Display shootout: HTC One X vs. Galaxy Nexus (vs. iPad 3) screen comparison

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  • April 18, 2012 at 6:02 pm

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The two hottest Android smartphones right now are the new 4.7-inch HTC One X and the incumbent 4.65-inch Galaxy Nexus that we have reviewed in-depth here. A key hardware distinction between the two is the use of different display technologies. Both have a 720p resolution, but the Samsung Galaxy Nexus features a PenTile Matrix Super AMOLED display while the HTC One X has a standard RGB Super IPS LCD2 screen. You can read more about the differences between Samsung’s PenTile Matrix technology and standard RGB here.

Now, we can easily argue that the display is probably the single most important hardware feature of any mobile device so we’ll be taking an in-depth look between the two Android smartphones. We also have a 3rd generation iPad handy with its amazingly sharp and most importantly color accurate display, so we’ll occasionally be throwing it in our comparison for good measure.
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1 million Samsung Galaxy Note devices shipped, US release in 2012

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  • December 29, 2011 at 5:16 am

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Samsung Galaxy Note event

Samsung has had a lot of success shipping its Android devices en masse. The Samsung Galaxy S II has broken all kinds of sales records and we are pretty sure the Galaxy Nexus is flying off the shelves now too. An unlikely win for the company, however, is the 5.3-inch Galaxy Note which falls somewhere between the being a smartphone and tablet.

It seems that the mantra ‘bigger is better’ is working out for Samsung, which has shipped over one million Galaxy Notes since its release in late October. Sales have been going well and are on the rise in Europe and Asia. US consumers have been importing the Galaxy Note from other markets but the announcement mentions that the device will launch officially on the other side of the Atlantic in 2012. No mention yet if it bring support for LTE however.
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Samsung Galaxy Nexus display has a slight yellow tinge, forgets about white

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  • November 27, 2011 at 6:08 am

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Galaxy Nexus (left) screen has a yellow tint

We’ve been reviewing the Samsung Galaxy Nexus over the past ten days and there is one thing that has particularly struck me when using the phone. The Galaxy Nexus has a very nice 4.65-inch 1280×720 resolution Super AMOLED display. With a pixel density of 316dpi, text and photos are very crisp, it’s practically impossible to distinguish between individual pixels. Nevertheless, the display’s color temperature seems to be slightly off, this is especially visible when viewing large white blocks and when brightness is lower. It is easier to spot when the Galaxy Nexus’ screen is viewed side-by-side with another display. You also have to look at the screen more-or-less head on, looking at the Nexus’ screen at an angle gives it a blue tint, similar to the Nexus S and other AMOLED displays.

In the image above (click to enlarge), the Galaxy Nexus is on the left, while on the right we’ve included for comparison an HTC Sensation featuring a 4.3-inch Super LCD display. There is a subtle but distinguishing difference between the two screens, the Galaxy Nexus’ whites have a yellow/orange tint. The shots were taken at a display brightness of around 80% for both smartphones. Setting the Nexus’ brightness higher reduces the effect (although even at maximum brightness whites still have a yellow tint), while putting it lower increases it. At low brightness, whites are a shade of yellow tinted grey.
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You can watch the entire Samsung Galaxy Note and Galaxy Nexus event now here (video)

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  • October 28, 2011 at 6:08 pm

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Samsung Galaxy Note London event

You can now watch the full 52 minutes and 55 seconds of Samsung’s London event showing off their Super AMOLED HD duo, the Galaxy Note and Galaxy Nexus. The Note was the star of the show, with Samsung representatives going over every detail of the 5.3-inch tablet-phone and embellishing over the S Pen stylus. However the last fifteen minutes were devoted to the upcoming Galaxy Nexus — if you missed it, you can watch the Galaxy Nexus and Android 4.0 event here.

You can find the video after the break. We should let you know that you can get the Galaxy Note right now in Europe (U.S. availability still under speculation), while the Galaxy Nexus will roll-out first in Europe on November 17th and a U.S. release will follow shortly after.
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Samsung Galaxy Note now available in Europe, you can order today from Germany

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  • October 27, 2011 at 6:10 pm

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Galaxy Note in-stock from Amazon Germany

Hot on the heels of availability news for Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus, the 5.3-inch Galaxy Note ‘tablet-phone’ is now shipping in Europe.

Amazon.de (Germany) now has the Samsung Galaxy Note in-stock, and you can order it from anywhere in Europe for EUR 561 ($797) including VAT, of course without a contract.

The Galaxy Note runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread on a dual-core 1.4GHz Samsung Exynos processor. The 5.3-inch Super AMOLED HD screen has a 1280×800 resolution (yes it’s Pentile Matrix, of course) and the phone comes together with a Wacom designed pressure sensitive stylus, named S Pen.

We love the fact that it’s sporting a relatively large 2,500mAh battery, so you can at least enjoy the big screen without much worry of running the battery down too fast. The Galaxy Note weighs 178g (6.3 oz) and measures 9.65mm (0.38 inches) thick.

