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Samsung is not switching to LCD. They always had superior LCD panels but for their high end phones they use OLED. They do use LCD for cheap phones - always did. They also release some cheaper versions of high end phones for poor countries with LCD. Nexus 10 uses LCD because OLED panel with such high resolution would be prohibitively expensive. The biggest OLED screen Samsung produces in volume is a 7.7 screen in Galaxy Tab. Not all OLED panels use pentile matrix and the issue is becoming irrelevant anyway when pixel density reaches 300 ppi. Apple calls it "retina" because you can't see pixels and when you can't see pixels, you obviously can't see subpixels. And BTW Samsung will soon switch to IGZO for OLED.

LCDs used in cheap Samsung phones have nothing to do with high-quality LCDs like the one in the iPhone 5 and other new flagship phones. That changes nothing about them being superior to OLED screens like the ones in the GS3/Note 2 overall.

By the way, the 300 PPI thing only applies to displays with a RGB matrix since the distance separating each subpixel from another of its color is the same as the distance between each pixel. Therefore, the number of subpixel of a same color per inch is the same as the PPI for a RGB matrix. That isn't true for a PenTile matrix, which has an inflated PPI number compared to what your eyes will actually perceive: the subpixels.

It's impossible to set apart two points when their distance from each other and from the viewer's eyes surpass the human eye's visual acuity, measured in arcminute. In this case, the two points would be sub pixels, not pixels, since pixels aren't actual sources of light, they're just an arbitrary group of subpixels that depend on the matrix you choose.

For example, those two displays have the same PPI but different matrixes (RGB on the left, PenTile on the right):

rgb-vs-pentile-amoled-2110.jpg


Notice that they have the same green subpixel density but the one on the left has a higher density of red and blue subpixels. The optimal linear density of red and blue subpixels in the PenTile matrix would be around 1/sqrt(2) times lower.

So let's assume those two displays have 300 PPI.

The one with the RGB matrix would have:
300 red subpixels per inch
300 green subpixels per inch
300 blue subpixels per inch

The one with the PenTile matrix would have:
212 red subpixels per inch (in diagonal)
300 green subpixels per inch
212 blue subpixels per inch (in diagonal)

So assuming we were displaying an image with an equal amount of red, green and blue, the RGB matrix would have an average perceived density of 300 PPI while the PenTile display would be around 241 PPI.

The significant difference between the two can of course be perceived by any human with normal visual acuity (20/20 vision).
 
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It's "funny" how everyone here a year or two ago was screaming bloody murder that Apple didn't use OLED in the new iPhone and iPad. Most of the people (including me) had never even seen an OLED screen.

Now it's 2012 and OLED is mentioned rarely, if ever here and it appears to have been replaced in popularity as a topic by IGZO. Has anyone here actually seen or used an IGZO screen?
 
It's "funny" how everyone here a year or two ago was screaming bloody murder that Apple didn't use OLED in the new iPhone and iPad. Most of the people (including me) had never even seen an OLED screen.

Now it's 2012 and OLED is mentioned rarely, if ever here and it appears to have been replaced in popularity as a topic by IGZO. Has anyone here actually seen or used an IGZO screen?

OLED is kinda having some growing pains, since manufacturers are finding it difficult to make screens beyond a certain resolution/screen size, and I believe it has a rather short life span in comparison to standard LCD screens.

It's still a pretty interesting technology simply because it doesn't require a backlight, which means you can have some amazingly thin screens with sporting a considerably higher color gamut along with far wider viewing angle. Thing is, until someone finds a way around it's rather extreme shortcomings, we won't be seeing many of them out on the market.
 
The sources said Apple is in further discussions with Sharp over IGZO panel production capacity estimates for 2013 and is also inquiring about whether AU Optronics' (AUO) L5C line could be used to produce the technology.

Are you sure :confused:

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/12/sharp-ends-igzo-lcd-panel-supply-to-apple.html

Sharp Ends IGZO LCD Panel Supply to Apple

BrightWire, a business-to-business resource for portfolio managers, is reporting this morning that a report published by Tokyo's daily newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun is stating that Sharp has officially ended small to mid-sized IGZO LCD panel supply to Apple due to low profitability. At this time it's difficult to assess whether their public reasoning is factual or just a face saving measure due to Apple dumping the IGZO display due to production delays.
 
An order to build displays for 200 million iDevices per year would help a bit with that problem.

Only if they can actually produce 200 million displays and at the right quality.

