Tonight I measured a Galaxy S6 unit in all its screen modes:

– Adaptive display
– AMOLED cinema
– AMOLED photo
– Basic

To anticipate some marketing or analysts claims, here are graphs and data representing the display of one unit, at 100% brightness.

Note: Those are based on preliminary results from a colorimeter only and I will apply some corrections based on the readings of a spectrophotometer.

If you look only at the 2D CIE 1932 gamut and saturations graph, the gamut and saturations seems to match rather closely to the sRGB or Rec.709 standards. It will affect the CIE diagram slightly but not the curves.

However it would be a mistake to claim that this display is color accurate to any existing standard, the reason being that the grayscale luminance and gamma response are wrong.
In fact, the average gamma ends up at 2.49 here which is really high: it makes things darker and more contrasty than they should (an approximate average gamma is 2.2)

So while the screen might look satisfyingly accurate if you look only at one particular graph, the Galaxy S6 display in Basic mode can't be trusted for color-critical work like video or photo editing.

Also, because of the correction required to reduce the saturation that's mechanically increased by a higher gamma, the overall appearance in Basic mode is inconsistent, and looking "off" to a trained eye.

There's more to say about the other modes but that'll be for later 🙂
The real #MWC15 starts in less than 8 hours!

Don't hesitate to point authors of a claim like "very accurate display", "most accurate ever" to the graphs attached.
They're making a mistake in their analysis: you can't look at only a fraction of the data, represented in a specific way and claim that it validates all the rest. But apparently it's a very common mistake.

#supercurioBlog #display #measurements #color #critic #Samsung


In Album About Samsung Galaxy S6 Basic screen mode

Source post on Google+

Published by

François Simond


61 thoughts on “Tonight I measured a Galaxy S6 unit in all its screen modes:”

  1. +Garth St. Omer​​​ I'll have to publish more of those then, because gamma 2.5 is not faithful to the standard reproduction of photo, Web or video content.
    Also, the (work in progress) display simulator for which I gathered the necessary data at the same time will be useful to be able to compare to how things are supposed to be rendered 😉

  2. +François Simond A little less bad? Hah. As if there were anything better. Even if what you measured is correct (which I doubt, seeing your attitude shown here), it is still the best display available to consumers on smartphones. Not to mention the horrendous screens found on ordinary desktop and laptop LCDs.

  3. Your obsessive about colour accurate to the point of it being irrelevant.

    I'll see what displaymate say as always, phonearena are a joke and the fact that you turn to them for backup says a lot.

  4. +Alessandro Minelli​ actually I was very impressed by the efficiency of the false touch rejection on the left and right edges, that prevents accidental touch when holding your device.
    I tried only with multi-touch test and it seemed to track fine the fingers on the sides for real usages.
    I didn't evaluate the accuracy tho. It seemed to stick to the side.

    I'll take a closer look at this report but one thing to mention is that both sides are very much bent. It affects not only the touch but also the content which becomes shifted in colors and hard to read because of the angle.
    If it looks cool but one thing to keep in mind IMO is that the S6 edge is this year's impractical cool looking gimmick.

  5. +François Simond Don't you feel that is a little ironic answer? If you do not know of a better smartphone display, how do you dispute others' claims? Why is Displaymate's claim, "the best smartphone display," wrong? Displaymate does not claim the S6's screen has 2.2 gamma.

    I was right about you being a hypocrite and a sour soul. I have a feeling that you want to say the iPhone 6 has the best display, while ignoring all of its shortcomings. That is your prerogative. But I will not tell others to question your integrity for that claim.

  6. +Wing Nut​​ there is no point making claims like "the best ever" when evaluating displays that are incapable of accurate color rendition.
    Any display. Any manufacturer. Any circumstances.
    This is marketing talk, not scientific evaluation of technologies.

    DiplayMate indeed claims that the S6 display is "very accurate" did you read his articles?
    You saying that I have a bias towards Apple's device is.. lol I don't even need to address that one.

  7. +François Simond You are moving the goal post, and worse, engaged in ad hominem by insinuating that Dr. Raymond Soneira is bought by Samsung. I find both your tactics and the accusation quite distasteful, and that in turn validates my earlier suspicion on your motive, which I saw in your attitude and choice of words. ("a little less bad," "gimmick")

    You now say there is no point in saying one display is better than another if the former has a (any kind of) flaw. Had you maintained such a perfectionist viewpoint in evaluating smartphone displays prior to this discussion? Has it been your actual advice to users, past and present, that there is no point trying to discern a better display on a smartphone because the aforementioned smartphone has a shortcoming in one of the many metrics commonly used in evaluating displays, to the exclusion of all the other criteria?

    Or simply put, have you ever concluded a smartphone A has a better display than a smartphone B? If so, then your sudden goal post moving is not only unseemly, but fails on its own term. After all, a "best" is derived from an accumulation of many "betters."

