Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2011/10/21/samsung_galaxy_nexus_uses_pentile_oled_panel/
Samsung Galaxy Nexus comes up short on sub-pixels
Don't smile, it's PenTile
Posted in Personal Tech, 21st October 2011 10:26 GMT
Bad news, folks. The sexy looking Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the world's first Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone, has an inferior OLED display.
Close-up photography of the phone's 4.7in panel taken by website FlatPanelsHD reveal the Galaxy Nexus' OLED uses Samsung's PenTile pixel layout.
That means that instead of each pixel comprising the distinct sub-pixels - reg, green and blue, mixed to generate the coloured dot you see - there are not equal numbers of each sub-pixel. Pixels share sub-pixels.
It's a layout designed to mimic the patten of sensor on the human eye's retina, but the practical upshot is less-smoothly rendered text. The layout gives white pixels a blueish tint.
Does this all matter? FPHD calculates that the Galaxy Nexus' 1280 x 720 display has 1,843,200 sub-pixels, which is exactly the same as the 3.5in, 960 x 640 iPhone 4S "retina display".
In short, the Nexus' extra pixels don't deliver a better viewing experience than the iPhone's LCD. But it's no worse, either. ®