Super AMOLED: introduction and market status - Page 20

Google's Nexus-S phone was supposed to launch on the 20th of December in the UK, but Carphone Warehouse actually had some phones in stock yesterday (for £549.95). They quickly went our of stock though. In the US, the phone will ship on December 16th.

Google's Nexus-S is made by Samsung and is based around the new Android v2.3 'Gingerbread' OS. It has a 4" Super-AMOLED 'Contour display' (which means that the glass is curved, it's not a flexible OLED).

Google announced that the Nexus S will be available in Russia in February 2011 - but with an LCD (super-clear LCD) instead of a Super-AMOLED. It's likely that they are doing this because of the shortage in AMOLED displays. Google will probably use Super-AMOLED in some countries (like the US) and LCD in others.

Both displays offer pretty much the same performance, but it seems that Super-AMOLED is still the display of choice for Samsung.

Google has officially announced the Nexus-S (the successor to the Nexus-One). This Android v2.3 (Gingerbread) phone is made by Samsung and has a 4" Super-AMOLED contour display - which means that the glass is curved, this is not a flexible OLED. Other features include triband HSPA, 5mp camera, NFC, 16GB of on-board storage, a gyroscope and a 1Ghz Cortex A8 processor. Check out this photo showing the curved display:

The Nexus S will be available on December 16th in the US. It'll cost $199 with a T-Mobile contract or $529 unlocked. Check out this nice video from Google introducing the phone:

Update: Samsung officially announced their new display, and it's called Super AMOLED Plus.

There are some very interesting reports about an upcoming flagship Android phone from Samsung coming in February 2011. The most interesting bit is the large (4.3" or 4.5") sAMOLED2 display - apparently Super AMOLED 2. Back in July 2010, Samsung announced that they plan to soon double their AMOLED displays' efficiency, lifetime and power consumption. Perhaps the Super AMOLED 2 is the result of that research.

Other features of this new phone include a 8mp camera (capable of Full-HD 1080p), 1.2Ghz processor, 14.4Mbps HSPA, Bluetooth 3 and 16GB of onboard memory. And it runs Android Gingerbread. This is all un-official yet, and in the above slide (which is said to be from Samsung) the photo is of an old VOiP phone which is strange.

As we reported a few days ago, Samsung is showing a new 7" Super-AMOLED display. Interestingly, they are showing it in a Galaxy-Tab prototype. But this isn't surprising: Samsung already said that they wanted to use an AMOLED, but couldn't do so because they can't make enough, and they also said that they plan to expand the Galaxy-Tab line with AMOLED-using tablets in 2011.

The new 7" panel has a WSVGA (1024 x 600) resolution (the same as in the current tab). In addition to the new 7" panel, Samsung is also showing a 4.5" panel aimed for mobile phones.

Microsoft WP7 phones starts shipping, including the Samsung Focus and Dell Venue Pro, both of which use AMOLED displays. The Venue Pro is a portrait slider with a 4.1" AMOLED display, and is now available in some Microsoft stores (and will be available on-line from Dell's site next week).

Dell Venue Pro

The Focus Focus has a 4" Super-AMOLED and is now shipping for AT&T's network.

A few weeks ago the new Samsung Continuum was leaked - a Galaxy S variant but has two displays: a main 3.4" Super-AMOLED display and a secondary "ticker"
display which is also an OLED (1.8", 96x480). This phone is now official, but it turns out that this is actually just one display (4") that is 'marketed' as two displays. The lower 'screen' is used for notification (Samsung calls this a 'ticker' display). Here's an official Samsung ad:

Samsung will unveil a new 7" Super-AMOLED panel next week at the FPD International exhibition (November 10th). The new panel will offer 1200x600 resolution and will be available in mid-2011. Samsung will use their upcoming 5.5-Gen AMOLED plant to produce those panels - so there shouldn't be any supply issues (the new production plant will boost Samsung's AMOLED capacity ten fold, to 30 million displays a month).

Obviously such a 7" Super-AMOLED panel will be a perfect fit to Samsung next-gen Galaxy-Tab. Samsung already said that they wanted to use an AMOLED, but couldn't do so because they can't make enough. They also said that they plan to expand the Galaxy-Tab line with AMOLED-using tablets in 2011. So everything falls into place...

Samsung has posted their 3Q 2010 reports - a record $35.8 billion in revenue, and a record profit of $3.96. Samsung still iterates their target of 10 million Galaxy S phones in 2010. Earlier in October, Samsung said they sold over 5 million Galaxy S, and obviously they're hoping for a good holiday season. Let's hope they can make enough Super-AMOLED displays.

Samsung Galaxy S

Update 2: There are new rumors about this device, calling it the Nexus-S, with some great features...

Update: according to this SlashGear post, Samsung denies these rumors and say that they are "simply not true"...

There are reports that Google and Samsung are set to announce the 'Nexus-Two' phone soon. It will be based on the Samsung Galaxy S phone (and so have a 4" WVGA 800X480 Super-AMOLED display), the only difference is the addition of a front-facing camera and a newer version of Android (v2.3).