Why did they go with a amoled display?

[Leonel Funes]

Yeah not using your phone will prevent it

True, I never used it, I abused it for a long time. Only time the screen was off was when I was asleep.

Bit of an exaggeration there, but the point is, AMOLED screens aren't the problem - on the contrary, they make phones and their content look amazing. It's usually the user that's the problem...

 

[chezm]

My S6 of launch has never suffered any Burn-in...ive owned and have always prefered amoled over lcd, honestly i could never understand why someone would want LCD over Amoled...one of my main priorities when buying a phone is the screen. I honestly dont think you should be worried about anything, MS going with amoled for these devices (being a former WP fan) is one of the better choices imo.

 

[MikeJezZ]

You seem dead set on not getting the phone, and I'm not going to try to stop you. But anyone else reading this thread, there is no evidence that you will have burn in after one year. Samsung's hugely popular Galaxy series phones and tablets are all OLED. If they were suffering burn in after a year, it'd be major news. Sure a few people might experience it in specific cases, but odds are you'll never see it.

Actually I ordered the phone, waiting for the mail man to deliver it. I love WP, and wants a high end version. But believe me, if there was a LCD option, I'd choose that.

Actually its a pretty big thing on Samsung phones and tablets. People just tends to accept it. Try google Galaxy S/whatever and tablet and type Burn in, and you'll see.

I play on my Lumia 640 alot and granted - the games runs badly.

I want to game on my Lumia 950, but I fear that the UI etc might burn in.

 

[tanders04#WN]

I want to game on my Lumia 950, but I fear that the UI etc might burn in.

I think you're way over reacting on what is going to cause burn in on your phone. Think about the old CRTs. My parent's freaked when we got a NES because they thought that was going to cause burn in, and it absolutely would have if we left it on 24/7, but we didn't, we watched TV and stuff on it. You're going to do other stuff on your phone, right? You're going to play other games, right? Unless you're morning to night on the same game you'll be fine.

Like you said, look at the pictures on google. What is burned in? The home screen, the stuff that is on the screen every single time that you turn the phone on. My focus had burn in issues back in the day, but again it was the stuff that was constantly on the phone, my status bar and the outline of the live tiles (mostly just the outlines since the tiles would be flipping and displaying new information, IIRC some of the static ones like the phone may have burned in too).

 

[InsGadget]

OLED > LCD all day.

 

[RumoredNow]

OLED > LCD all day.

I have to disagree.

But that is what makes them opinions and why we are fortunate there are choices.

 

[Joel S.]

I am no expert either, I just read a bit and on Wikipedia in the article about AMOLED displays I read that an AMOLED could use up to three times the power of an LCD display if displaying a white-only screen.

Regardless of the accurate numbers, my display on L930 is responsible for roughly 70% of all power consumption according to WM's power saver.

Most of the time, I use Edge and News app, so I have much white on the screen throughout the day.

Comparing white on AMOLED to white on an LCD isn't really fair. Like comparing idle fuel consumption in a Prius to full throttle on a Ford C-Max Hybrid. LCDs typically "default" to an "open" state, so white uses less power than on the AMOLED. MS used to display a warning about this on phones with AMOLED screens in Windows 8, haven't checked to see if it's in 10.

I tend to play games sometimes on my phone, write lyrics and so on. I guess game UI's and office will burn in eventually after a year or so. Would be pretty ****ty, and I see the entire OLED technology as an defect due to its so shot lifespan.

So, what's your stance on flash storage? It has a relatively short lifespan, much shorter than a magnetic disk. Of course just about every flash drive on the planet does little read and write tricks to prolong the life of the drive, but still, they have a finite lifespan. Of course people don't really care because the speed boost more than outweighs any lifetime concerns. Plus we generally will replace our devices before the drive starts to fail anyway.

AMOLED is the same way. The burn-in (which is a misnomer, they don't actually burn) issue was worse in the past than it is now. Part advancements in the technology, part smarter OS design by Google and MS (like being able to use a colored background with the navigation bar), but it's still there. But the pros tend to outweigh the cons, and it's not difficult to mitigate the uneven pixel wear, so they continue to be popular in cell phones, and soon, TVs. Plus with the frequency that people replace cell phones, most people are on to the next device before the screen becomes an issue.

 

[InsGadget]

I have to disagree.

But that is what makes them opinions and why we are fortunate there are choices.

Definitely! I enjoyed the OLED screens on my Zune HD, Samsung Focus, and now my 950 more than the LCD on my 920 (and never experienced burn-in), but far be it from me to decide what others like or dislike!

 

[Krystianpants]

Comparing white on AMOLED to white on an LCD isn't really fair. Like comparing idle fuel consumption in a Prius to full throttle on a Ford C-Max Hybrid. LCDs typically "default" to an "open" state, so white uses less power than on the AMOLED. MS used to display a warning about this on phones with AMOLED screens in Windows 8, haven't checked to see if it's in 10.



