In today’s mobile phone market, there are many types of displays that are built into devices, and phone users are, to put it mildly, confused by many types of them, not knowing which phone model to choose and which type of display is the “right” one that will meet their needs.
We can thank us all for this dynamic development of technology that is almost impossible to follow, so I decided to address this topic in the hope that this text will create a slightly clearer picture for you about the types of displays as well as the advantages and disadvantages of certain types.
First of all, a display is defined as a device for presenting information in a visual form. Some of the most basic divisions of the display would be reduced to monochrome (monochrome) and color (color).
Color displays or its types are the most common in today’s use and depending on the technology of making color displays, there are many types of the same such as CSTN, TFT, TFD or OLED.
There are also 2 types of touch screens that are Capacitive and Resistive, both types are based on TFT technology.
Capacitive– This type of display works on the principle of recognition, ie. “Feelings” of electrical signals that our body emits while,
Resistive displays work on the principle of recognizing, ie “feeling” the pressure exerted on them by the user. This type of display works not only on the touch of human skin but also reacts to the stylus (pen) that you usually get with a device that is equipped with this display.
LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)
LCD displays are made of liquid crystal and are quite common. Their quality varies in a huge range from those that are a little better than those on the calculator to first-class ones like those on the Samsung Galaxy Wi-Fi 5.0 or HTC flyer 3G models.
All LCD displays must have a light that illuminates the pixels, which increases the thickness of the display, and although these displays can have an extremely high resolution, their disadvantage is the high power consumption. LCD displays can be divided into 2 main groups STN and TFT displays.
S-LCD (Super Liquid Crystal Display)
The S-LCD display is a type of liquid crystal display, based on the same technology as LCD displays, and the advantage over them is that they use significantly less energy than their predecessor. Models equipped with this type of display such as the Samsung Google Nexus or the HTC Trophy are in high demand precisely because of the battery economy.
TFT (Thin Film Transistor)
TFT displays are the most widespread displays in the world of mobile technologies today and at the same time one of the best displays made of liquid crystals in terms of image quality and response time. TFT displays are like TFD displays that work with Active-Matrix technology, which means that next to each pixel there is a receiver that allows you to turn on and off each pixel individually, which ultimately leads to fast response and quality image contrast.
The disadvantages of this display are, according to users, a weaker viewing angle, which comes down to slight color changes on the display. This type of display is used by almost all mobile phone manufacturers, and some models equipped with this type of display are the Apple iPhone 4S or BlackBerry9930.
OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode)
OLED technology is based on tiny dots of organic polymer built into the display that emits light when charged with electricity. OLED displays have a number of advantages over LCD displays. They are thinner, lighter, brighter, have better viewing angles, contrast and response time to video and animations, as well as lower power consumption.
Also, this type of display is cheaper and easier to manufacture. LCD displays, on the other hand, are clearer to read than OLED when used in bright sunlight.
AMOLED (Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode)
AMOLED technology is, so to speak, the younger brother of OLED displays and at the same time technology that is relatively new in use in the world of mobile technologies.
The technology behind these displays is the same as with OLED, but the performance is better, mostly in terms of significantly lower power consumption, which is more than convenient and important when it comes to portable devices such as mobile phones where battery life is crucial.
The viewing angles of this type of display are good and the advantage is that this type of display is thin. This type of display is mainly used in higher quality higher class models such as the Nokia N9 or HTC Desire.
As we stated at the beginning of this little school about displays, the speed with which technologies used in all aspects of today are evolving is enormous, and the commercialization of technologies like 3D displays for mobile devices is already in sight.
This type of display will, in addition to the great satisfaction of game lovers, find application in the display and processing of 3D images during satellite positioning (GPS), showing the terrain or building in this way.
Another interesting direction of display development was presented by Samsung and Nokia with their flexible displays. Such technology could one day lead you to “roll” your tablet into a smartphone when you leave home, or to, say, bend and attach your smartphone to your hand and use it as a watch.