Counterclockwise: the rise of OLED smartphones and why it happened

24 March 2019
It's not just the advantage in image quality and contrast, modern smartphone designs are better-suited to OLED.

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  • HistoryTeacher
  • IbG
  • 07 May 2022

Vegetaholic, 08 Apr 2019OLED is a king of screens and it is useless to argue about.... moreI've had an OLED Nokia smartphone for 10 years already. Methinks the "crowd" is quite behind the curve... but yes, its so far superior (especially when paired with an anti-glare screen surface in direct sunlight) it is not even a challenge LCD should try to compete with. But yes, Apple and others held on to their cheap LCD technology for as long as they could with "gimmicks" to make people think they were getting something fancy, when it was already wearing the old hat circa 2007 when my phone was designed.

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    • Neb
    • 8cK
    • 14 Sep 2020

    Vegetaholic, 08 Apr 2019OLED is a king of screens and it is useless to argue about.... moreEverett for screen burn

      OLED is a king of screens and it is useless to argue about. OLED is superior in every way against LCD, and it is been for years now, LCD is pasted its time and only will be used in cheap smartphones just ebrace OLED and be happy

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        • lolsomany
        • ib9
        • 29 Mar 2019

        Lumia fan, 25 Mar 2019Ak of these comments about the burn in are bullshit and fli... moreu just lying about no LCD phones i see so far has deadd pixel. but my monitor did has dead pixel twice in 10 years

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          • Slayer
          • nFT
          • 26 Mar 2019

          Anonymous, 26 Mar 2019Huawei made oled big this year Just love these super daft comments....I guess Samsung must a start up company as in just started (sarcasm)....!

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            • s-pen pusher
            • PMT
            • 26 Mar 2019

            CQuine, 26 Mar 2019Lol you must have never even used a recent Samsung phone wi... moremy last samsung smartphone was the note 8. my wife has the s9 plus. both actually does flicker when you are in a dark environment and have the brightness at the lowest level. well, not really flicker but some pixels or cluster of pixels flicker such that it looks like parts of the screen is flickering. this is called "mura effect" and all oleds are prone to this. see, brightness in oleds is controlled by adjusting the voltage being provided to the pixles of the screen- the higher the voltage the brighter the screen. with "mura effect", some pixels behave differently when provided with lower voltage- some may flicker, some may continuously operate as normal, some may be brighter than other, and some may completely turn off. this results in uneven brightness of the screen, and if there are many pixels that flickers due to low voltage it also results in flickering fo the screen.

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              • Sidney
              • xiP
              • 26 Mar 2019

              I hope you realize that "once the technology is ready it will be adopted by every major player instantenously" is the very definition of absurd in terms of how technology actually evolves in a mass production/intellectual property sense. Suffice it to say that there are vast moats at the mass production scope of making oled displays not just the oled emitters themselves. Replace oled with whatever next technology you want and you'll see the same evolutionary experience, oem's have to master mass production and when they do they patent the heck out of their approaches or buy the patents from others (LG's Kodak WOLED for OLED TV).

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                • CQuine
                • rjV
                • 26 Mar 2019

                ZloiYuri, 25 Mar 2019AMOLED still quite bad tech due to horrible flickering. It'... moreLol you must have never even used a recent Samsung phone with super amoled..

                  • ?
                  • Anonymous
                  • J92
                  • 26 Mar 2019

                  Huawei made oled big this year

                    • s
                    • s-pen pusher
                    • PMT
                    • 26 Mar 2019

                    Vyshak75, 25 Mar 2019I have used S4 and S5 for three years and currently using a... moreabout the yellow tint, you never really notice it if you are using an oled phone exclusively. however, try to compare it to a properly calibrated lcd monitor or tv, or even an lcd screen mobile phone and you'll see how off the whites are. i have used every single s and note series from samsung up to the s8 and note 8, this alongside with a several iterations of ipad because i do alot of drawings. you can never trust the colors, especially the whites, in aged oleds compared to lcd so i only just do rough sketches on my note devices while do my proper drawings in the ipads. i have since switched to lcd phones- razer 1, razer 2, and pocophone f1 in protest of not having an option for non-curved screens on samsung flagships. i really hope this is something that can be addressed in the future because true blacks can only be achieved by oleds. i guess you can say that the differences between oleds and lcds are a matter of black and white. one more thing about oleds is when using it in a dark environment or when setting the screen to very low brightness- the mura effect. it is not consistent in the degree of appearance but has been present in all oled screens i have used before. okay, this is not really a big issue for most unless you use your phone alot while in bed and about to sleep like i do. the worst i have seen is flickering dots all over the screen on an s3.

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                      • Anonymous
                      • 81X
                      • 25 Mar 2019

                      imRGZ, 25 Mar 2019It's funny that my 3 year old Samsung Galaxy S7's AMOLED sc... moreI don't believe it. I'm sure the status bar has a brighter more accurate colors/white than the rest of the panel, mine did in a shade under _2_ years.

                        • ?
                        • Anonymous
                        • 81X
                        • 25 Mar 2019

                        ILoveSmartphones, 24 Mar 2019when Samsung first released oled on the galaxy s1 everyone ... moreUh, Samsung's OLEDs were terrible for years before they got the color close to accurate and the pixel density tight enough to mitigate the apparent dithering.

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                          • AnonD-731363
                          • SH3
                          • 25 Mar 2019

                          Anonymous, 25 Mar 2019Agree with that as long as love OLED, but it’s true.Yup in many cases oled is better but compared to LCD it have much more cons than its heatlhy.
                          Hope a microled tech made by LG will be fruitfull.

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                            • brandon turrant
                            • snS
                            • 25 Mar 2019

                            BiyoBiyo JunJun, 25 Mar 2019if nokia can remake n86 , android with symbian ui ....Nokia 9 PureView has lg poled screen https://www.oled-info.com/nokia-9-pureview

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                              • expert keyy
                              • snS
                              • 25 Mar 2019

                              Naps, 25 Mar 2019Its LG's oled LG first phone with amoled screen is model LG SH150A presented in February 2008 years .has amoled 2.2 inch screen 320*240 pixels 16.7 milion colors

                                Anonymous, 25 Mar 2019QLED that Sammy brags about so much is just LCD + quantum d... moreSo what? A bit better gamut and a bit deeper blacks it all LED needs, that would make OLED useless, since it has a lot of problems in some usage scenarios, like high brightness use, static apps, more than 2 years use.

                                  • ?
                                  • Anonymous
                                  • ssY
                                  • 25 Mar 2019

                                  https://youtu.be/F8TB7MHf8r8

                                  S10, S10 and S10 plus still comes with crash black OLED issue and iPhone X Max still has the best OLED!.

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                                    • Anonymous
                                    • ssY
                                    • 25 Mar 2019

                                    AnonD-731363, 25 Mar 2019LCD always a lot better solution. Cheaper repair and no bu... moreAgree with that as long as love OLED, but it’s true.

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                                      • Anonymous
                                      • ssY
                                      • 25 Mar 2019

                                      OLED, Amoled or whatever going to die soon after Apple, Samsung and LG shifiting to micro LED due to the better overall screen.

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                                        • LLL
                                        • Kxc
                                        • 25 Mar 2019

                                        LLL, 25 Mar 2019Where's Mini LED?Last November story...
                                        https://www.oled-a.org/mini-led-could-be-shut-out-of-the-smartphone-panel-market_111218.html