Why did they go with a amoled display?

[r2SN]

1. I've been disappointed by the saturated colours & white balance of all phone OLEDs I've seen so far & the burn-in does concern me

Man looks like your haven't played with the phone settings enough. Just go to colour profile and you can change your so called "saturation and white balance" problem.

 

[astondg]

Man looks like your haven't played with the phone settings enough. Just go to colour profile and you can change your so called "saturation and white balance" problem.

I haven't played with the settings at all because I don't (yet, 950 due on the 8th!) have a phone with an OLED display. I definitely will check this out when I do. What I was talking about is the OLEDs I have seen on in-store display devices, friends/colleagues phones & the display on my Band 2 (which I can't adjust). And I was contrasting this with the LCD displays I've seen in the same situations where I can't think of even 1 that has had the over saturation or off-whites.

The tests of OLED displays that I have seen show the displays exceed sRGB (sometimes be a lot) where a good LCD is very close to sRGB. It's a feature of OLED and leads to the vibrant or saturated colours. Some of this can be adjusted through colour profiles modifying saturation, balance, etc. but that is all a compromise (e.g. 'fix' one aspect but compromise another).

The white balance is fairly well documented in forums and other places, OLED phone displays have at least a history (if not present) of off-white whites. I have found this changes with ambient lighting too, my Band in particular looks like it has blueish whites in some situations, orangey in others and sometimes just plain white, where the LCD in my 920 looks the same kind of white in all conditions.

I'm not saying LCD (or OLED) is better AND I'm really looking forward to trying out my Lumia 950 (complete with OLED) when it arrives next week. I'll certainly try adjusting the colour profiles if I'm not happy. I was just mentioning 2 aspects that really stood out to me in the displays I had seen. Equally an LCD has downsides, the backlight for one is a source of constant annoyance for me.

 

[Keith Wallace]

None of us is going to know the exact reason for these decisions. It could have been cost. It could have been availability. It could be that AMOLED offers better battery life because it shuts off pixels. It could have been a number of things. I know I like the display on my 950. People griped about it, but coming from my 920, it's SO much better. It's brighter, and it's got less friction, which makes scrolling and swipe-based texting smoother for me (though that could be due to 3 years' worth of using the 920's display).

Maybe burn-in will happen someday. If you're not leaving it on a single image for long periods of time, it should be just fine. I think it was about 6 years before my LED TV (which I use for my console AND as my PC monitor) started suffering from burn-in. Have a reasonable screen time out (mine's 5 minutes, but I manually lock it before then, almost every time), and you should be fine. Me, I'm on AT&T Next, so I'll probably be aiming to get the next device (hopefully an AT&T Surface Phone) by the time this thing's warranty is up anyway, but I know that's not the reality of a many users.

 

[MikeJezZ]

Another benefit to AMOLED is that it uses less power than an LCD, which will help with battery life. AMOLED is also more expensive to manufacture than LCD.

Well, I prefer having a phone for several years and no burn in, versus having longer battery life and a dead screen within a year.

Maybe I just had a really bad Samsung Galaxy S3, since it got burn in after 8 months, but when searching for AMOLED with burn in, there's just SO many pictures of burn ins on these screens. I kinda think that people that is pro for this technique actually ignores the problem with it, and just says "nah man, doesnt ever happen".

Because it seems like a common problem.

 

[a5cent]

^ For the gazillionth time.... nobody is ignoring the problem. What people are saying is be aware of the problem, and then setup and use your device accordingly. Then you won't have a problem.

 

[r2SN]

Well, I prefer having a phone for several years and no burn in, versus having longer battery life and a dead screen within a year.

Maybe I just had a really bad Samsung Galaxy S3, since it got burn in after 8 months, but when searching for AMOLED with burn in, there's just SO many pictures of burn ins on these screens. I kinda think that people that is pro for this technique actually ignores the problem with it, and just says "nah man, doesnt ever happen".

Because it seems like a common problem.

I do acknowledge your point. But it also depends on on usage. You use it continuously or use a particular app most of the time,some particular areas will burn in like area of buttons which display the same thing most of the time. You might not get burn in if use your phone for a long time but use various apps. I've read in these forums that someone having oled display had burn in in shape of the buttons in the bottom area because he used WhatsApp most of the time.

 

[r2SN]

I haven't played with the settings at all because I don't (yet, 950 due on the 8th!) have a phone with an OLED display. I definitely will check this out when I do. What I was talking about is the OLEDs I have seen on in-store display devices, friends/colleagues phones & the display on my Band 2 (which I can't adjust). And I was contrasting this with the LCD displays I've seen in the same situations where I can't think of even 1 that has had the over saturation or off-whites.

The tests of OLED displays that I have seen show the displays exceed sRGB (sometimes be a lot) where a good LCD is very close to sRGB. It's a feature of OLED and leads to the vibrant or saturated colours. Some of this can be adjusted through colour profiles modifying saturation, balance, etc. but that is all a compromise (e.g. 'fix' one aspect but compromise another).

The white balance is fairly well documented in forums and other places, OLED phone displays have at least a history (if not present) of off-white whites. I have found this changes with ambient lighting too, my Band in particular looks like it has blueish whites in some situations, orangey in others and sometimes just plain white, where the LCD in my 920 looks the same kind of white in all conditions.

