then, in early 2010, the first OLED phones were released. Samsung's AMOLED displays were used on the Nexus One and HTC Desire, with the same nominal WVGA resolution but a PenTile matrix pixel arrangement, which lowered the screens' effective color resolution (more on this later). As these were the early days of this technology, the display quality on AMOLED wasn't up to scratch yet.

Apple stole Samsung's thunder with its Retina display, which debuted on the iPhone 4 in June 2010. It had a then-unmatched 960×640 resolution (326 ppi) with IPS technology, which was as good as the technology could get at the time.

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Apple's iPhone 4. Source: Apple

The iPhone 4's Retina display was without equal in the Android world. But that didn't discourage Samsung from attempting to one-up it. The Galaxy S, which was released around the same time as the iPhone 4, featured the South Korea-based company's new Super AMOLED display technology. It was a newer generation compared to the Nexus One's display, and it boasted better visibility in direct sunlight. Unfortunately, though, it used a PenTile pixel arrangement and its image sharpness fell short of the LCD competition.

But display quality on smartphones kept getting better over time. 2011 saw Samsung's Super AMOLED Plus display with an RGB matrix pixel arrangement, the first and last of its kind. And it saw the rise of 720p HD displays both in LCD and OLED screens, which overtook Apple's original Retina resolution and kicked off a new front in the display wars: Pixel density one-upmanship.

Displays have advanced at an ever-more-rapid pace in the intervening years. LCDs improved substantially, reaching 1080p Full HD and then QHD resolutions with RGB matrix technology; brightness up to 700 nits; 178-degree viewing angles (at the high end of the spectrum, thanks to IPS); and contrast ratios cracking 2000:1.

Samsung's AMOLED displays improved so quickly, in fact, that the technology began to leapfrog LCD in 2014. For a few years running, every Samsung flagship has topped DisplayMate's list of top smartphone screens — until the trend was broken with the iPhone X's OLED display (a Samsung-made panel), which DisplayMate crowned this year's best smartphone display.

For a time, Samsung Display was the only manufacturer of note in the OLED space, but that changed in 2017 when LG Display secured a high-profile contract to ship its P-OLED displays on smartphones.

So, we've seen the rise of sRGB and DCI-P3 color calibration in smartphones, and both major mobile operating systems support color management now. We've also seen the emergence of mobile HDR displays, and of adaptive screen refresh rates up to 120Hz. There can be no doubt about it: The future is bright for smartphone displays.

With all that in mind, let's clear up and expand on some common display terminology.


Display terminology in Simple Terms

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A comparison of several display technologies and pixel arrangements. Source: Wikimedia

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display): An LCD is a flat-panel display that's based on the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals. Although LCDs are very thin, they are composed of several layers. Those layers include two polarized panels with a liquid crystal solution between them — light is projected through the layer of liquid crystals and is colorized, which produces the visible image.

The important thing to note is that the liquid crystals do not emit light themselves, so LCDs require a backlight. They're thin, light and generally inexpensive to produce, and the most mature display technology used in smartphones.

Some of the advantages of LCDs include high brightness, consistent color fidelity at different viewing angles, better color sharpness thanks to the use of an RGB matrix, and longevity (LCDs aren't susceptible to burn-in, though they can suffer temporary image retention). They also tend to exhibit lower contrast and response times compared to some OLED equivalents.

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A diagram of in-plane switching technology. Source: SIIM

IPS (In-Plane Switching): In-plane switching involves arranging and switching the orientation of molecules of the liquid crystal layer between the glass substrates of the display. Simply put, it's a technology that's used to improve viewing angles and color reproduction on TFT displays, and that's intended as a replacement for TN (Twisted Nematic) displays. It's used on LCDs to get up to 178 degree horizontal and vertical viewing angles.

OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode): OLED, unlike LCD,  does not require a backlight, because the pixels contain light-emitting diodes that power on and switch off on an individual basis. The advantages of OLED displays include a theoretically "infinite" contrast ratio, and also a wider native color gamut, a lesser shift in brightness at different viewing angles, and better power efficiency with low APLs. The downsides include color shifting at different viewing angles, burn-in, and lower power efficiency in high APL applications.

