Reviews - Page 3

Samsung recently announced its latest flagship phone series, the Galaxy S20. Our display measurement friends from DisplayMate tested the new display - and unsurprisingly it turns out that the new Samsung Display AMOLED displays are very impressive - and they earn DisplayMate's highest ever display performance grade.

DisplayMate tested the Galaxy S20 Ultra, with its 6.9" 1440x3200 (511 PPI), 120Hz, Dynamic AMOLED display. The display has "close to text book perfect" calibration accuracy and its performance is visually indistinguishable from perfect. The new Samsung OLED display is setting or matching 12 smartphone display performance records.

Yesterday Samsung announced the Galaxy Z Flip, its 2nd foldable smartphone, features a 6.7" 1080x2636 inward foldable HDR "Dynamic AMOLED" display. The external display is a small 1.1" 112x300 Super AMOLED. The Galaxy Z Flip will ship on February 14th, starting at $1,380 in the US.

Besides the new form factor, the Z Flip uses an ultra-thin glass cover - unlike the Galaxy Fold which used a plastic one. At least according to The Verge, this makes for a big improvement - it feels better, can't easily be "marked-up" by a fingernail and there's no visible crease. The Z Flip also feels much more refined - with no creaking and with a solid-feeling hinge.

Yesterday Motorola started shipping its $1,500 foldable OLED phone, the Razr 2019. The Razr 2019 features a 6.2" 2142x876 (21:9) foldable AMOLED display that folds inside, produced by BOE. There's also a regular external 2.7" 600x800 AMOLED used when the phone is closed.

Initial reviews are appearing online. Android Central's Nirave Gondhia tested one such phone, and he says that the Razr's screen feels fragile, even more so than the screen of his Galaxy Fold. While he likes how the device folds, he says that as the screen shifts along the hinge, the feedback on the screen feel strange and it feels as if the screen could be damaged by the folding over the long term.

Last month Huawei finally launched its first foldable smartphone, the Mate X with a 8" 2200x2480 foldable AMOLED display (produced by BOE) that folds outwards. One of the first reviews was posted by CNet's Andrew Hoyle - who spent one day with this $2,400 device - and liked it a lot.

The OLED itself seems to be a great display - Andrew says that it is a bright, vibrant and sharp display. When open, the 8" display is great for videos and images. Andrew also loves the folding mechanism works like a charm, and says that the device is a joy to use. Compared to the Galaxy Fold, he says that the Mate X is much thinner when closed which is important - and it is also much more usable when closed as it has a much larger display.

Update: Google has removed the P-OLED brand name from their web site - this could have been a mistake, and now we do not know whether these are LGD's displays or not.

Google announced its fourth-generation Android smartphone, the Google Pixel 4, that features a 90Hz 5.7" 1080x2280 (444 PPI) OLED. The Pixel 4 XL features a larger 90Hz 6.3" 1440x3040 (537 PPI) AMOLED display.

Display measurement experts DisplayMate reviewed the display and found that it is a state-of-the-art flexible OLED display that sets or matches several records, including the highest absolute color accuracy, the lowest screen reflectance and the smallest brightness variation with viewing angle.

In 2018 the Fraunhofer FEP institute announced it is starting to offer a design kit that includes several flexible and transparent OLED lighting panels. The Monarch Kit includes several colored butterflies samples, and the researchers were kind enough to send us one such kit for a short review.

So first of all, these OLEDs look beautiful. They shine a beautiful uniform colored light and are very nicely done. There's not much functionality, but it shows the potential of flexible OLED lighting quite nicely.

Samsung recently re-launched its foldable OLED smartphone, the Galaxy Fold - and now the first reviews are coming in. CNet posted an interested video in which they put the Galaxy Fold to a folding cycles test, using a what seems to be an aggressive machine that folds and unfolds it quickly.

The Galaxy Fold lasted for 14 hours - or 120,000 folds. Samsung says its own tests show that the smartphone lasts for over 200,000 folds. So the CNet test falls short of that - but I have to say that CNet's machine seems rather more aggressive than a normal folding would be...

Samsung recently re-launched its foldable OLED smartphone, the Galaxy Fold. The company took several months to redesign and make the phone more durable... but it seems as if things are perfect yet.

TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater got a review unit, and the screen got damaged within one day (27 hours, to be precise) of normal use - see photo above - there's a large defect at the center of the photo. Brian said he took good care of the device - just as Samsung suggests. Ironically, when Samsung launched the phone in April, Brian got a unit that worked okay for a few days (until Samsung collected the device back).

DisplayMate tested Apple's latest OLED display, the one used in the iPhone 11 Pro Max (6.5" 2688x1242 458 PPI) and unsurprisingly found that this is top-notch display. Apple improved on the display used in the 2018 iPhone XS Max in several aspects - including 17% higher full-screen peak brightness and up to 15% higher display power efficiency.

DisplayMate especially notes Apple's high-precision display calibration and color accuracy - which is visually Indistinguishable from perfect.

In April 2019, after early reviewers reported that that the foldable screen in their Galaxy Fold devices broke down after a day or so, Samsung decided to delay the release of its foldable smartphone, the Galaxy Fold. Samsung started shipping the re-designed and improved Galaxy Fold in Korea on September 6.

Samsung took three months to re-design and fix all the issues in the Fold smartphone, it updated the design and upgraded the construction to better protect the device from external particles. An early review now says that the Galaxy Fold may be improved, but it is still not durable enough.