----------

Are you sure :confused:

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/12/sharp-ends-igzo-lcd-panel-supply-to-apple.html

Sharp Ends IGZO LCD Panel Supply to Apple

BrightWire, a business-to-business resource for portfolio managers, is reporting this morning that a report published by Tokyo's daily newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun is stating that Sharp has officially ended small to mid-sized IGZO LCD panel supply to Apple due to low profitability. At this time it's difficult to assess whether their public reasoning is factual or just a face saving measure due to Apple dumping the IGZO display due to production delays.

"Are you sure"

Nobody is sure about anything. It's all just speculation but that's what makes it so much fun ;)
 
The one with the RGB matrix would have:
300 red subpixel per inch
300 green subpixel per inch
300 blue subpixel per inch

The one with the PenTile matrix would have:
212 red subpixel per inch (in diagonal)
300 green subpixel per inch
212 blue subpixel per inch (in diagonal)

Put another way: Assuming that each color uses 8 bits, the RGB matrix produces 16.7 million colours. The Pentile matrix, where each pixel only has two subpixels, only produces 65,536 colours. Since alternating pixels produce 65536 colours, dithering is used. If you draw a diagonal line, most colours, including white, cannot be drawn at all.
 
Put another way: Assuming that each color uses 8 bits, the RGB matrix produces 16.7 million colours. The Pentile matrix, where each pixel only has two subpixels, only produces 65,536 colours. Since alternating pixels produce 65536 colours, dithering is used. If you draw a diagonal line, most colours, including white, cannot be drawn at all.

Wuh? I dunno where you're getting your information, but that's about the stupidest thing I've ever heard. A pentile screen can display the full 24-bit color gamut. If it worked the way you're talking about, you'd have individual pixels that'd be completely incapable of expressing a channel of color, like they're displaying 8,8,0.

The biggest problem with color on Pentile displays, at least on the Galaxy S3, is that it over exaggerates them, specifcally green. They're not exactly the greatest screens in the world, but once you reach a certain pixel density, the average person would be hard pressed to tell the difference between one of them and a regular RGB display.

Edit: Just looked it up to make sure. It's not missing color subpixels, but it's...weird.

Educate Yourself.

Specifically this paragraph..

The Galaxy S III has a PenTile OLED display, which has only half of the number of Red and Blue sub-pixels as in standard RGB displays, like those on the iPhones. The eye’s resolution for color image detail is lower, so this works well for photographic and video image content, but NOT for computer generated colored text and fine graphics because it produces visible pixelation, moiré, and other very visible artifacts, so a PenTile display is not as sharp as its pixel Resolution and PPI would indicate. PenTile technology does have advantages in manufacturing, aging and cost.

But it can still display the entire gamut. Each pixel is capable of expressing the same amount of colors, just not as sharply as what you'd get on the iPhone.
 
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What about the iphone ? Do you guys think 5S will have this screen or they wait up for 6 ?

Assuming a 6-month product cycle, the 5S will look exactly like the iPhone 5 (with same screen) but with some performance enhancements. The iPhone 6 will most likely use this screen, assuming if Sharp can get their s..t together.
 
NOt sure end

Are you sure :confused:

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/12/sharp-ends-igzo-lcd-panel-supply-to-apple.html

Sharp Ends IGZO LCD Panel Supply to Apple

BrightWire, a business-to-business resource for portfolio managers, is reporting this morning that a report published by Tokyo's daily newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun is stating that Sharp has officially ended small to mid-sized IGZO LCD panel supply to Apple due to low profitability. At this time it's difficult to assess whether their public reasoning is factual or just a face saving measure due to Apple dumping the IGZO display due to production delays.
apple readying to develope igzo screen soon
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patent...er-system-ready-to-move-to-igzo-displays.html
 
I guess they'd want consistent display resolutions, whether 'tis IGZO or not.


Display area of the iPad-mini = 29.6 square inches.
Current Resolution = 1024 x 768 = 786432 total number of pixels
Pixel Density = (Total Number of Pixels/Display Area)^0.5
Pixel Density = (1024*768/29.6)^0.5 = 162.99 ≈ 163 pixels per inch.

Doubling the Resolution (converting to Retina, while using IGZO panels, since it allows for higher density):

iPad-mini with Retina Display area = 29.6 square inches.
Resolution = 2048 x 1536 = 3145728 pixels
Pixel Density = (2048 x 1536/29.6)^0.5 = 325.99 ≈ 326 pixels per inch.

Same pixel density as iPhone. It'd seem likely to happen, but they'd want consistent resolutions, not pixel density.

