

Samsung Galaxy S III  (Source:














Source: Samsung

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RE: Impressive
By Solandri on 10/29/2012 11:32:43 AM , Rating: 2
Pentile displays are definitely inferior.

See post above. I the ppi is insufficient so you can see the sub-pixels, then it's inferior. But once you pass that point, pentile (or RGBG) is a more efficient allocation of sub-pixels while remaining indistinguishable from RGB.

It's not so obvious on photos or videos, in fact in those cases they look pretty good. It's mostly visible on graphics like icons (e.g., the icon for Chrome). With my Galaxy Note next to my Nexus 7, the speckled look of the pentile display is quite noticeable.

You do realize even RGB has color fringing? The sub-pixels are not overlaid on top of each other (as they are on Sigma's Foveon camera sensor). They're usually arranged side-by-side. If you look closely enough at either display, you will see color fringing.

The key factor for both RGB and RGBG is that the sub-pixels are small enough to be indistinguishable to the eye. RGBG reaches this point sooner than RGB, allowing you to meet the eye's maximum resolving power with fewer subpixels (i.e. lower sub-pixel ppi).

In fact, the OLED screens I've owned (Pentile or not) have made me quite a fan of LCDs for the moment. Comparing my Note to my iPhone 5, the difference in colour quality is absolutely enormous, and the display on the Galaxy Note was lauded in reviews. The default settings from Samsung are horrible (way oversaturated)

That's completely dependent on color calibration and has nothing to do with the quality of the display. Android currently lacks support for color profiles, and it's one of the things I wish they'd add. Without support for color profiles, the colors you get are purely based on the electrical characteristics of the display.

I suspect Apple has support for color profiles built into iOS because the color accuracy of its iOS devices has been remarkably consistent. When Android adds color profile support, this will become a non-factor.

In terms of the potential quality of the display (after you can profile it), what's more important is gamut - how deep a red, blue, or green it can display. And OLED completely wipes the floor with LCD in gamut.

Bayer filters and 4:2:0 YCbCr are different issues. 3CCD and 4:4:4 are better anyway, it's just a matter of how much better versus the cost.

As I've been saying, 3CCD is only better if you lack sufficient resolution so that the individual red and blue sub-pixels are still distinguishable. Once you exceed that resolution (as is claimed with Retina displays), RGB and RGBG become indistinguishable to the eye, and you can achieve the same performance using fewer sub-pixels arranged in an RGBG array instead of RGB.

