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Never heard anything about white pixels saving power on LCDs. Source?

LCD's work on the opposite principle of OLED. With an OLED display there is no backlight, all the light is generated by the individual pixels. In this case to show black they just turn off, which uses less power because you are not powering the pixels. With an LCD, they have an always on backlight which shines through the pixels. In this case you have to let the correct color wavelengths through and block the rest to generate the color. So Black will use the most energy as it has to block out all the light, while white is simply allowing the backlight to shine through therefore using less power.
 
I agree, the current screens are great. I know there is always a desire to improve and even if it's only for a bump to battery life, that's great. But I think the colors look better on iPhones than the super saturated OLED competitors.
I used to think iPhone screens were the best.And then I walked into a Samsung store just to check out the S6 Edge and I was mind blown by the screen.The LCD tech in the iPhone doesn't even compare.Everything on that OLED was refreshing colorful and pleasing and in comparison my iPhone looks washed out now.Once you experience OLED there's no way you would want to go back to LCD.Apple should have done this years ago as they are far behind in the display quality race now unlike am few years ago when the Retina display was best in class
 
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try a samsung to find out its a complete garbage screen. Gets dimmer by 20% in 4 months.
Lol the S6?Garbage screen?Get your head out from under the sand Apple has put on you.They have THE best display out off all of the 2015 flagship smartphones and believe me I have handled many
 
I used to think iPhone screens were the best.And then I walked into a Samsung store just to check out the S6 Edge and I was mind blown by the screen.The LCD tech in the iPhone doesn't even compare.Everything on that OLED was refreshing colorful and pleasing and in comparison my iPhone looks washed out now.Once you experience OLED there's no way you would want to go back to LCD.Apple should have done this years ago as they are far behind in the display quality race now unlike am few years ago when the Retina display was best in class
A few.. it's more than a few when the "retina" was best in class.. since the ONE M7 , retina is dead. .
 
Never heard anything about white pixels saving power on LCDs. Source?

It all depends on what the resting mode of an LCD panel is, black or white. That is, whether the crystals default to passing light up through the second polarizer, when _not_ activated by power.

While older type (e.g. TN) LCDs do usually default to a white resting mode (meaning it takes slightly less power to be all white)...

... IPS LCDs such as used in the iPhone default to a black rest mode. Thus, just as with OLEDs, it takes more power to activate the crystals to let the light through to make a white screen.

Moreover, unlike OLEDs, LCDs used in mobile devices have backlights that are always on. So both all white or all black (more like all grey) still uses the same backlight power.

--

Speaking of backlights, they're another reason for Apple to want to go with OLED. Using OLED would allow removing extra layers required by LCDs for the backlight, rear polarizer, color mask, etc.

So OLED displays would allow a THINNER iPhone, and even flexible screens. And we know how much Apple loves thin :)
 
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Watch app would be a very good example of the dark mode.
But I guess then developers will have to redesign their apps to blend in. Not sure if that would require much work from them.

Everything today is so flat that it shouldn't be difficult. At least if it happens, I'll be ahead of the game with the app I designed for my work—which is permanently in dark mode just about everywhere except the news articles. I doubt I'll ever change that, but if I need to it's all drawn into a simple web view that pulls data from my API and structures it with a template and embedded CSS. So that's an easy change. Perhaps I'll add a toggle at some point.
 
Wikipedia page on OLED -> Disadvantages -> Power consumption.

His question was not about OLEDs. It was about the common claim that "white pixels save power on LCDs".

Please read my post #156 right above yours.

Unlike older LCD technologies (which almost all articles are about), IPS displays (such as the iPhone uses) default to black. A white pixel requires power to activate. So, contrary to popular notion, an all white screen on an IPS LCD uses more power than all black on an IPS LCD.

As for the Wikipedia article, its power consumption info dates to 2009, which is pretty much an eternity in electronics. For instance, I just read that the Galaxy S6 display uses less power than the S5 display, even though it has almost twice the pixels. So we need links to far more recent data. Anyone got any?
 
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It boggles my mind that a company (ok, two companies) can spend $12.8 Billion for a factory just to make iPhone screens.
That is some serious manufacturing capacity and I am sure extremely high quality standards.
I don't think they are spending money "just to make iPhone screens"...mainly because they are both using those screens already in their own devices plus they are the chief supplier for anyone else building any device featuring oleds...

Finally they are making progress towards making the screens better. Lcds are nice, but OLED is much better.
If "they" means apple then I can agree. While the iPhone (currently) still is the better overall package for my usage scenario, my gf's S5 screen was already better then the iPhone 6S screen...her new S6's screen runs circles around it...if it wouls run iOS I'd switch in seconds...
 
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