Super AMOLED: introduction and market status - Page 21

There are some rumors about a new phone from Samsung, a successor to the popular Galaxy S. The Galaxy S2 will have a 4.3" Super-AMOLED display offering 1280x720 at 340dpi. Other specs include a 2 Ghz CPU, 1GB RAM, 32GB storage, 8MP camera (full-HD recording), Bluetooth 3, Wi-Fi, A-GPS and Android 3.0.

The Galaxy S2 will be released in Q1 2011. Again, these are all just rumors currently...

Microsoft officially launched the Windows Phone 7 OS yesterday. They announced 10 phones from HTC, Dell, LG and Samsung. Three of those phones use AMOLED displays: the Samsung Focus (with a 4" Super-AMOLED (leaked back in July as the Cetus), the Samsung Omnia 7 (with the same 4" Super-AMOLED display) and the Dell Venue Pro (leaked back in April as the Lightning).

Samsung Omnia 7

There were reports that Microsoft expects most WP7 phones to have AMOLED displays, and even designed the UI so it'll suit those displays (with black background to conserve power). It's great to see that even today, with AMOLED supply issues, 3 out of 10 WP7 phones use AMOLED displays.

Samsung has just launched a new Galaxy-S variant in Korea for the KT network, calling it Galaxy K. It seems to have the same spec of all Galaxy-S phones (1Ghz processor, 3G, Wi-Fi and 8GB of memory). Interestingly, the 3.7" AMOLED display is described as AMOLED-Plus (the same as in another variant, the Galaxy U for LG's U+ network). We're pretty sure this is a super-AMOLED display, not sure why Samsung calls it AMOLED-Plus in Korea.

Interestingly, the Galaxy K comes with Android v2.2 - the first Galaxy S phone variant to come with the new OS (which will hopefully be available for all Galaxy-S phones soon).

Samsung will start offering Galaxy S phones in Japan in late October. They also say that they have sold over five million units so far: more than 2 million in the US, and 1 million in South Korea. The Galaxy-S has a 1 Ghz processor and a large 4" Super-AMOLED display.

Samsung Galaxy S

You can buy the Galaxy S unlocked for $599.

There are rumors that Samsung is set to release a new phone called Continuum (SCH-i400). Beside the large AMOLED (probably Super-AMOLED as it might be Galaxy-S branded) it will also have a secondary OLED display just below the main. It's called the "Ticker," and it'll show weather, RSS feeds and other kinds of notifications. The
Ticker will automatically turn on when you grasp the bottom of the
phone. The idea is to get the information you need without turning on the large power-hungry main display.

Update: Samsung's Wave II phone will indeed use a S-LCD... so this part of the rumor is true...

There a couple of interesting rumors about Samsung. The first one says that they have sold all of their Super-AMOLED production capacity to Apple for 2011. Apple-OLED rumors never die. This is interesting as Samsung's new 5.5-Gen AMOLED plant (that will produce ten times the current capacity) will go on line in the middle of 2011 - so theoretically Samsung might indeed have enough capacity to satisfy Apple. But will they really stop using these displays in their own products?

The second rumor is that both the Samsung Wave and Galaxy-S aren't in production anymore. Samsung simply do not have enough Super AMOLED displays. Samsung are working towards Super-LCD versions of these phones. Indeed both the Captivate (AT&T) and the Fascinate (Verizon) are currently unavailable in Amazon. The Galaxy-S unlocked is still shipping, but Amazon says that just 5 units are left. But this is strange - who is buying all those Super-AMOLED displays now if Samsung is not using them in their best-selling phones?

DisplayMate has perform extensive testing of LCD, IPS-LCD in Apple's iPhone 4, AMOLED (in Google's Nexus-One phone) and the Super-AMOLED as used in Samsung's Galaxy S phones. The bottom line is that the Super-AMOLED and IPS-LCD are both great displays, but they say that the iPhone's display is the ultimate winner.

The IPS-LCD is brighter, has higher pixel density and consumes less power. The Super-AMOLED is better in sunlight (less glare) and has much better contrast ratio - blacks are really blacks. The colors on the Super-AMOLED are oversaturated, while the colors on the IPS-LCD are undersaturated. Interestingly, a 'plain' LCD as used by the Motorola Droid has the best picture quality and accuracy.

A few days ago Nokia has announced their ClearBlack-Display (or CBD) which is an AMOLED display that performs better outdoors. Today we learned that CBD means a polarized filter that sits on top of the display, and blocks light. This helps it perform better outdoors. So CBD is not the same as a Super-AMOLED display (which is an AMOLED with a touch-panel built-in).

In the photo above, you can see the Nokia's E7 (left) vs a Galaxy S with a Super-AMOLED.

Samsung says that by the end of next week they'll sell 2 million Galaxy S phones in the US. They sold 1 million units in 45 days, and it seems that they're actually selling them faster now. The Galaxy-S, Samsung's latest Android phone, has a 1 Ghz processor and a large 4" Super-AMOLED display.

Samsung Galaxy S

You can also buy the Galaxy S unlocked for $599.

Nokia has launched three new smartphones today, two of which (The E7 and the C6-01) use Nokia's new Clear Black Display (CBD) technology which is said to perform better outdoors than a normal AMOLED. Nokia says that the display is a polarized AMOLED. This might actually be just Nokia's name for a Samsung made Super-AMOLED display, we do not know yet.

Nokia E7

Engadget really likes the display: "The screen is simply gorgeous -- ClearBlack may be a gimmicky trademark, but CBD's black levels are no joke. We're definitely talking Super AMOLED degrees of awesome...".