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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akdj - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
That was supposed to be 'you've NOT read the...'Spell correction. Sweet
Impulses - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
Anand didn't even write this article... :p And phones are increasingly used for more and more things where accuracy can matter, dunno why you'd want to give manufacturers a pass on it, specially with phones being most people's primary camera.Alexey291 - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
I meant anand as in anandtech collectively. But yeah I'll be clearer on that in the future :P (if I remember to be :P)Generally its not a matter of giving a pass its a matter of "meh who cares".
As for photography people mentioned above. Whenever I walk around on my hiking trips I am always torn between extra weight + space that a decent camera would require vs terrible quality that phone cameras provide.
Because whatever the screen colours - the camera that takes the photos is still shit. And besides the primary camera if any of those dumb stats are to be believed is the front one. You know... the 2mp selfie cam :/
Streamlined - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
Good point. Some people are always making excuses for mediocrity.Alexey291 - Sunday, July 27, 2014 - link
People above are making excuses for poor quality (of a phone camera) and you're going to pick on me prefering BETTER LOOKING colours to low contrast and washed out crap that "perfect colour representation" offers.Welp
Streamlined - Sunday, July 27, 2014 - link
Because over saturated colors is to cameras what Beats headphones are to audio. Poor quality. Those crappy phone screens will lead to printing crappy photos. And if you think EVERY SMARTPHONE is poor quality than you are insane.Alexey291 - Sunday, July 27, 2014 - link
So oversaturated colours on a screen will changed how you take a shot on your 2.1mp selfie cam? Really? Even your 8 (or 13) mp camera on the back still holds a tiny lens and never catches any colour or light. And then you look at your screen on your phone and shrug because whatever you have taken looks ok on a small screen. And will look like shit on a big one.As for "all smartphones have crap cameras". Sorry to break it to you. But they do.
Do all smartphones have crap screens? Nope. Some have ugly "perfect rgb colours" and some have pretty overblown contrasts and colour ranges.
And if you print your smartphone photos I have nothing but pity for your wasted cash.
That's pretty much all there's to it.
HangFire - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
Objective testing is necessary because certain ardent brand fans accept and believe whatever they hear about their phone and cannot believe they can be inferior in any respect. I once tried to explain the pixel density on my M7 far exceeded the, um, other phone in question and was met with complete denial. D'oh it's a 1080p display. At least links articles like this can be emailed after the conversation for the coup de grace.sonci - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
What's the point of this review, my Galaxy S died a long time ago,anyway since I got my iPhone I stopped looking for smartphones,
mkozakewich - Sunday, July 27, 2014 - link
Sorry! You should email them with your newest model, and they'll hop right to reviewing it. I'm sure if they knew your Galaxy S died, they wouldn't have bothered writing you this personalized review.