HTC One Screen/Display Review

[mcantu]

Full HD Flagship Smartphone Display Technology Shoot-Out

they sum it up like this:

With the Ascend D2 Huawei appears to have taken the same successful solid approach for display performance as Apple. In our extensive side-by-side viewing test comparisons the Ascend D2 was virtually indistinguishable from the iPhone 5 and iPad Retina Display, two of the most accurate and high quality mobile displays we have ever tested. The Huawei Ascend D2 joins an elite group of Smartphones with world class displays. While Huawei is better known as a manufacturer of low cost Smartphones, their Ascend D2 is aimed at the premium top tier, so they managed to hit a home run with the display the first time at bat. My suggestion for Huawei, please keep it up?



I was expecting a lot better from the HTC One. While it has an excellent LCD panel (made by Sharp), HTC has significantly degraded display performance by introducing unnecessary image and color processing in a poorly implemented attempt at making the display stand out. The result is distorted and over saturated colors and contrast. And unlike Sony, HTC doesn?t provide an option to turn this processing off, which is a shame. Hopefully that will be an option in a future software upgrade. My suggestion for HTC, forget the display image processing tricks, which never work, and follow Apple and Huawei with solid and straightforward accurate display calibration?

damn...i was waiting for Displaymate to release their review of the One before i bought it and now i'm not so sure...

 

[Almeuit]

Hm never heard of the place you linked.

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/ph...z-vs-htc-one-vs-iphone-5-vs-lumia-920-1137666

Most places say the HTC One has a gorgeous display.

Sent from my Sprint S3 using AC forums.

 

[mcantu]

Hm never heard of the place you linked.

HTC One vs Samsung Galaxy S4 vs Sony Xperia Z | News | TechRadar

Most places say the HTC One has a gorgeous display.

Sent from my Sprint S3 using AC forums.

what i like about their reviews is that they measure the color gamut, calibration, contrast, power usage, etc., of various displays instead of just eye-balling it

 

[madlaw1071]

This seems about right. The HTC shines(literally) in brightness and whites. But it's blacks appear gray and other colors a bit washed out. When compared side by side with other high end displays the One is not nearly as colorful and saturated. Some of this is personal preference but when I show people the same content on my One and S4 no one has ever said the One looks better.

 

[mcantu]

This seems about right. The HTC shines(literally) in brightness and whites. But it's blacks appear gray and other colors a bit washed out. When compared side by side with other high end displays the One is not nearly as colorful and saturated. Some of this is personal preference but when I show people the same content on my One and S4 no one has ever said the One looks better.

in their S4 review they say that Standard mode has very exaggerated colors and that Movie mode gives the most accurate colors.

Galaxy S4 Display Technology Shoot-Out

The Galaxy S4 Movie Mode provides very nice, pleasing, and accurate colors and picture quality. The Movie Mode is recommended for indoor and low ambient light viewing. The Standard Mode has significantly more vibrant and saturated colors. Some people like that. The Standard Mode is recommended for medium levels of ambient light viewing because it offsets some of the reflected glare that washes out the images. The Dynamic Mode provides incredibly powerful colors that are overwhelming in low ambient lighting. The Dynamic Mode is recommended for high ambient light viewing only. For all of the Modes a slight green color tint was sometimes noticeable, but not objectionable. It results from the Green primary being more saturated than the Red and Blue primaries, as shown in this Figure. Readjusting the internal color management could fix this

this is like HDTV displays in stores: they have them set to Dynamic mode which makes the colors super vivid to get peoples attention but they are totally out of whack as far as color accuracy

 

[SCjRqrQCnBQ19QoYCtdl]

Some of the conclusions of this review are a bit judgemental and the one has better performance than the huawaie in several areas which were weren't highlighted, such as viewing angle brightness and color shifts, color gamut, gamma accuracy, brightness, contrast power consumption and reflections.

Still this review is fairly positive of the one with the main complaint being boosting colors somewhat - which is not something that I have heard people complain about nor have I noticed to be the case.