Same resolution as current iPad. It'd end up cannibalizing its own newer iPad if they did that, so I don't think this will be happening for iPad-mini at least, probably for iPad though, sure.



... But they have done this cannibalization a bit with the Macbook Pro vs Macbook Pro with Retina Display. Over there exists a significant price gap too, so I don't think it'd be a really similar example.

$329 for iPad-mini will be less than $499 and you get a lighter, thinner, more portable than current iPad product with same battery, power and OBVIOUSLY a better resolution? Unlikely, because pixel density of iPad-mini would have to be higher than that of the larger iPad. I would then only buy iPad-mini, not the larger iPad. The non-mini iPad would have to be even better than it is now to demand a market share.

I doubt cannibalisation is a worry to Apple. People still have the choice to buy a 9.7 inch screen if they want. The Mini has a smaller screen which should be the only deciding factor for purchasers of 9.7 or 7.9 inch screens, not pixel density, power or features. Time will tell...but I would bet the Mini will have 2048x1536 to keep developers sweet by not creating another resolution to code for.
 
yes it is

this article is one year old :eek:

sure it will take 1+ year to develop manufacturing components for igzo display, before they are moving to it...
i my view competition will make apple to develop it faster then later...
 
"The fifth iPad will be slightly smaller and thinner." This is the rumour I've read on multiple websites. I think the word slightly should be used with caution. The iPad is a relatively big device, take off 1 mm from every side and the volume is reduced drastically. If the new iPad were to be 3 mm less wide and 2 mm less thick, that's not 'slightly' smaller, it's significantly smaller and it would make the current iPad feel like an ancient brick. I think it would be a huge milestone if Apple were to achieve this.
 
G5 could be excellent. Thinner, smaller bezel, upgraded processor, more battery life, faster, and hopefully more memory for the same prices.

The rumors point to small, but seductive, improvements.
 
Time will tell...but I would bet the Mini will have 2048x1536 to keep developers sweet by not creating another resolution to code for.

The issue of the mini retina screen resolution I find very interesting. Will they actually double it, making it a better display than its big brother (where there is more profit for Apple)? The only way I could see that they would do that is if the full sized iPad gets a bump of some sort to make it more appealing in another way. Perhaps they increase its resolution, or perhaps they make the iPad even larger (offering a bigger format iPad) to differentiate it even more in size. Maybe the iPad full sized doubles as the screen for the new MacBook Air, so when connected to the laptop you see retina OS X, but when you disconnect, you see iOS iPad. I really doubt some of those ideas, but I just can't see them doubling the mini's resolution without doing something major to the iPad. Maybe the mini never gets retina, maybe it just gets thinner and thinner?

Keeping developers happy and making their jobs easier should be a big priority and I'm pretty sure is, but this may be a time when they have to take one for the team when Apple gives the mini retina but doesn't double the pixels. What are the other options?
 
Would be great if they soon can match quality and lot size expectations - hopefully in March 2013 :D
 
Assuming a 6-month product cycle, the 5S will look exactly like the iPhone 5 (with same screen) but with some performance enhancements. The iPhone 6 will most likely use this screen, assuming if Sharp can get their s..t together.

Actually you are right to me but however we can't know :) if the ipads will use this screen on the upcoming versions sand that will come out in 2013 maybe 5S have this screen but like you said I don't believe that they will put or because of sharp it could take longer
 
The issue of the mini retina screen resolution I find very interesting. Will they actually double it, making it a better display than its big brother (where there is more profit for Apple)? The only way I could see that they would do that is if the full sized iPad gets a bump of some sort to make it more appealing in another way. Perhaps they increase its resolution, or perhaps they make the iPad even larger (offering a bigger format iPad) to differentiate it even more in size. Maybe the iPad full sized doubles as the screen for the new MacBook Air, so when connected to the laptop you see retina OS X, but when you disconnect, you see iOS iPad. I really doubt some of those ideas, but I just can't see them doubling the mini's resolution without doing something major to the iPad. Maybe the mini never gets retina, maybe it just gets thinner and thinner?

Keeping developers happy and making their jobs easier should be a big priority and I'm pretty sure is, but this may be a time when they have to take one for the team when Apple gives the mini retina but doesn't double the pixels. What are the other options?

Not sure if connecting an iPad to a MacBook Air is a route Apple will take, it just doesn't work (look towards other brands), I reckon a better display and processor and hardware re-design will be enough for the large iPad to sell, same res, just better -IGZO! Having both the large and Mini iPad on the same res will make life easier for everyone.
 
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