APL (Average Picture Level): APL determines how much white content is on a given screen. Without knowing the APL of a piece of content, the true brightness of an OLED display can't be determined, which is why we show typically see multiple measurements at different APL percentages. 100% APL is completely white, while 0% APL is a completely black screen without any trace of white. Brightness in OLED panels is variable — it increases in low APL scenarios and vice versa.

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The benefits of LTPS. Source: Ubergizmo

LTPS (Low-temperature Polysilicon): This is a manufacturing technique in LCDs. It substitutes amorphous silicon for polysilicon to increase display resolution and maintain low temperatures. It is used to increase power efficiency and pixel density.

IGZO (Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide): A IGZO is a display made with an artificial transparent crystalline oxide semiconductor, first produced by Sharp. It is composed of indium, gallium, zinc and oxygen, and it's mostly used in tablets, though some smartphone manufacturers are starting to use it, too. (A good example is the 120Hz displays on Android devices like the Razer Phone.) It promises large power efficiency improvements, but the downside is that some displays have reduced brightness and contrast compared to LTPS LCDs.

HDR (High Dynamic Range): HDR, or high dynamic range, is a display feature in some newer devices and future flagships that promises a more lifelike media-viewing experience. Here's the simple explanation: HDR-capable displays have a high peak brightness, giving scenes more detailed shadows without sacrificing detail in highlights. On top of that, they can display wider color ranges and richer color depths, leading to a higher number of colors with more steps in each color gradient.

This is because HDR displays support wide color gamuts (DCI-P3 is currently the most widely supported wide color gamut), and also support 10-bit color (per the UHD Alliance). This theoretically allows HDR-enabled smartphones to display over 1 billion colors. As of now, flagship smartphones are starting to support the HDR10 and Dolby Vision standards.

Candela per meter square: Candela per meter square, also known as nits, is a function of the intensity of the light source, and it's used to measure the brightness of any screen). The higher the cd/m^2 number, the brighter the display. You'll find most display reviews for smartphones carry out measurements at around 200 nits.

Contrast ratio: This is the ratio of a display's  peak brightness to its black level. OLED displays have a theoretically infinite contrast ratio because the pixels can be completely switched off, though in practice, ambient light prevents this from being realized except in a completely dark room. Thus, OLED panels can improve their contrast ratio by reducing screen reflectance.


Issues in modern LCDs

LCDs are the most popular smartphone display technology on the market. The vast majority of budget and mid-range smartphones have LCDs rather than OLED displays, mostly because of cost. In non-flagship smartphones, using LCD instead of OLED reduces the manufacturers' bill of materials (BOM), which subsequently increases the profit margin and lowers the cost.

That doesn't mean, though, that LCD is free of drawbacks. While it's regarded as a more mature technology than alternatives like OLED, LCD is inferior to OLED in several respects. Let's take a look at them one by one:

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OLED and LCD contrast ratios compared. Source: 4K LED TV Review

Contrast. Modern LCDs have up to 2000:1 static contrast, though manufacturers sometimes market a higher dynamic contrast. In that respect, LCDs fall far short of OLED's theoretically infinite contrast, though vendors such as Apple and Huawei choose to forgo the infinite contrast rating. The reason? Blacks on LCD displays aren't true blacks because of the screens' backlight. Even the deepest blacks look like a  dark shade of grey, and this is especially noticeable in the dark.

There's no real solution to this problem, because LCDs require a backlight to function — the screen wouldn't be visible otherwise. Display manufacturers' only recourse is reducing the luminance of the black levels — the darker they are, the higher the contrast.

In environments with a lot of ambient light, there's actually very little perceptible difference between LCD and OLED displays (at least on this aspect), because the advantages of the latter are basically negated. However, when you're watching a video or using a dark theme or wallpaper, LCD's weaknesses are highlighted. The issue is also apparent in the displays' viewing angles, as blacks tend to wash out as the angle shifts from left to right. This can make the media-viewing experience feel less immersive.

