DisplayMate: iPhone X Has the Best Smartphone Display Ever Created

Megalith

Megalith

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The iPhone X has the best display in the world — better than the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. Or so says DisplayMate, a company that specializes in very in-depth analyses of displays of all types to give thorough breakdowns of their quality and properties. Measuring color accuracy, contrast, viewing angles, and more, the site crowned the iPhone X's Super Retina display with their highest-ever grade (A+), which tops the latest Galaxy Note.

The iPhone X is the most innovative, high-performance smartphone display that we have ever tested. First, we need to congratulate Samsung Display for developing and manufacturing the outstanding OLED display hardware in the iPhone X. But what makes the iPhone X the best smartphone display is the impressive Precision Display Calibration that Apple developed that transforms the OLED hardware into a superbly accurate, high-performance, and gorgeous display.
 
Does the screen break/crack as easily as Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge/S8? Because it could look fucking amazing and I still won't want it knowing it will have cracks in < 6 months.
 
Maybe the best OLED smartphone display, but the off-axis color shifting in my co-worker's iPhone X and my own Pixel 2 are really jarring to someone coming from a *traditional* SLCD screen. They made the deepest blacks ever at the cost of ruining the whites whenever you're not looking at your phone dead on.
 
geniekid said:
Maybe the best OLED smartphone display, but the off-axis color shifting in my co-worker's iPhone X and my own Pixel 2 are really jarring to someone coming from a *traditional* SLCD screen. They made the deepest blacks ever at the cost of ruining the whites whenever you're not looking at your phone dead on.
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Having actually used a friends iPhone X, this problem isn't anywhere near as severe as people let on. I was thinking everyone was losing their minds over the screen being unusable when this isn't even remotely the case.
 
most innovative, high-performance smartphone display
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Please provide objective evaluations for "most innovative" and "high performance".
 
Emission said:
Having actually used a friends iPhone X, this problem isn't anywhere near as severe as people let on. I was thinking everyone was losing their minds over the screen being unusable when this isn't even remotely the case.
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Oh, in real world use there is no problem. This is all in context of judging a screen to be "the best smartphone display ever created." I'm certainly not going to dissuade anyone from getting an iPhone X because of this tiny flaw.
 
steakman1971 said:
Apple doesn't make the screens. I thought they were getting these from Samsung??
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They do, and the article gives kudos to Samsung for building an awesome screen. But a screen is not all that goes into a display. There's the hardware driving it and the software that pwoers said hardware. The total combo was engineered by Apple, and is apparently very good.

It is a team effort. Apple could do awesome, but with a shit screen it wouldn't work well.

too bad apple stopped caring about their displays in nearly everything else as much.
 
Cropped edges of the displayed image & that notch on the top of the screen ruin the phone. I'm surprised they didn't call it the iPhone 8.1
 
The software running the screen is crap as it doesn't properly support landscape mode as it shrinks both sides of the screen for no reason.
 
After how Waze burned into my Droid Turbo, I Still prefer LCD screens to OLED.

Unfortunately there are fewer and fewer non-OLED options out there. I don't care about vibrant colors or dark blacks on my phone. In fact, most phones colors are TOO vibrant, forcing me to go into developer settings and enable sRGB mode.

I'll be laughing my ass off when iPhone X users start complaining that their $1,000 phone is burned in around that notch Apple wants app developers to avoid...
 
I've seen the iPhone X now in person and I don't find it to be all that great in terms of the display, nothing special, just another OLED panel - I am still the owner of a Galaxy S Captivate which had the very first SuperAMOLED panel in a consumer device as well as having owned many other devices with OLED technology of various kinds (AMOLED, SuperAMOLED, OLED, P-OLED in the wife's LG G Flex 2 currently, and others).

It looks OK to me, and while I wouldn't call it "the best display ever" based on my own experience I don't use the same kind of criteria they do to come to that kind of assessment.
 
If you look at the very top middle of the phone, you will notice that the quality there never changes.


Campaign for notch all over....
 
