If you haven’t noticed, the new retina display is pretty cool. Despite all the packed pixel goodness, tests were to be done, and the results have been published. Out of all the major competitors in the market, who has the best display? PC Mag wanted to find out, so they ran a bunch of smartphones through their laser chambers until they were satisifed with the results. The iPhone wins, but isn’t the best in every category.
The Contenders: Apple iPhone 4, Motorola Droid X, HTC Droid Incredible, & HTC Evo
The Apple iPhone 4 has the IPS TFT LCD display at a resolution of 960x640 at 326 ppi. The runner up, the HTC Incredible, as an AMOLED display with a 800x480 pixel resolution at 252 ppi. While the HTC Incredible may have launched with AMOLED, a TFT LCD display may be introduced due to manufacturing strain.
The Tests: Brightness, Contrast, Color Depth, and Color Accuracy
Brightness: The iPhone 4 is the brightest phone of the bunch, illuminating 536 cd/m² of your face. The Droid X’s brightness measured 455 cd/m².
Contrast: The iPhone 4 was slightly better than the Droid X, but the Droid Incredible takes the cake with its current OLED display, creating immense blacks at a contrast ratio of 39,373:1.
Color Depth: Apple’s iPhone 4 and Droid X could reproduce true 24-bit colors in terms of whats capable by the hardware. In software tests, the iPhone 4 was the only phone capable of producing 24-bit colors. Android’s ‘photo’ application is crippled by 16-bit support.
Color Accuracy: Motorola’s Droid X comes out on top with the best color reproduction, with only 6% undersaturation. The iPhone 4 lags behind at 36% undersaturation, with the Droid Incredible over-saturated at 37%.
AppleInsider reports a commenter had this to say about the issue,
A reader added the comment, “the color accuracy (sRGB color gamut) of the iPhone is ‘undersaturated’ simply because higher saturation color filters on LCDs attenuate more light. Therefore, you need a brighter backlight behind a higher color saturation filter (e.g. R, G and/or B) to get the same light out of the front as compared with a lower saturation color filter. Since Apple was already taking a big hit on efficiency of the LCD assembly due to the high-resolution display, there was a trade-off made to use lower saturation color filters in order to obtain reasonable battery life in the device.
Final Results:
PC Mag published this result,
iPhone 4 has the most well-rounded display of our bunch. It offers a completely 24-bit color experience, the brightest screen, and great contrast (for an LCD.) The iPhone 4 could be even better if didn’t Apple didn’t limit its color accuracy.
The Droid X comes in a close second, but if you’re looking for the sharpest display to go with the best smartphone camera currently available on the market, get an iPhone 4.
AppleInsider has a nifty graph you can check out on their site.
[PC Mag via AppleInsider]