So, what's your stance on flash storage? It has a relatively short lifespan, much shorter than a magnetic disk. Of course just about every flash drive on the planet does little read and write tricks to prolong the life of the drive, but still, they have a finite lifespan. Of course people don't really care because the speed boost more than outweighs any lifetime concerns. Plus we generally will replace our devices before the drive starts to fail anyway.

AMOLED is the same way. The burn-in (which is a misnomer, they don't actually burn) issue was worse in the past than it is now. Part advancements in the technology, part smarter OS design by Google and MS (like being able to use a colored background with the navigation bar), but it's still there. But the pros tend to outweigh the cons, and it's not difficult to mitigate the uneven pixel wear, so they continue to be popular in cell phones, and soon, TVs. Plus with the frequency that people replace cell phones, most people are on to the next device before the screen becomes an issue.

These screens use diamond matrix pentile, last much longer with less "burn in". Actually gsmarena did a non biased review with real testing and these screens are pretty much some of the best out there.

 

[areithropos]

Comparing white on AMOLED to white on an LCD isn't really fair. ... LCDs typically "default" to an "open" state, so white uses less power than on the AMOLED. ...



So, what's your stance on flash storage? It has a relatively short lifespan, much shorter than a magnetic disk ... they have a finite lifespan. ... Plus we generally will replace our devices before the drive starts to fail anyway.
...

Maybe technically it is unfair but not so if we use the daily usage as the criterion and there it is fact that websites have frequently white backgrounds and both technologies are there to do the same activities; and a LCD display uses the same power regardless of the screen content whereas it is advisable to use black backgrounds on AMOLED.

It is simply sad but until now we cannot do anything about it, it is simply the price one has to pay for AMOLED and the good pictures it can produce.
Still, I were quite content with the AMOLED of my 930.

And regarding flash drives and mechanical ones, you state the obvious.
Back some years, I let things like eDonkey run for days and weeks and the typical lifespan of my mechanical drives on a desktop was half to a full year.

So, both types of drives have their finite lifespans and the tricks of flash drives are the simple means by which they expand their lifespans as mechanical ones have theirs to expand it.

I waited too long once in the past to replace a drive and it was a pain to rescue my data, yes, I would replace my device before big problems arise.
But before my 635 and my 930 I used a Nokia C-3 for five or more years. Well, I am not quite sure I would be able to repeat this with today's phones.

 

[skstrials]

I have never ever experienced a burn in issue that people are talking about here.

I have had tons of AMOlEd screens before.
1. Nokia N8 for 36 months+ - still no burn in to this date.
2. Samsung Galaxy S3 for 24 months - no burn in.
3 BlackBerry Q10 for 18 months - still no burn in.

In fact I prefer the AMOLED screens over the LCD ones.
The color is more vibrant meaning I can put the brightness way down for energy saving as well as being easier on my eyes since the brightness does not need to be as high.

Posted via the Windows Central App for BlackBerry

 

[Hildr]

I've got my new 950xl for 3 days now and I can do a quick comparison between the 950's AMOLED screen and the 1520's IPS one:
-AMOLED has pure black BUT, the screen itself (not the glass) is far more reflective. So when there is light, the blacks have blue/green reflects, and so, are not really better than the clear black IPS. In a dark places, there are just without comparison, cause there are just deep black, where IPS is glowing grey.
- AMOLED turns blue-green on white screen whith a 20-30? angle from normal, ips glow is far less annoying. That's boring cause on some image too, the blue tint appears and I generally look my phone with a 20? angle, bottom is white and top blueish.
- AMOLED has more vibrant colours, allowing to set the brightness to 30%. (but automatic brightness doesn't seem to work on my 950xl). I enjoy it more than what I thought first.
- on the amoled there are indigo shadows following grey-like icons/images when scrolling (typically on photo app when photos are not loaded) like reverse ghosting, and white text on black background slightly turns brownish during the scroll.
- the IPS screen of my 920 "burned" to brown in 1 year. The IPS screen of my 1520 got 3 small bright spots I can only see on white screen, but still exist, they appeared after 16months of use. So I don't think lcd have better life time than AMOLED.

AMOLED are cheaper to produce, so we will see more and more of them on mobile. We just have to get used to that. Both technologies have pros and cons anyway.

 

[a5cent]

^ I wonder how much of that is actually generally related to AMOLED, rather than just being particular to the display in the 950. For example, I can't confirm an AMOLED screen to be more reflective (blue/green), nor can I confirm wanting to turn down brightness more than I would on an LCD screen. Selecting a less saturated color profile is the better approach IMHO, as I prefer to retain the brightness of whites (on a dark themed device only of course. Using the light theme generally hurts my eyes).

AMOLED screens are also a lot thinner than LCD screens, which is another benefit.

