LG Display announced it developed a 5" Full-HD LCD panel, the smallest Full-HD (1920x1080 at 440 ppi!) panel in the world. The LCd panel is based on LGD's AH-IPS (Advanced High Performance In-Plane Switching) technology.
Engadget posted a review of the Galaxy S3, and while they think the phone is excellent, they're not sure if the S3 is the best Android phone on the market, with the main competitor being the HTC One X. They love the 1280x720 4.8" Super AMOLED HD display, and say that there are real visual improvements over the Galaxy Nexus. The colors aren't over-saturated and there's no unnatural blue-ish tint.
Regarding the controversial PenTile technology, Engadget says that it isn't so visible because the screen is large and you tend to hold it from a little bit further than in smaller phones. But it still makes text a bit fuzzy, and so if you like reading on your book, maybe it's better to choose a non-Pentile phone (I personally think it's better to use a dedicated e-paper e-reader if you actually want to read).
AUO's mobile solution BU manager Dr. T.K. Wu says that OLED penetration in the smartphone sector will reach over 10% in 2012, and he expects OLED panel prices to drop in the next two years - to the point where small to medium sized panel prices will be comparable to LCDs.
Dr. Wu also predicts that OLED panels will be adopted for smartphones and TV applications, but they may not be used in notebook and monitors "due to factors in the IT industry and price competition".
AUO will soon start producing 4" to 5" AMOLED panels (Q2 2012), aimed toward smartphone applications. Today Digitimes reveals some details about their first panels, the 4.3" qHD ones. The panels will consume 370mW at 300 nits, and this will drop to 300mW by 2014.
The price of these panels will be around $45-$55 - about 90% higher than an equivalent LTPS LCD. Reports suggest that AUO is collaborating with Sony while other reports say that HTC secured AUO's entire OLED capacity.
LG Display is touting their 4.5" True HD IPS-LCD display (which does not support Full-HD, mind you, the resolution is 1,280x720). The company posted some slides comparing the HD IPS-LCD display to Samsung's Super AMOLED HD (as used in the Galaxy Nexus and other devices). LG Display says that the LCD is more sharp and clear (due to the Real Stripe matrix vs the Pentile one used in Samsung's AMOLED):
Sharp announced that they have begun to produce Oxide-TFT (IGZO) based LCDs at their Kameyama Plant #2. Sharp says that these displays will have smaller TFTs and thus increased pixel transparency - which leads to lower power consumption. Sharp's proprietary UV2A*3 photo-alignment technology employed in Sharp's AQUOS LCD TVs enables these displays to achieve high image quality.
Sharp also revealed some sample panel specification: 32" 3,840x2,160 (140 ppi), 10" 2,560x1,600 (300 ppi), 7" 800x1,280 (217 ppi). Sharp is expanding production scale through April "to meet market demand".
Japan's Technology Research Association for Advanced Display Materials (TRADIM) said it managed to develop a flexible LCD display by using a film substrate and roll-to-roll (R2R) technologies. The display can be curved, and is thin, light-weight and unbreakable.
TRADIM unveiled a 3.5" prototype that features 114 ppi and is only 0.49mm thick. The R2R method deposits the polarizing and phase difference films, the color filters, the TFT and the backplane on the film substrate. This development marks the end of TRADIM's efforts - and now this technology will be left for commercialization by the individual companies behind the association (which include Sharp, Hitachi, NEC, Dai Nippon Printing, Toppan Printing, Sumitomo Chemical and others).
Apple announced the new iPad 3 (or the New iPad as they call it), and it's got a new display: a 2048x1536 LED-backlit IPS LCD. Apple brands it as a Retina Display, even though the PPI is lower than the iPhone display (264 in the new iPad vs 326 in the iPhone's display). The new iPad also has a new CPU (dual-core Apple A5X), a new quad-core GPU, a 5mp camera and LTE. it's a bit thicker and heavier than the iPad 2 (9.4 mm and 662 grams vs 8.8mm and 613 grams).
So, no Apple OLED yet. We keep waiting...
Our friends from PortableGear.nl are at MWC 2012, and they posted three interesting videos comparing AMOLED displays to LCD ones. Their conclusion is that it's getting harder and harder to distinguish between all those technologies, as all theses screens are superb. The first video compares the Super AMOLED HD on the Galaxy Note with the True HD IPS on the LG Optimus 4X HD:
Last week we reported on rumors that Samsung Electronics may spin off its LCD business, and today it is official - Samsung will form a new company (called Samsung Display, but it may be a temporary name) on April 1st. The new company will have over $6.5 billion in capital - which it will require as last year the LCD unit reported a loss of over $650 million.
In the beginning of February, Samsung Electronics reported that it is considering taking over Samsung Mobile Display. It's not clear what are SE's plans now, but it seems to be that the company is quickly shifting its focus to OLED displays. In the company's press release, Samsung makes the following rationalization:
