OLED Smartphones - introduction and industry news - Page 68

A couple of days ago we reported that according to tests by DisplayMate, SDC's new 5.1" FHD Super AMOLED panel (used in the GS5) is a lot more efficient than Samsung's previous generation panels (a 27% compared to the GS4 which is actually a little smaller). DisplayMate's Raymond Soneira told us that Samsung said that the improvement mostly came from more efficient OLED materials.

This is quite interesting, and according to my own checks, it seems that indeed Samsung is using new materials. In fact, my sources say that Samsung adoped new and improved phosphorescent materials.

Korean news site ETNews posted an article discussing Samsung's and LG Display's flexible OLED display plan for 2014. According to the report, LG Display will focus on reducing the size of the OLEDs while increasing the resolution and other display aspects, while Samsung wants to develop new display designs and forms.

LG Display is currently producing a 6" 720p flexible OLED panel - which means a PPI of 245. Samsung's display (5.7", Full-HD) has a much higher PPI of 386. In 2014, LGD hopes to start producing a 5.5" Full-HD panel. The company also reportedly has issues with heat handling and they want to address this issue.

Last month Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S5 with its 5.1" FHD (432 PPI) Super AMOLED display. The phone is set to launch globally on April 11th, but my friend Raymond Soneira from DisplayMate received a GS5 from Samsung to test the display. And his conclusions? The GS5's display is a major improvement over the GS4 display. In fact, the GS5's AMOLED is the best mobile display ever tested at DisplayMate, outperforming all other OLED and LCD displays.

But just how is the display better than the 5" Full-HD one on the GS4 and every other mobile display on the market? DisplayMate says that the new display is features the highest brightness, the lowest reflectance, the highest color accuracy, the highest contrast rating in ambient light and the smallest brightness variation with viewing angle. That's quite impressive!

Samsung's Galaxy S5 is launching, as planned on April 11, and now Amazon offers the AT&T model for pre-order. Depending on the service plan, the GS5 costs $189.99 to $699.99.

The GS5 features a 5.1" FHD (432 PPI, Diamond Pixel most likely) Super AMOLED display, a 2.5 Ghz quad-core CPU, 2GB of RAM, 16MP camera (4K video support). The GS5 is dust and water resistant, and it packs a finger scanner and a heart rate sensor.

A few weeks ago I learned that LG started to market the G Flex smartphone here in Israel. I contacted LGE and they got the Israeli carrier Partner to send me a review unit. First of all - thanks guys!

So I switched phones, left my new GS4 behind and started using the G Flex. Here's a short hands-on review of this phone. Or actually, this isn't a real review - I mostly want to discuss the screen and my experience with this phone. There are many good reviews of this phone online already (here's Engadget's for example). I won't be showing you a video of how it flexes a little - it's been done.

Earlier this week, a fire broke out in a factory that produces PCBs for the Galaxy S5. It 287 firefighters to finally stop the fire after 6 hours - and it is estimated that over $1 billion in equipment and components has been destroyed.

The factory was contacted by Samsung to manufacture PCBs for the GS5, and this may delay Samsung's launch or hinder the initial production volumes. Samsung announced that it uses several sources for the PCBs and that the fire will not effect the production by a huge margin. Hopefully the company will be able to launch their new flagship on April 11 as promised.

Samsung announced that it has sold over 200 million Galaxy S smartphones - including the GS1, GS2, GS3 and GS4. It probably also includes all the variants (such as the GS4 zoom and the GS4 mini). Virtually all of those phones use Super AMOLED displays.

In January 2013, Samsung said it sold 100 million Galaxy S devices. This means that it took them a little over a year to sell 100 million more. In 2013, by the way, the company produced over 200 million AMOLED panels. This means that the company's most popular phones actually account to less then 50% of SDC's OLED production. The rest are mostly used in other Samsung phones (like the Galaxy Notes family), phones for other companies (such as Nokia and Motorola) and digital cameras. Of course it's likely that inventory buffers also account for several of those million OLED panels...

Yesterday Samsung unveiled their latest Galaxy S series smartphone, the Galaxy S5. Samsung says that the new phone was designed to "focus on what matters most to consumers". The display is a 5.1" FHD (432 PPI) Super AMOLED display (seems to be the same display as on the GS4, only a bit larger).

Other features of the GS5 include a 2.5 Ghz quad-core CPU, 2GB of RAM, 16MP camera (4K video support). The GS5 is dust and water resistant, and it packs a finger scanner and a heart rate sensor. The new flagship device will launch on April 11 in 150 countries worldwide.

Russia based YotaPhone launched the world's first hybrid E Ink / LCD mobile phone Europe only a few months ago, but the company already revealed a new 2nd-gen prototype phone. The main upgrade is the added touch capability on the 4.7" E Ink display, which enables it to be used for messaging, e-mails, browsing and more.

But I was also happy to hear that the 4.3" 720p LCD has been replaced by a larger AMOLED display. In fact, the new yotaPhone uses the same 5" Full-HD Super AMOLED display used in Samsung's Galaxy S4.

BLU's VIVO 4.8 HD is a mid-range smartphone that features a 4.8" 720x1280 Super AMOLED panel. This phone is now shipping in the US, via Amazon.com, unlocked for $279.99.

Beside that 4.8" OLED, the phone features a 8 mp camera, 1.5Ghz quad-core CPU, 1GB of RAM and 16 GB of storage. It runs Android 4.2.