 

[SCjRqrQCnBQ19QoYCtdl]

what i like about their reviews is that they measure the color gamut, calibration, contrast, power usage, etc., of various displays instead of just eye-balling it

And everything that you mention above the HTC was the winner - except calibration, which isn't actually measured, but eye-balled.

Honestly, it kind of looks like an attempt to pump Huwaie

 

[Farish]

And everything that you mention above the HTC was the winner - except calibration, which isn't actually measured, but eye-balled.

Honestly, it kind of looks like an attempt to pump Huwaie

If you understand who/what displaymate is, they aren't interested in pumping up any company. This probably going to be one of the most objective reviews you will get on a screen.

 

[SCjRqrQCnBQ19QoYCtdl]

If you understand who/what displaymate is, they aren't interested in pumping up any company. This probably going to be one of the most objective reviews you will get on a screen.

Well, their conclusion seems at odds with their findings to be honest.

 

[Farish]

Well, their conclusion seems at odds with their findings to be honest.

I know you saw the charts, dont know if you saw this paragraph, this sounds like why HTC got hit so hard.

I was expecting a lot better from the HTC One. While it has an excellent LCD panel (made by Sharp), HTC has significantly degraded display performance by introducing unnecessary image and color processing in a poorly implemented attempt at making the display stand out. The result is distorted and over saturated colors and contrast. And unlike Sony, HTC doesn?t provide an option to turn this processing off, which is a shame. Hopefully that will be an option in a future software upgrade. My suggestion for HTC, forget the display image processing tricks, which never work, and follow Apple and Huawei with solid and straightforward accurate display calibration

 

[SCjRqrQCnBQ19QoYCtdl]

If you understand who/what displaymate is, they aren't interested in pumping up any company. This probably going to be one of the most objective reviews you will get on a screen.

And see this

"DisplayMate Display Optimisation Technology

All smartphone and Tablets displays can be significantly improved using DisplayMate?s advanced scientific analysis and mathematical display modelling and optimization of the display hardware, factory calibration, and driver parameters. We help manufacturers with expert display procurement and quality control so they don?t make mistakes similar to those that are exposed in our Display Technology Shoot-Out series. We can also improve the performance of any specified set of display parameters. This article is a lite version of our intensive scientific analysis ? before the benefits of our DisplayMate Display Optimisation Technology, which can correct or improve all of these issues. If you are a display or product manufacturer and want to significantly improve display performance for a competitive advantage then Contact DisplayMate Technologies."

Perhaps they 1) put too much emphasis on calibration vs. other factors, and 2) perhaps Huawei is one of their clients?

Just saying.

Look at the graph for gamma - HTC one is dead on. The sony and huawei is not. But the conclusion is that the huawei is "close to perfect" while the sony is "somewhat irregular"

Look at color shift - The HTC Is 0.7 x just noticible color difference (Jncd) , the Huawei is 2.3x jncd in other words, more the 3x the color shift.

Look at contrast ratio, again big difference in score but the same rating.

Look at brightness, contrast, true black - all of them the HTC easily bests the Huawei, but the summary conclusion on those items are the same.

There are several more examples if you care to look. The only thing the calibration company declares Huawei is better at is calibration. Now, it could be that is all that matters, but I suspect some of these other issues are more important in judging a display overall. And, given that they "help" for a fee no dbout, manufacturers as noted above, it makes me wonder if there was some involvment with Huawei. Or what mfgs. are their clients? I would guess not HTC from the rating they gave them despite all the scientific tests pointing to superior performance.

 

[SCjRqrQCnBQ19QoYCtdl]

I know you saw the charts, dont know if you saw this paragraph, this sounds like why HTC got hit so hard.

Which, as I said, runs contrary to what most people experience - the most complaints I have seen about the HTC one screen is that it doesn't boost color like other smartphones and therefore looks more flat, but true to life.

