My buddy Ron over at OLED-info.com has been a busy bunny – he’s been providing analysis on what the screens on a couple of OLED-sceen mobile devices are like. Short summary: not very good.
However, before we get into it, a refresher on OLED:
OLED is an emissive display technology – it means that the OLED materials emit light. This is in contrast to a reflective display – which uses an external light source – an ePaper display for example, or a ‘real’ paper. OLEDs are bright, and provide great image quality, but because they are emissive, when viewed under direct sunlight (or any strong light source) they have a readability problem.
The best display technology for direct sunlight (besides ePaper) is said to be transflective LCDs, which uses a reflective layer under the LCD’s filter. However this reduces the transmissive capabilities of the LCD, and the contrast is compromised as well. With OLEDs, unfortunately, it’s not possible to use a reflective layer as the OLEDs themselves emit light.
So all of that said, what were the handsets with issues? Well those that are not great are the Nokia N85, and also the Samsung Omnia II. To be fair, it’s not something specific to a particular manufacturer, more a quirk (or feature, as more wily marketing types would have you believe) of OLED per se.
Ron neatly summarises:
Several companies are working to solve this issue – mostly trying to improve the contrast of the OLED displays.The Fraunhofer institute, for example, is working towards OLED contrast optimization in combination with high temperature stability and outcoupling enhancement structures for the automotive industry.
In conclusion, it seems that sunlight visibility is a major drawback with OLED displays, and if you use your phonemainly outside in the sun, perhaps it’s best to get one with a translective LCD. But OLEDs are improving, manufacturers are just learning how to optimize them and hopefully the next generation displays will perform better.
Check out the full article here.
[Story via: OLED-info.com / Video still via: pocketnow.com on YouTube]