In case you missed it, there is a new mobile display king on the block that has come as Apple has exploited Samsung’s state of the art active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) display technology. Together the two companies have created the absolute best display image you will ever see, bar none, according to the results from Dr. Ray Soneira’s DisplayMate Labs.
The full display shoot-out is his latest edition of an on-going seven year article series that includes extensive lab testing, tracking and analysis of the critical elements that make up the complete display system. Soneira called the iPhone X display, “…the most color accurate display that we have ever measured. It is visually Indistinguishable from perfect, and is very likely considerably better than any mobile display, monitor, TV or UHD TV that you have.” Remarkably it is delivered to the palm of your hand.
Make no mistake, making the switch from LCDs to OLEDs for Apple was “…a major engineering and manufacturing challenge,” according to Soneira’s display industry shoot out on the iPhone X concluding with unmatched words of praise, “…a superbly accurate, high performance, and gorgeous display, with close to Text Book Perfect Calibration and Performance!!”
For example, in measuring absolute color accuracy, Soneira wrote: “…the iPhone X is Truly Impressive as shown in these figures. It has an Absolute Color Accuracy of 1.0 JNCD for the sRGB / Red.709 Color Gamut that is used for most current consumer content, and 0.9 JNCD for the Wider DCI-P3 Color Gamut that is used for 4K UHD TVs and Digital Cinema.
iPhone X shows very low 0.9 JNCD for the Wider DCI-P3 Color Gamut according to Dr. Ray Soneira’s measurements, Source: DisplayMate Labs 2017The shoot-out reported Apple’s iPhone X matches or sets new Smartphone display performance records including:
- Highest Absolute Color Accuracy for any display (0.9 JNCD) which is Visually Indistinguishable From Perfect.
- Highest Full Screen Brightness for OLED Smartphones (634 nits).
- Highest Full Screen Contrast Rating in Ambient Light (141).
- Highest Contrast Ratio (Infinite).
- Lowest Screen Reflectance (4.5%).
- Smallest Brightness Variation with Viewing Angle (22%).
Looking a bit closer under the hood, Soneira points out the AMOLED pixel layout on the iPhone X creates a diamond pattern with its color sub-pixels that vary in size (inversely) to the light emission intensity of each color. For example the blue sub-pixel with much lower light emission than the red or green has a much larger sub-pixel to compensate. Soneira also discovered from his high resolution screen shot made with a microscope camera (see below) the pixel layout creates a “45-degree diagonal pixel symmetry” that enhances display of line segments (in the H and V orientation) and particularly in vectors down diagonal with a marked reduction in display aliasing and artifacts. Samsung/Apple created this layout pattern in part to maximize the pixel per inch (ppi) beyond conventional striped or square arrangements of past displays. Waxing poetically, Soneira wrote: the pixel pattern of the iPhoneX diamond sub pixels creates a form of “high tech display art.”
Pixel pattern of the iPhoneX diamond sub pixels creates a form of “high tech display art” according to the recent report from Dr. Ray Soneira’s display industry shoot-out, Source: DisplayMate Labs, Nov, 2017
Bottom line, the new iPhone X gives consumers one very good reason to upgrade to the whopping $1000 plus flagship smartphone, now in high demand (and still in short supply as of this writing) from Apple. We encourage you to have a look at the full report that includes comprehensive analysis with plenty of short-cuts to help move you through the data to drill into areas of particular interest. Kudo’s to Dr. Ray Soneira and DisplayMate Labs who has provided us with a valuable display industry resource with this latest installment in his seven year shoot-out article series. — Stephen Sechrist
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