Filling the Gap: AMOLED and LCD from 2010 to 2012
by Joshua Ho on July 26, 2014 6:00 AM ESTSamsung Galaxy S2
The Galaxy S2 was and still is a great phone. In fact, it’s the only Galaxy S phone that ever shipped with an RGB strip AMOLED. Of course, this was necessary in order to have acceptable resolution for a 4.3” display without increasing resolution past WVGA. Just like the Desire HD, the resolution is still clearly quite poor on close examination, but the odd artifacting from PenTile is gone. This definitely helps with perceived sharpness and resolution. Unlike the Desire HD, the viewing angles are great. The RGB stripe also seems to result in almost no color shifting with viewing angle changes.
Unfortunately, it seems that peak luminance dropped significantly from the Galaxy S to the S2. Presumably this was due to the subpixel layout change, but even with the sunlight brightness boost feature the Galaxy S2 just isn’t as good as the Galaxy S in this regard. I recorded a maximum of 258.7 nits in movie mode and 282.2 nits in standard mode. Contrast is relatively similar and extremely high.
In standard mode, the Galaxy S2 isn't much better than the original Galaxy S. Definitely better, but barely. Far too much blue and green, far too little red, there's not much else to talk about here.
Turning on movie mode definitely helps quite a bit as evidenced by the significantly lower average error score. There's still too much blue and green, especially as we approach white, but it's far better than standard mode.
In the saturation sweep, Samsung has managed to outdo themselves in standard mode by regressing from the original Galaxy S. There's too much wrong with the calibration of this display to really pick at any particular issue in this mode.
Fortunately, movie mode tightens things up significantly, although blue is noticeably oversaturated, as is red, although to a lesser extent.
The same story can be seen in the ColorChecker for standard mode, with unacceptable inaccuracy. Many of the readings are outside of the gamut triangle entirely.
Things are much better with movie mode, but the result is still not the greatest. At this point, Samsung still has a ways to go before we get to the accurate AMOLED panels of today.
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jabber - Sunday, July 27, 2014 - link
I beg your pardon? Please explain a little more?SentinelBorg - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
Samsung phones since the S2 have different color modes you can choose from. The movie/video/cinema/whatever mode is usually the one closest to sRGB. No need to root it.plonk420 - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
still waiting for oLED monitors, considering SED is dead... : /extide - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
What do you mean waiting for OLED? OLED has been around for a while, I mean.. this article...Alexey291 - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
I still find it funny that anand is trying so hard to push display accuracy.Except for the 3.5 anon-geeks commenting on this website nobody cares. People like pretty colours not "perfect colour accuracy" on a 4.3" (or even 5" - either way the size is tiny). Nobody ever ran the sammy displays in movie mode. Everyone who knows how - turns on Dynamic instantly because its simply prettier to look at.
But yeah rgb colours or whatever. They matter or something.
jwcalla - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
I agree that color accuracy is of no consequence to me (and probably most others) on a smartphone. I don't even necessarily consider it a positive benefit which is why I find these articles here somewhat mystifying.name99 - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
Accuracy matters if you use multiple devices in your life. For example it was very clear to me (and I'm not an artist or a color snob) that the contacts photos on my iPhone 1 looked different from the contacts photos on my iMac 2007. (Of course these were the same photos, being shared through iTunes.) It's not a big deal, but these are things you see every day, and it's irritating that the one you see seems redder than the other one you see.Obviously it's less of an issue for a movie you see once and never again, but it's something noticeable for things you see every day, and humans are probably more attuned to precise details of faces than anything else.
FWIW Apple seems to have got this right now (at least it's no longer so bad that I notice it every day even without trying). I assume that's a combination of newer HW (both the iMac and the iPhone have been upgraded) and perhaps some behind-the-scenes SW upgrades.
Alexey291 - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
I tend to (personally - so not implying that its the same for literally everyone) find that I generally get used to the worst screens given time.Aside from all my other gadgets (some of which have really good screens both amoled and IPS) I currently own a chromebook HP14 - yes the one with a godawful TN panel.
Honestly its been some months and these days I don't even notice. And I use the said chromebook a lot. But yeah its a case of YMMV for sure :)
Streamlined - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
It matters if you ever intend to print your camera photos. Imagine "fixing" a picture of the sunset to print the phot and it's either too saturated or to pale because your crappy phone was off base.JoshHo - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
For the most part, color calibration matters any time content is shared. For example, you could buy something that looks fine on your display, but the color is horrible in person. Similarly, with inaccurate displays you just don't know if other people will see the photo the way it appears on the phone.There is reason and logic behind display accuracy, and it certainly isn't a niche feature for a select few. There are use cases that apply to everyone. Samsung is probably doing the right thing by including a calibrated cinema/movie mode and the dynamic/standard modes depending upon personal preference.
I hope this helps with understanding why display accuracy matters.