LCD displays' contrast shortcomings also affect legibility in sunlight. In the past, LCDs used to be unquestionably superior to OLED displays in direct sunlight, but that's no longer the case. OLED displays equipped with auto brightness boost modes and other technologies are able to take advantage of low reflectance and higher contrast to outclass LCDs.

Despite the fact that LCDs have higher sustainable brightness levels than OLED displays, sunlight legibility tends to be better on OLEDs thanks to the reflectance and contrast deficiencies in modern LCD panels. They might be mitigated in the future with brighter displays with higher native contrasts, but LCDs have lost momentum here.

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LCD viewing angles compared. Source: Mitsubishi

Brightness fidelity in viewing angles. The best IPS LCDs are mostly free of color shift, which means that their colors don't change or exhibit a tint at angle shifts. However, even a slight shift in angle unavoidably impacts the perceived brightness level. It's not a dealbreaker, but it's more palpable in budget and mid-range smartphones, which tend to experience a higher degree of color shift than premium devices.

OLED displays aren't affected by brightness and loss of contrast  when their viewing angles are shifted, so it really comes down to picking the lesser of two evils: Can you live with color shift, or a loss in brightness? In case of the former, you should opt for an OLED display, and in case of the latter, LCD is your best bet. Higher quality panel (typically found in flagships) can essentially eliminate this dilemma.

Inferior response times compared to OLED. LCDs have been steadily improving on this front, with newer-generation LCDs suffering from less ghosting compared to older displays. However, this is another problem which can be mitigated but not solved. OLEDs are simply superior in this area, and that's one of the reasons why Google's Daydream mobile VR platform requires OLED displays.

LCDs in budget and mid-range smartphones are more prone to ghosting and lower response times. This can make the phones feel less smooth and responsive than competitors with OLED displays.

Overall, it's tough to severely criticize LCDs because of how immensely they've improved in the past few years. It's not uncommon for budget smartphones to have 5.5-inch Full HD IPS displays without color shift, which is measurably better than the flagship smartphones of a few years ago with inferior resolutions, brightness, and color accuracy.

But it's in the flagship (and increasingly mid-range) devices that LCD's limitations rear their ugly heads. The evidence from experts suggests that OLED, despite its relative immaturity, is overall better than LCD at the high end. That's why LCDs are becoming much less common in flagship smartphones, despite the fact that they support wider color gamuts (such as DCI-P3), HDR standards such as HDR10 and Dolby Vision, and higher response times than ever before.

It seems likely that the current pace of improvement in OLED will ensure its superiority over LCD. But OLED isn't perfect either. Let's move onto its biggest issues.


Issues in OLED displays

Samsung has gone all-in with OLED since 2010's Galaxy S. A multitude of OEMs now seem to prefer OLED displays in their flagship smartphones, and the technology is slowly permeating mid-range and affordable flagship devices. And although budget phones with OLEDs aren't particularly common, that could change in a few years as the price of OLED displays continues to go down.

Just because a particular technology is popular doesn't mean it's free of issues, though. OLED screens are visibly imperfect, to the extent that the quality can start deteriorating in days, with some users noticing signs of burn-in not long after they began using their phone. The display tech also has long-standing issues that haven't been addressed after multiple generations.

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PenTile matrix OLED displays compared to S-Stripe. Source: SamMobile

PenTile matrix. PenTile matrix OLED displays fall short in image sharpness. Most LCDs use an RGB matrix, which means they have three uniform subpixels (red, green, and blue) per pixel. PenTile OLED displays have only two subpixels per pixel (red and green, or blue and green) in an uneven layout. Since the Galaxy S4 in 2013, PenTile OLED displays have used a subpixel layout that resembles the shape of a diamond —  hence the term "Diamond PenTile". While the number of green subpixels in a PenTile OLED display are equivalent to the number of green subpixels in an LCD, the number of red and blue subpixels is smaller.