I don't see how some folks see this as some sort of spin from Displaymate. AFAIK, they're extremely well regarded in the field of display knowledge and expertise. It would be like calling out a Kyle review as BS.

Just a few weeks ago they crowned the Note 8 as the best mobile display ever, so I don't believe they're schilling for any side here.

The objective numbers and the depth of analysis really do point to the iPhone X being the best mobile display ever. Some of the problems of color shift and image retention are simply just inherent OLED problems. I think Apple with their sub-pixel fill design did as much as they could do in this generation to mitigate image retention, as well as push the brightness past the levels of the Note 8.

(Source for sub-pixel fill helping with display life: https://books.google.com/books?id=V...&q=Sub-Pixel fill factor oled display&f=false)

All in all, this seems like a solid effort of design and engineering from Apple to get this quality of OLED produced at fist attempt. Also great job by Samsung Display to produce at this quantity. I doubt they have produced OLED at this capacity prior.

Next generation OLED should be interesting with Apple and Google pouring billions into LG to get their Gen6 production lines up to capacity. Google should learn from Apple and not take off-the-shelf components from LG. They should have designed the Pixel 2 OLED like Apple did with the iPhone X, but I'm sure that will happen as they ramp up their hardware division, assuming the Pixel 2 remains a success.
 
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Also, without trying to slam Apple on this but the display itself is and was made by Samsung so, unless Apple went into the actual display controller and modified the color tuning variables there then this is all just an exercise in software adjustment more than most anything else. Again I'm not trying to say it's not a great display but in my read when someone says "a great display" that means the physical display itself is what's great, not the color tuning. Since one can adjust the color tuning however they see fit (on most devices, maybe not on iPhones as easily if at all, I don't even know - most every Android-powered device I've ever owned has been capable of some level of color tuning the displays) then I consider that as something different altogether since the display itself is still the same and doesn't change.

Just my take on the situation, but I think Samsung does deserve a lot more credit for this than they're getting but I understand why the report is worded towards giving Apple most if not all the credit for the assessed and rated performance.
 
Tiberian said:
Also, without trying to slam Apple on this but the display itself is and was made by Samsung so, unless Apple went into the actual display controller and modified the color tuning variables there then this is all just an exercise in software adjustment more than most anything else. Again I'm not trying to say it's not a great display but in my read when someone says "a great display" that means the physical display itself is what's great, not the color tuning. Since one can adjust the color tuning however they see fit (on most devices, maybe not on iPhones as easily if at all, I don't even know - most every Android-powered device I've ever owned has been capable of some level of color tuning the displays) then I consider that as something different altogether since the display itself is still the same and doesn't change.

Just my take on the situation, but I think Samsung does deserve a lot more credit for this than they're getting but I understand why the report is worded towards giving Apple most if not all the credit for the assessed and rated performance.
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1. The actual pentile pixel structure is slightly different and the sub-pixel fill rate is higher
2. Apple has stated that they did a custom design (unless you believe they're lying to everybody)
3. Apple's display team carries OLED patents (20160204366 and 20140042406) that seem to have made it to this device
 
wicktr0n_ said:
1. The actual pentile pixel structure is slightly different and the sub-pixel fill rate is higher
2. Apple has stated that they did a custom design (unless you believe they're lying to everybody)
3. Apple has an in-house display engineering team that carries OLED patents (20160204366 and 20140042406) that seems to have made it to this device
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Well OK then, it's a joint operation with both Apple and Samsung having skin in the game, so to speak, check.
 
wicktr0n_ said:
Yeah I think Samsung's manufacturing expertise helped Apple with their patents.
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I'm sure it did because Samsung had to create the technology in the first place which Apple merely refined, in other words this is nothing special, it's business as usual for Apple to take something some other entity created and then refine it to some small degrees and then act like it's an entirely new thing that only Apple has the capacity to do. ;)
 
steakman1971 said:
Apple doesn't make the screens. I thought they were getting these from Samsung??
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I think you need to actually read it, there is far more to a screen. Apple do a lot in regards to colour calibration and how the software uses the display.
 
bullshit. my note 8 screen is worlds ahead and nicer than that hyped up garbage.
 
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