Display Types That Light Up Smartphone Screens

A few years back, mobile phones only needed to show us the number of the person calling. But today, with all the advancements that have taken place in the Smartphone industry, we all find ourselves asking for more. We want the text to be crisp, the images to be sharp and vibrant, the videos to be blur-free and it should also not be too harsh on the battery. The tech giants have heard us, and they have started equipping their high-end devices with very capable displays but all of them use a naming scheme of their own so as to differentiate their technology from their competitions’. This can throw the laymen off as not a lot can be learnt about the technology used in them from their names alone. So, to make things easier and to help you in choosing a display that is best suited to you, here are the 10 commonly used display technologies below as compiled by The Times of India.

E-Ink

E-Ink is a display technology that is mostly used for e-book readers. As they do not display colors and so they tend to not hurt the eyes as much, making them most suitable for e-book reading. YotaPhone is the world’s first device to make use of E-Ink to offer a secondary display for reading e-books. This technology uses the least amount of power and can operate for many days on a single charge.

Clear Black

This technology belongs to Nokia. It adds a reflection blocking polarizer between the display panel and the touch screen which reduces reflections and provides much better outdoor performance. Though the benefits of this display are similar to that of Super AMOLED’s, the technology used is vastly different. This display has better viewing angles and deeper blacks, and is used in Nokia’s Lumia devices.

S-LCD

Super LCD (SLCD) is a display technology that is used in a number of devices; it is manufactured by a subsidiary of Samsung. This is also another variant of the LCD technology that is known to rival AMOLED displays. Unlike regular LCDs this does not have an air gap between the outer glass and the inner display element thus reducing the amount of glare produced. It is also more power efficient than all the other LCD derived displays.

Super AMOLED

This is a derived form of AMOLED, which has a different manufacturing process. The capacitive layer responsible for detecting touch is intergraded into the screen itself and not as a layer afterwards. The other advantage it offers over the earlier AMOLED display includes increased brightness, lower sunlight reflection and better power efficiency.

AMOLED

AMOLED is a variant of OLED and stands for Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode. Unlike LCDs AMOLED screens do not require any backlight as each produces its own light, this also reduces the thickness of the devices. Similar to OLED, AMOLEDs offer high contract ratio and in addition to that these also have higher refresh rates and are more power efficient.

OLED

OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) is a light emitting diode (LED) in which the layer that emits light is made of organic compounds. An OLED screen does not require any form of backlight, thus while reducing power consumption it is also capable of displaying deep black levels unlike LCDs. Some of the advantages of OLED displays are vivid color, wider viewing angles, improved brightness and better power efficiency.

IPS

IPS stands for In-Plane Switching; this display is another variant of the LCD that is commonly used in high-end devices. They are considerably better at color rendering and offer very wide viewing angles when compared other kinds of LCD displays.

Retina

Retina is a marketing term created by Apple, these displays have such high pixel density that the human eye is unable to make out the individual pixels at normal viewing distances. This is the type of display that is found in all of the latest Apple products. With a high contrast ratio of 800:1 Retina displays offer enjoyable viewing experience.

TFT-LCD

TFT-LCD or more commonly just referred to as LCD is the most common kind of screen used on mobile phones. These screens improve the image stability and readability of LCD panels. It ranges from budget Smartphones to high-end tablets like the Nexus 7. Being a variant of LCD it suffers from the same quality control issues, however the high quality screens used in high-end devices offer better image quality, vibrant colors and wide viewing angles than those found on budget devices.

LCD

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) is a commonly used flat panel display. LCD panels do not produce their own light and hence are required to be backlit. LCDs render good color but their contract ratio isn’t as good as that of AMOLED displays, so in bright sunlight the colors appear washed out. The quality of LCDs varies depending on the manufacturing process used; most of the displays on cheap phones offer dull colors and very narrow viewing angles.