To be precise, PenTile OLED displays contain only half the number of red and blue subpixels compared to the number of green subpixels. That means that despite having equivalent nominal pixel density compared to LCDs, PenTile OLED displays are not as sharp because their subpixel density is lower.

Therefore, a Full HD (1920×1080) LCD display is sharper than a Full HD PenTile OLED display, though that difference varies depending on the content displayed on the screen. The effective color resolution of a PenTile OLED display is always lower than its nominal resolution. In case of a Full HD (1920×1080) display, the effective color resolution is 1357×763 (divide both vertical and horizontal resolution by the square root of 2).

That doesn't mean that PenTile OLED displays are only half as sharp as their LCD competitors with RGB matrix pixel layouts. PenTile OLED displays feature a technique called subpixel anti-aliasing to cover up the pixel deficit. Though it doesn't fully close the gap, it helps to mitigate the loss of effective color resolution.

The effect of PenTile arrangements are most obvious in text rendering. Because the subpixels have an uneven layout, the edges of the letters have a PenTile effect. In essence the text isn't as sharp as RGB matrix LCDs, to the point where QHD PenTile displays are about as sharp in practice as Full HD RGB displays.

So is there a solution? In 2011, Samsung shipped an RGB matrix AMOLED display in the Galaxy S II called Super AMOLED Plus. In 2012, the Galaxy S III adopted a PenTile arrangement again to accommodate the HD resolution, but with the Galaxy Note II, Samsung tried something different.

The Note II had an S-Stripe display (on the basis of leaked marketing material) with a non-standard RGB matrix. Although the subpixel layout wasn't as even as a traditional RGB matrix, the key point was that the display had three subpixels per pixel, overcoming PenTile's sharpness issues while maintaining a relatively high resolution (HD).

But the S-Stripe display was short-lived as Samsung moved to diamond PenTile with the Galaxy Note 3, and while the company continued to use S-Stripe AMOLED displays in 10-inch tablets such as the Galaxy Tab S, the tech hasn't made an appearance in other smartphones.

Even the iPhone X uses a PenTile display with subpixel anti-aliasing, proving that S-Stripe at high PPI (pixels per inch) remains financially or technically infeasible. (Blue subpixels age the fastest in OLED, which Samsung cited as the reason for its move back to PenTile with the Galaxy S III).

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The iPhone X's PenTile OLED screen. Source: The Verge

In summary, PenTile remains an issue with OLED, particularly at lower resolutions. PenTile HD displays are sub-optimal in sharpness. Things get better at Full HD range, but individual pixels may still visible at normal viewing ranges and in particular contexts. It's not until QHD resolutions and higher that PenTile starts becoming less of an issue.

Color shift. This is the second fundamental problem of OLED displays. OLED displays traditionally have had excellent brightness and contrast, which means that the displays don't lose their color contrast as viewing angles change. On the other hand, they suffer from color shift, meaning that the display's color tone or tint shifts as the angle changes.

Some OLED displays are better than others in this regard. For example, Samsung's AMOLED displays used to suffer from a high amount of color shift, but the company has worked to gradually reduce the effect. With each new generation, the color shift has become less pronounced — but it hasn't been eliminated. Samsung's latest AMOLED displays, seen in phones such as the Note 8, still suffer from slight color shift at oblique angles. It's noticeably better than AMOLED displays from 2012/2013, but not dramatically improved from the Galaxy S7's display, for example.

On the other hand, LG's P-OLED display tech, seen in the V30 and the Pixel 2 XL, suffer from much more obvious color shift. The displays develop a blue-tinted color shift even at minute angle changes, which is reminiscent of Samsung's 2012/2013-era displays.

Is color shift a major issue? The prevailing opinion is that it's a major issue on P-OLED displays, but "not a big deal" for most AMOLED displays. However, in our view, the next major step forward is completely eliminating color shift. Color shift reduces color accuracy if you don't watch the display head on. Also, when multiple people are viewing a display at the same time, color shift prevents a consistent viewing experience.