You can check out our initial coverage here, while a lovely video demonstration of the Note’s drawing capabilities can be found here.
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Galaxy Nexus AMOLED HD display uses PenTile Matrix technology, no biggie

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  • October 21, 2011 at 1:15 pm

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Samsung Galaxy Nexus Super AMOLED HD display

We quickly covered this issue when we originally reported on Samsung’s new Super AMOLED HD display technology back in August, way before the Galaxy Nexus was announced. All current smartphone HD (over 1280×720 resolution) AMOLED displays that Samsung is producing use PentTile Matrix technology. The displays can be found in Samsung’s just announced, Android 4.0 bearing, Galaxy Nexus and the 5.3-inch mammoth Galaxy Note.

So what’s the big deal you might ask, well display purists will tell you that PenTile technology is sort of Samsung’s way of cheating into getting a higher resolution display, overcoming current AMOLED manufacturing limitations of packing ‘subpixels’ more densely.

In standard RGB flat panel screens, each pixel is made of three subpixels, one for each color, Red, Green and Blue. Samsung’s PenTile screens have only two subpixels per pixel, and instead ‘borrow’ subpixels from neighboring pixels to ‘mix’ the right color. This leads to a blurring of sharp edges, while white blocks may get a tint at the edges. The higher pixel density a PenTile display has, the less profound these effects would be.
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Samsung Galaxy Nexus announced with Android 4.0, 4.65-inch Super AMOLED HD screen (pictures, video)

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  • October 19, 2011 at 1:10 am

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Samsung Galaxy Nexus views

So it’s now official, both the Galaxy Nexus and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich have just been announced. If you had watched the online live stream from Hong Kong you already know the meat. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is one handsome phone with killer specs.

We had already gotten most of the specs in previous rumors but here is the official recap. The new Nexus will be a very large screened device, with a 4.65-inch Super AMOLED HD (1280×720 resolution) display. It will run on a 1.2GHz dual-core TI OMAP 4460 processor, with 1GB of RAM and 16 or 32GB of built-in storage. It has LTE/HSPA+ radios, Bluetooth 3.0 (no 4.0 like the iPhone 4S and Motorola RAZR), NFC, 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, proximity sensor and a barometer (say what!). The Galaxy Nexus only got a 5 megapixel back and 1.3 megapixel front-facing cameras but will be able to do 1080p video and motion panoramic photos.

All these are contained in a 135.5 x 67.94 x 8.94mm (5.33 x 2.67 x 0.35 inch) curved body — the LTE version will be a bit thicker — weighing 135 grams (4.76 ounces). The battery is 1750mAh.

The bigger news is Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, which has a new universal design (merging tablets with smartphones), new typography, a built-in photo editor, better multitasking interface with previews, notifications that can now be individually dismissed, face unlock, Android Beam to quickly share things with other NFC devices, resizable widgets and a host of other changes.

Head over after the break for more photos of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and a video showing-off the goodies.
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Samsung Nexus Prime running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich caught on video

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  • October 7, 2011 at 6:36 am

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Samsung Nexus Prime leak

You know that a new product launch is getting near when you have all sorts of leaks happening left and right. If you didn’t already know, the big news coming your way on the smartphone front is the announcement of the first Android 4.0 handset, rumored to be Samsung’s Nexus Prime (a.k.a. Galaxy Nexus) and happening at the next Unpacked event on October 11th.

The latest leak comes from the land of Dracula, mobilissimo.ro has posted a video of the Nexus Prime showing off the AMOLED HD beauty and most importantly Google’s latest Android build. A series of screen captures of the new OS are waiting for you together with the video after the break. Ice Cream Sandwich surely looks sweet!
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Samsung Nexus Prime a.k.a. Galaxy Nexus specced, teased in video — Something big is coming

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  • October 6, 2011 at 2:40 pm

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Samsung Nexus Prime teaser

Next Tuesday, 11th of October, Samsung has another Unpacked event scheduled, this time headed for San Diego, California. The big news is that, this might be one of the most important moments for the Android ecosystem, the unveiling of the first Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” device: the Nexus Prime. Samsung has released a teaser video for the Unpacked event (which you can find after the break) showing a curvy smartphone with docking pins, citing “Something BIG is coming” and a Google logo making friends with a Samsung logo.

We’ve already reported on the rumored specs for the Nexus Prime, i.e. the device could sport a 4.6-inch Super AMOLED 1280×720 HD resolution display, 1.5GHz Processor, 5MP back and 1MP from cameras and shoot 1080p HD video.
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Samsung Super AMOLED HD screens could be coming to smartphones and tablets this fall

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  • August 18, 2011 at 5:09 am

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Samsung Super AMOLED

So far Samsung hadn’t been able to pack pixels densely enough to create high definition AMOLED displays for mobile phones. By high definition (HD), we mean any display with a resolution higher than 1280×720 (720p). OLED-Info is now claiming that Samsung has been able to break the existing pixel density barrier.

The new technology will enable Samsung to create high-def AMOLED screens, named Super AMOLED HD, while the new fabrication process is said to also be cheaper than LCD screens, so expect quite a lot of devices to be packing these screens in the future. Compared to LCDs, AMOLED screens offer better viewing angles and better black levels. The new displays will use PenTile Matrix technology, that some argue does not offer the full resolution claimed, as each pixel is not made up of three (red, green, and blue) subpixels
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