DisplayMate tests Galaxy S4 screen, gives it the thumbs up

[mercurial]

DisplayMate is known for detailed, highly technical reviews of displays – including smartphone displays. The latest review showcases the Samsung’s progress with Super AMOLED and the Samsung Galaxy S4.

The 5” 1080p display has a 441ppi pixel density, but since it’s a PenTile matrix the density for subpixels of different color is different. There are as many Green sub-pixels as there are Red and Blue subpixels combined. Even so, there are 312 Red and Blue subpixels per inch, almost matching the 326ppi Retina display density of the iPhone 5.

As for color accuracy, AMOLEDs are notorious for their oversaturated colors. Samsung offers several screen modes, of which Movie was found to be the most accurate, close to the sRGB/Rec.709 spec, but not as close as the iPhone 5 (the green is a bit too saturated). The Professional Photo Mode is fairly close to the Adobe RGB standard.

Then comes the brightness – it turns out that if you leave the phone in automatic brightness mode, the screen can go as much as 34% brighter compared to the maximum of manual mode. That’s 68% brighter than the maximum of the Galaxy S III (the Galaxy S4 in manual is 25% brighter than its predecessor).

Even better, Samsung has achieved this while improving power efficiency. DisplayMate says that if the S III and S4 screens were the same size and set at the same brightness, the Galaxy S4 will use 20% less power.

At an angle, the Galaxy S4 screen experiences less brightness decrease than the Galaxy S III and the iPhone, though the Apple smartphone has less color shift when viewed at an angle. The Galaxy S4 screen is a touch less reflective than the iPhone’s.

Compared to the iPhone 5, the Galaxy S4 has a bigger screen, higher resolution, deeper blacks and better screen uniformity, while the iPhone is brighter, a bit more power-efficient and shows more accurate colors.

The comparison with the Galaxy S III gives you a great reason to upgrade. Much higher brightness (up to 68%), 44% higher pixel density, better power-efficiency and color accuracy.

You can visit DisplayMate for expansive tables with all sorts of measurements and comparisons between the Samsung Galaxy S4, Galaxy S III and the Apple iPhone 5.

Source

 

[Maverick Jester]

Not convincing enough for me I'm afraid...

 

[cerebus]

It's quite a big step up from the S3 for sure... still behind its competitors in a lot of areas though. So thumbsup versus their own previously ...wanting... standards. One big positive is that the added density means the RGBG subarray doesn't impact on the colours so badly. Still brings the actual (vs specsheet) resolution down quite a bit:

The 5” 1080p display has a 441ppi pixel density, but since it’s a PenTile matrix the density for subpixels of different color is different. There are as many Green sub-pixels as there are Red and Blue subpixels combined. Even so, there are 312 Red and Blue subpixels per inch, almost matching the 326ppi Retina display density of the iPhone 5.

 

[Maverick Jester]

It's quite a big step up from the S3 for sure... still behind its competitors in a lot of areas though. So thumbsup versus their own previously ...wanting... standards. One big positive is that the added density means the RGBG subarray doesn't impact on the colours so badly. Still brings the actual (vs specsheet) resolution down quite a bit:

To be honest, until the power consumption and aging amongst the different coloured LEDs reach parity, AMOLED will always lag behind the current LCD technologies.

I can't go back to over-saturated colours. it physically hurts

 

[cerebus]

To be honest, until the power consumption and aging amongst the different coloured LEDs reach parity, AMOLED will always lag behind the current LCD technologies.

I can't go back to over-saturated colours. it physically hurts

The Anand screen review isn't that flattering either:

Many speculated that this is now a toggle for some full CMS (Color Management System) which "fixes" the inherent color space issues with AMOLED and oversaturation that occurs when looking at sRGB content on such devices. Unfortunately, I can confirm that my initial suspicions that this is just a continuation of the mDNIe (lite) settings from previous generation is in fact correct. I reverse engineered what I could of these settings from both kernel messages while changing the toggles, and looking at the kernel sources. Turns out that 'Professional photo' mode is actually the 'Natural' mode renamed from previous versions.

Good, but not great.

 

[Maverick Jester]

The Anand screen review isn't that flattering either:

Good, but not great.

As expected...