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Image burn-in on the Google Pixel 2. Source: The Verge

Aging. Another unfortunate characteristic of OLED displays is that they tend to age faster than LCDs. OLED displays suffer from two aging problems: Image retention (short-term) and display burn-in (long-term).

Image retention is temporary in nature, and occurs when part of the onscreen content is superimposed or "stuck" on the display. The problem is more common in LCDs (particularly in the Quantum IPS displays in LG's flagship smartphones), but it occurs in OLED displays, too.

More commonly, OLED displays suffer from burn-in. It appears in the form of permanent discoloration in areas on the display, and it's most commonly found in areas that remain static for a long time, such as the navigation and status bars on Android phones.

The time taken to develop burn-in is normally several months, and years in the best cases. However, burn-in is a highly variable phenomenon. Some users have reported permanent burn-in even after only a few days or weeks of use, even with smartphones that have the latest AMOLED displays from Samsung (such as the Galaxy S8). Users have also reported burn-in occurring after a short period of time on the P-OLED displays used in the LG V30 and the Google Pixel 2 XL.

Is there any solution for the burn-in issue? Again, manufacturers can mitigate it, but they can't solve it — it's an inherent characteristic of current-generation OLED displays. OEMs often mitigate it by using white navigation bars, dimming the navigation bar buttons, and making other software tweaks such as slightly-moving clocks in always-on displays. Samsung, Apple, and Google have all said that they're using software to fight burn-in, but all three have stated that burn-in is unavoidable. Simply put, OLED display quality permanently deteriorates after a few months' regular use (though not to substantial degrees in that timeframe).

One of the reasons why burn-in occurs is the organic nature of the LEDs in OLED displays — and the blue subpixel ages the fastest, as previously mentioned. MicroLED is a technology that can theoretically solve the issue by combining inorganic LEDs with OLED's subpixel technologies, but it hasn't been commercialized yet. In the near future, OLED will continue to be characterized by permanent burn-in unless in lieu of a  breakthrough.

Power efficiency at high APL. As explained in the terminology section, display brightness in OLED is variable, because it decreases with high Average Picture Level (APL) and decreases with low APL. Power efficiency in OLED is related to the APL of the content seen on the display.

At low APL (<65%), OLED is more power efficient than LCD, according to DisplayMate. That means that if the content on the display doesn't have a lot of white backgrounds, it will draw less power. That's important for media content such as videos which don't have predominant white backgrounds, where more sub-pixels light up to combine into the resulting white light.

On the other hand, web content typically causes OLEDs to draw more power because webpages predominantly have white backgrounds, and thus high APLs. (It's worth noting that the average APL in Android 5.0 Lollipop's UI was found to be 80%, according to Motorola).

Here's the deal: For tasks like web browsing, LCD will almost always be more power-efficient than OLED, despite the substantial emitter efficiency improvements in the most recent generations of OLED. OLED is closing the gap in high APL, and has already overtaken LCD in low APL. It's not completely there yet, but it isn't far-fetched to expect OLED to be more power efficient than LCD in high-APL scenarios in a few years' time.

Now that we've taken a brief look at the issues affecting both OLED and LCD display technologies, let's now consider the misleading specifications bandied about by OEMs regarding display quality.


Misleading specifications in smartphone displays

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Samsung's Galaxy Note 8.

According to DisplayMate, the Galaxy Note 8's display can get as bright as 1200 nits. However, that figure only applies to the auto brightness boost in sunlight. At 1% APL, which means that the display is showing a full-screen, nearly-black background, the Note 8's display can reach 728 nits with the brightness cranked up manually. Its true brightness, though, is 423 nits at 100% APL in Adaptive mode. There's obviously a huge discrepancy between the two numbers, and it's misleading to promote the 728 nits figure as a feature of the Note 8 without adding the necessary qualifying information.

