The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 was released earlier in the year. It’s Samsung’s most powerful device in their 2014 lineup and comes with a 5.7-inch, QHD (that’s 2,560 by 1,440 pixel) AMOLED screen, one of three high end processors, 3 GB of memory and an optically stabilized 16MP rear camera. It has a 3,220 mAh battery and Samsung’s S Pen, their take on the stylus and to my surprise, it hadn’t been put under the microscope yet. We can now bring you pictures showing the Note 4’s camera, heart rate sensor, S Pen, various graphics on the device and of more interest, that super high resolution display. And as you can see, Samsung have used their trademark diamond-shaped pixel PenTile technology in order to reach the 515ppi pixel density (ppi stands for pixels per inch and is a measurement of screen sharpness, the higher the better).
Going back a few years, PenTile displays earned a bit of a bad reputation for inaccurate color reproduction and, especially, screen artefacts in areas of high contrast (typically, white text on a black background). I’ve used a number of devices with a lower resolution PenTile display and it never bothered me one way or the other, but the sharper the screen, the higher the resolution so the less the contrast issue is. Samsung used a similar screen subpixel arrangement with the Note 4 as they did with the Galaxy S4; all subpixels are diamond shaped. With the Note 3 and S5, the green subpixel is an oval shape. By subpixel, I mean the individually colored components of a single white pixel. I have to admit that I’m not convinced that at these sorts of super-high resolutions and pixels per inch displays, it’s entirely relevant as from the S4 and later, all these Samsung handsets use supremely sharp screens. I also concede that our eyes are different, whatever our own take is on the PenTile arrangement, it appears that the technology is here to stay. PenTile AMOLED screens are relatively inexpensive to manufacturer and have relatively low power consumption, under optimum conditions (that being, plenty of black on the screen) they use noticeably less battery compared with LCD technology.
Do you have a Samsung AMOLED screen on your smartphone or device? Can you tell the type of technology used for the screen just by looking at it? If so, did you pick it because of the screen technology or did you pick the device and the display that came with it? Do you have a favorite screen type? Let us know in the comments below.