 

[Hildr]

+1 for thickness, I forgot this one.
In fact, about the brightness and the crisp colors, I don't really know, even by playing with saturation, I didn't succeed to have the same colors than the one on the 1520. And for the brightness, I think it's more that the Amoled on the 950 allows to have far more brightness than the lcd on the 1520. I set the brightness at 36% on the 950 to have the same average brightness than my 1520 that is at 70% (the two in automatic mode).
About the reflexion, I talk about the fact we can the border between the screen and the bezel when the screen is off, whith external light, not the global reflection when you're using the phone outdoor. The 1520 was good for this, like the iPhone 5S with a front face almost black on all the surface when screen is off. The iPhone 6 is more reflective in comparaison if I remember well, but I didn't play a lot with it to see it in different lights situation. In the other hand, the one on G Note 4 is really really reflective, and also amoled. Wikipedia seem to say the same thing about the oled technology.

 

[astondg]

Yes please do check with the settings. They are releasing their flagship device after a long time their display must be calibrated pretty nicely. And if my memory serves me right , the colour profile is set as"VIVID" (adds punch to the colours) initially, so that's why you saw the oversaturated colours on the in-store display phones.

I have my 950 now. The default colour profile is Standard and with this profile I would still say that the colours are oversaturated, definitely pretty but not what I think is accurate. I've also spent about 1/2 an hour now playing with the 'advanced' sliders to try to get the whites looking white like on my 920 and I have so far failed. No matter what I do I end up with a tint of some colour and it's made more difficult because it changes with display brightness (low brightness has a very red tint), ambient lighting, and viewing angle. The LCD on my 920 was a lot more consistent. And my 920 isn't even an amazing display.

On the positive side I got to use Glance last night while my 950 was charging and it looked awesome in a dark room with the red 'night mode' and no LCD backlight to taint the experience.

 

[InsGadget]

According to this (Microsoft Lumia 950 review: Legendary Edition - page 3 - GSMArena.com), the 950 has extremely accurate colors.

 

[Skyway]

According to this (Microsoft Lumia 950 review: Legendary Edition - page 3 - GSMArena.com), the 950 has extremely accurate colors.

Yup, I read that the other day. I was really surprised by how accurate the display was. So for all those saying AMOLED panels oversaturate colors, the 950 seems to be the exception.

 

[astondg]

According to this (Microsoft Lumia 950 review: Legendary Edition - page 3 - GSMArena.com), the 950 has extremely accurate colors.

Yup, I read that the other day. I was really surprised by how accurate the display was. So for all those saying AMOLED panels oversaturate colors, the 950 seems to be the exception.

It looks like they tested brightness, sunlight contrast and DeltaE but not how well the screen matches the sRGB spec, which is what would show up colour saturation.

 

[a5cent]

Yup, I read that the other day. I was really surprised by how accurate the display was. So for all those saying AMOLED panels oversaturate colors, the 950 seems to be the exception.

Colors are a difficult thing. It's ultimately more about personal preference than color accuracy. For photo editing or watching movies, I do appreciate color accuracy. I try to setup my display to a color temperature around 6000K for those purposes. For office work I don't want that though. There I prefer a display set to around 8000K (unnaturally cold/hard white), with high contrast but lower brightness. Astodg may be similar, and thereby be trying to turn an accurate but warm 6000K white into a less accurate 8000K white. What constitutes a good display is often very subjective, which is why it's good that we have both LCD and OLED displays.

 

[astondg]

Colors are a difficult thing. It's ultimately more about personal preference than color accuracy. For photo editing or watching movies, I do appreciate color accuracy. I try to setup my display to a color temperature around 6000K for those purposes. For office work I don't want that though. There I prefer a display set to around 8000K (unnaturally cold/hard white), with high contrast but lower brightness. Astodg may be similar, and thereby be trying to turn an accurate but warm 6000K white into a less accurate 8000K white. What constitutes a good display is often very subjective, which is why it's good that we have both LCD and OLED displays.

I can understand that where there is a source, like a photo or video. I want the display to reproduce that how the producer intended and that's where colour standards and calibration are important. But for things that originate in the purely digital world, like the text on the lock screen, that has no 'source', it would be defined in code as a 'pure' white like RGB(255,255,255).

Now I guess what constitutes a 'pure' white is highly subjective as you say but if I pick something in the real world that is reasonably white (at least to me), like the porcelain in my sink basin for example, and compare the lock screen text from my 920, Surface Pro 3, IPS desktop monitor & 950 to that then the 920, SP3 & IPS monitor are all pretty close but the 950 looks quite yellow. I can play with the colour profile on the 950 but that just seems to send me through tints of red, green & blue and it really screws with the other colour reproduction. Then there's also the problem that if I move under different lighting, like from a warm halogen to LED or outside to natural sunlight, or I change my viewing angle then the whites on the 950 look different in each setting. I'm sure the LCDs do as well it seems less pronounced, to the point that I don't really notice.

I'll state here that I'm not saying the 950 has a bad display, from what I've seen so far it looks very crisp, the colours are vivid and certainly look pretty, the brightness is great, etc.