I'm not saying LCD (or OLED) is better AND I'm really looking forward to trying out my Lumia 950 (complete with OLED) when it arrives next week. I'll certainly try adjusting the colour profiles if I'm not happy. I was just mentioning 2 aspects that really stood out to me in the displays I had seen. Equally an LCD has downsides, the backlight for one is a source of constant annoyance for me.

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.

 

[EMitchell]

I had a purple dot in the upper left when my 950xl booted. At first I thought it was a messed up pixel, but it only showed on boot. Other than making the OS look about as polished as Ubuntu Narwhal, I don't think it did anything. Though I only used my phone for 3 days before I sent it back.

I've got the same dot on my 950 at boot-up, it disappears just before the MS logo appears. Didn't think much about it until I saw your post.

 

[Skyway]

I've got the same dot on my 950 at boot-up, it disappears just before the MS logo appears. Didn't think much about it until I saw your post.

Someone mentioned in another thread that it is probably just a boot curser.

 

[areithropos]

Another benefit to AMOLED is that it uses less power than an LCD, which will help with battery life. AMOLED is also more expensive to manufacture than LCD.

But if I recall it correctly, then AMOLED uses more power if it displays much white on the screen, so an AMOLED can be a battery eater instead of safer.

 

[Hildr]

But if I recall it correctly, then AMOLED uses more power if it displays much white on the screen, so an AMOLED can be a battery eater instead of safer.

Amoled uses more power if it displays white, comparing to an amoled screen displaying black, but not really comparing to lcd.
The same way, lcd use more power to display black (depending of the technology)... but it's just comparing to a white screen.
Oled are more efficient than LCD, it should use less power, even when displaying white screen, at equal brightness. But I don't have figure to prove this, but I've also never seen a good comparaison saying white screen oled consume more than lcd, just that white screen use more power on a oled display than black one.

 

[anthonyng]

I've had several AMOLED screens and have never seen this issue. My 930 is nearly 18 months old and is still ok...

Yea never noticed any burn in on my 930 either nor any previous amoled phones. I didn't even think about it until this thread. I just use and enjoy my stuff however I choose.

speaking of which, I thought 930 had no glance due to the screen type tech! 950xl has it, why is it ok? Or should I better not keep glance on while it's plugged in? hahahaha

 

[areithropos]

Amoled uses more power if it displays white, comparing to an amoled screen displaying black, but not really comparing to lcd.
The same way, lcd use more power to display black (depending of the technology)... but it's just comparing to a white screen.
Oled are more efficient than LCD, it should use less power, even when displaying white screen, at equal brightness. But I don't have figure to prove this, but I've also never seen a good comparaison saying white screen oled consume more than lcd, just that white screen use more power on a oled display than black one.

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.

 

[v535]

Yea never noticed any burn in on my 930 either nor any previous amoled phones. I didn't even think about it until this thread. I just use and enjoy my stuff however I choose.

speaking of which, I thought 930 had no glance due to the screen type tech! 950xl has it, why is it ok? Or should I better not keep glance on while it's plugged in? hahahaha

I'm partially content with glance like ability with Awesome LockScreen. Keep it in mind, its not really glance feature. I switched background color to black and set only to display calendar events and it shows date & time like glance does. BTW i'm using lumia 730.

 

[Leonel Funes]

I love AMOLED screens for their deep blacks and popping colors. Of all the AMOLED devices I've owned, only my Epic 4G Touch just got a bit of a burn on the screen - but that's after almost 4 years now! If you know what causes it, you know how to prevent it.

 

[astondg]

speaking of which, I thought 930 had no glance due to the screen type tech! 950xl has it, why is it ok? Or should I better not keep glance on while it's plugged in? hahahaha

The issue with the 930 wasn't OLED but I believe that the particular OLED screen they used didn't have any (or enough) memory on the screen itself to implement Glance. I don't know the details but Glance operates while the phone is in a low power state and it makes use of memory on the display to store necessary information.

 

[MikeJezZ]

I do acknowledge your point. But it also depends on on usage. You use it continuously or use a particular app most of the time,some particular areas will burn in like area of buttons which display the same thing most of the time. You might not get burn in if use your phone for a long time but use various apps. I've read in these forums that someone having oled display had burn in in shape of the buttons in the bottom area because he used WhatsApp most of the time.��

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.

Sucks that 950 is the only high end WP, cus I like WP, and want something more powerful than my 640. But paying such amount of money for a phone where the display will be faulty within a year is bad.

Android has same problem, at least Samsung.

I love AMOLED screens for their deep blacks and popping colors. Of all the AMOLED devices I've owned, only my Epic 4G Touch just got a bit of a burn on the screen - but that's after almost 4 years now! If you know what causes it, you know how to prevent it.

Yeah not using your phone will prevent it

 

[Dewg]

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.

 

[r2SN]

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.

Sucks that 950 is the only high end WP, cus I like WP, and want something more powerful than my 640. But paying such amount of money for a phone where the display will be faulty within a year is bad.

Android has same problem, at least Samsung.



Yeah not using your phone will prevent it

Hey man I am not saying how long usage of what thing will result in burn. Might differ from display to display or brand to brand or even person to person.

 

[darth furious]

I had a samsung focus with amoled when wp7 first came out and I didn't have burn in. I didn't read about it among other focus users either. My mom has the 820 and after 3 years I see a slight burn in here and there but you have to look for it. I guess once you see it, it'll bug you everytime.

Coming from a focus to 920 to 1520 to 950XL, I think this is the best display on a wp I seen so far. It is really clear and the colors pop nicely once you set the display settings to your liking.