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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scy1192 - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
Definitely worry more about the sharpening effect than the contrast and colors. LG needs to fix that ASAP, and I say that as a G3 owner. My only complaint about the phone.fokka - Sunday, July 27, 2014 - link
the g3 has a 1440p display, not 4k/uhd. your points are still valid though.Rocket321 - Sunday, July 27, 2014 - link
After reading reviews of the G3,i bought a pair of G2's for me and my wife (they can be had for less than $300 new/off contract if you shop around for. Considering the G2 essentially matches the spring 2014 flagship specs but is selling at "last year" prices makes it the best buy currently (imo).solnyshok - Tuesday, August 5, 2014 - link
but has limited storage. I am considering getting one with 32GB soon. Those are more like $400 (EUR300 here in old europe). But, then, I must wait for August/September announcements to see what's coming ofr iOS/Nexus/SG-Note. And, surprisingly, Sony Z3 Compact looks interesting, though a bit on a small side (less than 5")josemiguelcastillo - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
As far as I can tell you, the default contrast profile the phone uses makes everything a bit washed out. BUT you can control and configure as you please in "Settings > Accesibility > Color Adjustment".Once calibrated the screen looks gorgeous. Try it on a demo unit and you'll see how good it looks in real life
Hrel - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
I'd get the LG G2, or equivalent Nexus 5. Great phone.solnyshok - Tuesday, August 5, 2014 - link
wait! there is LG G3 Stylus coming soon with 6" screendjw39 - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
How was Apple doing? Were iPhone 4/4s displays much better calibrated than those of Android phones at the time?name99 - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
It's just one datapoint, but I still have my iPhone 1, bought a week or so after Apple released them). I use it like a transistor radio, as an audiobook player that I can use without headphones.- The battery is still going strong. Pretty damn amazing. Especially considering there was one unfortunate dropping in the sink two years ago (saved through rapidly pulling it out, application of paper towels then hair dryer, then three days in a tupperware container with dried rice to suck out any remaining moisture).
- The thing feels slow as all hell when switching from one app to another. Within an app, speed is OK, but app switching is tough --- I guess 128M RAM means a LOT of constantly hitting flash, and it's not the fastest CPU in there. It's also running iOS 3, and I expect that every version of iOS adds some features that shift the speed-memory tradeoff to use a little more RAM for a little more speed.
- the display looks to me as good as the day I bought it. Brightness, contrast, color accuracy all fine. No noticeable problems with viewing at an angle. It's not retina, of course, so there is the inevitable fuzziness that implies, but nothing as noticeable as what is being described in the article. The LED backlighting, the diffuser, and the actual LCD all seem to have survived 7 years so far just fine.
I had an iPhone 4 till about a month ago, and the story there is much the same (in that there were no problems at all with it). That's retina of course, and running iOS7.
Again, feels slow compared to my iPhone 5, but not the unbearable slowness of the iPhone1. I gave it to a friend in a developing country and he seems very happy with it, even compared against the various no-name brand super cheap Android clones that his friends have.
dylan522p - Saturday, July 26, 2014 - link
Since the iPhone 4 they haven't advanced much. I mean they got it right with the 4 so they don't need much improvement.