

Where are all those Galaxy Nexus subpixels? - adeelarshad82
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/where-are-all-those-galaxy-nexus-subpixels-20111221/

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barrkel
The real downside of OLED, as used in Galaxy Nexus and lots of other places,
is the screen noise when the brightness is turned down. Intermediate
brightness solid colours look textured, like very high weave linen. It's most
noticeable when I'm using the Galaxy Nexus in bed, with the lights off. Worse,
this linen texture remains in place even while the displayed image is being
scrolled; it's a bit like the screen is permanently dirty.

It doesn't really bother me much. The Nexus One was similar, though with the
larger pixels, the screen visibly "fizzed" in dark environments - you could
see the noise continuously.

A bigger downside that _does_ bother me is how much the extra pixels reduce
smoothness in the majority of apps that are not hardware accelerated - I
replaced the launcher with LauncherPro to get rid of the Google search bar -
and now scrolling between home pages is visibly jerky, compared to the Nexus
One.

Another downside is all the application failures and silent terminations owing
to (what I believe are) the extra video memory requirements. It used to be
that e.g. after navigating to a web page from the stock news widget, pressing
back would reliably take you back to the stock news widget page that you came
from. But now, if you navigate to a large web page, it's quite likely that the
news widget will have been evicted, and restarted when you press back; and you
end up on the wrong tab of the widget, and have lost the scroll position.
Similarly, switching between tabs in the browser, or reopening the browser
after switching to an app, is much more likely to cause a page refresh. It all
feels like a very memory constrained device, much more so than the Nexus One
was with Gingerbread.

I wrote up my full thoughts on the Galaxy Nexus here:
[https://plus.google.com/103375824955695810229/posts/A92mZqx7...](https://plus.google.com/103375824955695810229/posts/A92mZqx7ad1)

My personal verdict: if I could have gotten the Nexus One with larger internal
memory (i.e. OK for apps to use) and a working power button, still running
Gingerbread, I would prefer it to the Galaxy Nexus running Ice Cream Sandwich.
Biggest thing I miss is a reliably located menu button.

~~~
jsight
> I replaced the launcher with LauncherPro to get rid of the Google search bar

Isn't the Google search bar just a (removable) widget?

I agree with your points about application eviction causing them to restart in
a different state. I don't know why Google isn't stricter about requiring
their applications to save state and restore to same (as iOS apps are supposed
to). At least their first party apps should do this.

OTOH, I'm not sure that it is the extra video memory requiring this. I think
it may be that they have increased the heap memory allowed for each
application significantly. I'm not sure, though... I haven't used ICS yet.

~~~
generalk

      > Isn't the Google search bar just a (removable) widget?
    

On the ICS launcher, no. It's a built-in on all home screens. Don't ask me why
they ignored their nice widget system in favor of inflexibility, but there you
have it.

~~~
jsight
Wow, that is really lame. I'm liking the idea of ICS less and less each day
now it seems. Its ridiculous that they've gone so far backwards on both this
and the voice search functionaity with this release.

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bradleyland
I'm not sure the reviewer has a good understanding of how to interpret the
Siemens star chart (referred to as a 600 dpi test image). I'm not entirely
qualified to interpret the results either, but I know that differing anti-
aliasing and image processing routines can produce significant artifacting in
this type of image. This must be factored in to any evaluation.

My point is that the better perceived image quality of the star chart on the
iPhone isn't necessarily an indicator that the "screen quality" is better.
It's just as likely that the image processing in the iPhone has been tweaked
to produce an image more in line with what we'd expect to see, at the price of
accurate reproduction. This type of trade off is made all the time in image
processors found in cameras, televisions, and computer displays.

Your preference for one or the other has to do with your priorities. Do you
value rigid accuracy in reproduction, even if it results in some artifacts, or
do you prefer an image that is free of artifacts at the expense of accuracy?

~~~
yardie
_what we'd expect to see, at the price of accurate reproduction_

Can you explain what this means. Since our eyes are the only reference we have
for interpreting colors (the other being wavelength, and that's just a number)
I'm curious what an accurate color really means. I know that we can see
billions of colors but only a thousands at the same time.

~~~
bradleyland
I'm referring to the star chart, not the colors. You'll notice the curvy
artifacts in the chart that looks like the ones found at this link:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=siemens+star+chart>

Those curves are an illusion. They don't actually appear in the image. We see
them because of the tiny, staggered parallel lines required to reproduce an
angled line using a grid pixel array. You can optimize to reduce this effect
by using different anti-aliasing techniques that are specific to the type of
display you're using. Apple tends to favor "soft" anti-aliasing techniques
over accuracy. They also have the benefit of controlling the entire software
stack, so their image processing can optimize for the IPS display used in iOS
devices.

Some people find the softness downright obnoxious, while others think it
results in the most pleasing image. I prefer Apple's method.

Color perception is a very broad topic. It's one of those "why is the sky
blue" questions that we've all pondered (and frequently arrive at a false
conclusion). I'm not nearly knowledgable enough to talk about it with
authority, but you should definitely do some Googling, and be sure to keep an
open mind. The answer is probably not what you think.

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sapphirecat
The technical quality of the photos is quite poor. They're way too bright if
we're looking for subpixels, since all we see are full pixels, smeared
together into blooming white. Also, looking at the HTC Rezound's standard
color test, the Verizon logo on the phone is blurred just like the display
itself.

It would help if the photos were re-done to actually show subpixels, sharply.
(Edit: unless I missed the point, in which case the Settings menu shot should
suffice: "It's PenTile but it looks pretty nice in actual usage!")

~~~
schraeds
or the lack of subpixels in the case of the Android devices.

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alok-g
OP's understanding of these test patterns is incorrect. 'bradleyland' has
already commented on the star chart. I'll talk about the second set [1, 2].

>> As you get closer to the end of the spectrum, you can see that the color
depth blends together

These images are not testing the "spectrum". These test the gamma curves of
the display. With reference to [1], the center squares with checkerboard
patterns spatially mix two sets of colors to check if the mixture matches the
color shade in the surrounding box. If the gamma curves are tuned correctly,
all of the outer and inner boxes should blend. Nearly none of the displays I
have tested achieve this and calibration is quite involved.

[1] <http://www.nies.ch/pic/monitor-1280x1024.png> [2]
[http://www.geek.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/12/REZPIXTEST2.j...](http://www.geek.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/12/REZPIXTEST2.jpg)

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eisa01
My biggest beef with AMOLED displays is that they require more power. True, at
all black they consume less, but in normal use it's more compared to LCDs. I
just got a Nokia Lumia 800 and I'm down to one day of battery instead of two
with the iPhone 4. The same issue was present with my previous Nexus One.
Displaymate did a test to quantify this:
<http://displaymate.com/Smartphone_ShootOut_1.htm>

Also when displaying text you are more likely to notice the pentile pattern
which makes the text unclear at small sizes. Granted, it may not be a problem
at 316 ppi of the Nexus, but it's noticeable at 252 ppi of the Lumia 800

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myspy
According to this wiki site, the iPhone 4 has 326ppi, the Galaxy Nexus 316ppi
and the Rezound 342ppi. But I don't think that's the problem.

Also there is something about PenTileTechnology standing there, which the
Nexus uses.

So in the end, it seems this is the reason the iPhone 4 produces a better
picture than the Nexus.

But I don't know what the HTC problem is. Maybe the display technology? But a