In terms of contrast, manufacturers tend to advertise a deceptively high dynamic contrast. Static contrast is often lower than rated contrast, which is a problem that affects LCDs (thanks to their true blacks, OLEDs don't have contrast issues). Dynamic contrast tends to be much  higher than static contrast, but that's not of much use to the average user  Then there's the fact that static contrast figures don't account for environments with high amounts of ambient light. At that point, real contrast decreases to 100:1-200:1, a massive difference from the rated contrast of the display.


The supply side of the equation

OLED displays can achieve great image accuracy, and they're increasingly in demand. But is the supply up to scratch?

The answer is: Not at this time. The display manufacturers of note in the LCD space are many, and they include Japan Display (JDI), Sharp, LG Display, Tianma, BOE, and others. However, when it comes to OLED technology, Samsung Display occupies a dominant position in the market. LG Display notably started selling P-OLED displays in 2017, and the Chinese manufacturers such as BOE are gearing up to manufacture OLED displays as well. But Samsung Display has the advantage of being multiple years ahead of the competition.

In the past, Samsung Display used its position to sell n-1 AMOLED displays to other OEMs and keep the best current-generation AMOLED panels for Samsung Electronics' mobile division. Even today, few smartphones have 18:9 WQHD+ (2880×1440) AMOLED displays. Devices like the Huawei Mate 10 Pro and the OnePlus 5T have a 6-inch Full HD+ (2160×1080) 18:9 displays. Even though those displays are current-generation panels, they're lower in resolution. If companies are willing to pay more for OLED panels, of course, Samsung Display will happily supply them with its highest-quality AMOLED technology. One example is Apple, which has significant leverage in the industry. The company demands top-quality displays from its supply sources, and the OLED display in the iPhone X is no exception.

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Samsung Display's revenue growth. Source: Display Daily

The iPhone X's display is said to be a custom-built panel designed by Apple and manufactured by Samsung. It has a different aspect ratio (19.5:9), resolution (2436×1125), and pixel density (458 PPI) than the displays in Samsung's smartphones.

Because the iPhone X is a high-volume product, demand for OLED displays is such that Samsung Display is nearly unable to fulfill it. The company supplied about 50 million OLED panels to Apple in 2017 for the iPhone X, and is expected to increase the number for the next iPhone. It could lead to a shortage in the OLED display market — most of the AMOLED displays being supplied are headed to Apple and not to Android OEMs.

Competition in the OLED is one solution. LG Display previously used P-OLED displays in its G Flex smartphone series, and entered the OLED display business again in 2017. Google signaled its interest by entering into a deal worth millions of dollars to use LG's P-OLED displays. Apple, too, has shown interest in the past.

P-OLED displays aren't competitive with AMOLED displays yet, but LG Display could close the gap in 2018 and beyond. That'd only be good news for the industry.


Final words

Over the course of this article, we have seen just how complex the field of display analysis is. Many display experts say that you should never judge any display subjectively. However, for most people, subjective assessments can still be useful — especially considering the fact that it's very difficult to set up an objective testing workflow. The thing to keep in mind is that before passing judgement, users should have prior knowledge of smartphone display technologies in order to prevent misinformation from coloring their opinions.

Folks have different subjective preferences, of course, and that's fine. Many prefer saturated colors that are objectively inaccurate. Others prefer accurate color modes that are calibrated with respect to the sRGB or DCI-P3 color spaces. Some prefer Quad HD resolution, while others are perfectly happy with PenTile Full HD resolution in OLED displays. Choice is good when it comes to smartphone displays, and both display manufacturers and smartphone vendors should respect it.

Here's the takeaway:  LCD and OLED have their advantages and shortcomings, and both have progressed with different trajectories. It's likely that OLED will remain the technology of  choice for smartphones in the next few years, but for now, issues such as PenTile, color shift, and burn-in hold the technology back from achieving a flawless user experience. The supply side needs to be improved, too, before it becomes viable at low-end device ranges.

We've come a long way from the first touchscreen smartphone displays in 2007, but there's quite a way to go.


 



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