    I have read the Displaymate's report. The author lays down his methodologies, presents his data, and ultimately gives his opinion. It is true that you could undermine his opinion by pointing out flaws in his methodologies and data, butthat is not what you did. What you set out to accomplish on the eve of Galaxy S6's introduction seems something rather distinct. And in that process you exposed your (much worse) bias and resorted to personal attacks that are quite asinine – without a hint of proof.

  8. +Wing Nut _It is true that you could undermine his opinion by pointing out flaws in his methodologies and data, butthat is not what you did._
    Did you read the post you just answered to?
    It goes as far that I was able to predict his findings even before they were published. Look at the dates.
    Also, not that I'm not mentioning only DisplayMate because others are affected too because using measurement methods that provide invalid results.

  9. +François Simond This is going to be my last response to this matter, but I will end with a question that will explain a lot of things.

    Q: Which smartphone has a better (or more color-accurate) display, Galaxy S4 or Galaxy Note 4?

    If your answer is "Galaxy Note 4," then that is the end of the matter as far as I am concerned because that tells me you are not completely blind. You just have something else clouding your judgment.

    If your answer is "Neither," then that is also the end of the matter because
    you apparently have a very unique viewpoint or a strict tolerance level in
    evaluating smartphone displays. But I suggest you explain your criteria clearly and unambiguously before making frivolous accusations. Because in my imagination, your criteria evaluating smartphone displays result in
    following example analysis;

    Gamma 2.19 instead of 2.20 -> Inaccurate display
    White point 6520K instead of 6500K -> Inaccurate display
    Delta E value over 0.5 -> Inaccurate display
    Brightness, Contrast, Reflectance -> ?? (whatever floats your boat)
    Moreover, any display that misses any of the marks you set should not be called accurate, or a better/best display.

    I suspect that is not what you have in mind. I suspect what really bothers you is that Samsung takes credit for excellent displays. I further suspect your tolerance level for accurate display closely tracts with what the Galaxy S6 has NOT accomplished, instead of what it has in comparison to other smartphones in the market today. That is your right, but my friendly advice to you is that you make fool of yourself in so doing.

    P.S. You talk as if your prediction re: DisplayMate's findings were something unexpected by anyone else but you. I suggest that you are deluded if you think it takes a rocket science to predict the S6 to have the Note 4's display, slightly tweaked and/or improved. It naturally follows that DisplayMate's findings will be similar to those of the Note 4.

  10. +Wing Nut Your angle since your first message is to prove that I have a bias against Samsung, a manufacturer you appear to have at heart to defend.
    You will find nothing but pure speculation to support that.
    Also, I have zero interest debating with you given your intent.

    Hopefully you'll understand better the goals motivating my work when reading my future publications. Nothing else to say.

  11. Have you ever considered that your wrong and the sites posting different results are right? It's a case of I'm right and everybody else is wrong, lose that attitude and I might take you seriously.

  12. +Mart L you do not need to trust me.
    You can look at the gamma and luminance curves attached to this very post, and see how much they match with the reference.

    As for my attitude? I am taken seriously enough, thanks for your concern.
    In case you didn't caught that yet, preaching what people would like to hear or be in line with what others say is not really in my list of priorities.

  13. +Cake Sandwich okay that's a supported colorimeter.
    About the G4, I only played a few minutes with one in a store, the white point seemed rather cold, sorry I never measured one.
    I am also developing a driver to calibrate all Android devices (rooted), it's not released yet; might be one day who knows 😛

  14. +François Simond I now watched Erica's video again on the S6 ( all you need to know ) And when she pointed out the gamma, it looked almost the same just more ''punchy'' effect. But the tiger still looks well saturated and not oversaturated.. So I don't think that the Basic mode is inaccurate, It is pretty close to SrgB after all.. I only wish that Samsung one day will allow us users to control the Gamma & White point ( like on the Z3, or M9 )

  15. +Cake Sandwich Colors might look overall less distorted this way because you get used to the higher saturation which is consistent, however one risk is to still get skin tones too saturated. Like faces getting quite red, too yellow, sometimes a bit sinister for darker ones.
    Some color processing like Samsung does on their wide gamut displays now implement skin tone protection: it's an area of hues/saturations which will be treated differently to be closer to what the standard requires while others are still tuned by the wider gamut of the color primaries, higher gamma and saturation boost.

  16. +Cake Sandwich I measured the old CRT (a 19" I think, Iiyama) I was using before switching to LCDs and it's primary and curves were not really the idealized CRT some are nostalgic about.
    I was shocked by the amount of internal reflections too, leading to light spreading between the bright and dark zones of a single image shown.
    But it's true that many LCDs' colors have historically been something else, some being sold as is without any calibration effort while at least with CRTs, the color rendering was more of a basic physical characteristic.

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