 

[mcantu]

Which, as I said, runs contrary to what most people experience - the most complaints I have seen about the HTC one screen is that it doesn't boost color like other smartphones and therefore looks more flat, but true to life.

its kind of like people who prefer to have their HDTVs on torch mode vs those that prefer them to be calibrated to industry specs for accuracy

 

[Habiib]

And see this

"DisplayMate Display Optimisation Technology

All smartphone and Tablets displays can be significantly improved using DisplayMate?s advanced scientific analysis and mathematical display modelling and optimization of the display hardware, factory calibration, and driver parameters. We help manufacturers with expert display procurement and quality control so they don?t make mistakes similar to those that are exposed in our Display Technology Shoot-Out series. We can also improve the performance of any specified set of display parameters. This article is a lite version of our intensive scientific analysis ? before the benefits of our DisplayMate Display Optimisation Technology, which can correct or improve all of these issues. If you are a display or product manufacturer and want to significantly improve display performance for a competitive advantage then Contact DisplayMate Technologies."

Perhaps they 1) put too much emphasis on calibration vs. other factors, and 2) perhaps Huawei is one of their clients?

Just saying.

Look at the graph for gamma - HTC one is dead on. The sony and huawei is not. But the conclusion is that the huawei is "close to perfect" while the sony is "somewhat irregular"

Look at color shift - The HTC Is 0.7 x just noticible color difference (Jncd) , the Huawei is 2.3x jncd in other words, more the 3x the color shift.

Look at contrast ratio, again big difference in score but the same rating.

Look at brightness, contrast, true black - all of them the HTC easily bests the Huawei, but the summary conclusion on those items are the same.

There are several more examples if you care to look. The only thing the calibration company declares Huawei is better at is calibration. Now, it could be that is all that matters, but I suspect some of these other issues are more important in judging a display overall. And, given that they "help" for a fee no dbout, manufacturers as noted above, it makes me wonder if there was some involvment with Huawei. Or what mfgs. are their clients? I would guess not HTC from the rating they gave them despite all the scientific tests pointing to superior performance.

Thanks for this. I had no clue what I was looking at. Also I didn't know that HTC used the display panels from Sharp (IGZO?)

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Habiib]

its kind of like people who prefer to have their HDTVs on torch mode vs those that prefer them to be calibrated to industry specs for accuracy

Haha I see that at Best Buy all the time. Lots of people love the vibrant colors of the Samsung TVs that are in dynamic mode, but aren't impressed with the Panasonic TVs next to them-

Posted via Android Central App

 

[SCjRqrQCnBQ19QoYCtdl]

Thanks for this. I had no clue what I was looking at. Also I didn't know that HTC used the display panels from Sharp (IGZO?)

Posted via Android Central App

Yeah, I have read that there are some Sharp sourced displays for the One floating around, but I was under the impression that all the retail versions were JDI. (sony/hitachi/toshiba partnership).

In any case, calibration may be an issue with HTC screens - I know the Anandtech review indicated the HTC One screen was really good but that Apple was the only company eating the cost of calibrating every screen. If that is the case, there could be variation from one HTC One screen to the next - in fact the anandtech review has different results than displaymate so it appears likely. On the other hand I have heard that iPhone's displays vary depending on the factory too.

Who know? There are a lot of rumors about all kinds of things. The only thing I can say for sure is that my HTC One screen is fantastic.

 

[SCjRqrQCnBQ19QoYCtdl]

Here is an example of what I am referring to above -



Looking at this graph, it looks to me like the HTC One is almost dead solid on the black line except right at the bottom left, it varies slightly.

The sony is generally off, and the Huwaei is way off for most of the range with a lot of variation.

The explanation of the chart is this: "The Intensity Scale (sometimes called the Gray Scale) not only controls the contrast within all displayed images but it also controls how the Red, Green and Blue primary colors mix to produce all of the on-screen colors. The steeper the Intensity Scale the greater the image contrast and the higher the saturation of displayed color mixtures. So if the Intensity Scale doesn't follow the Standard that is used in all consumer content then the colors and intensities will be wrong everywhere in all images.

In order to deliver accurate color and image contrast a display must closely match the Standard Intensity Scale. Figure 3 shows the measured Intensity Scales for the displays alongside the industry standard Gamma of 2.2, which is the straight black line."

So - reading that, if the display matches 2.2 gamma it is going to have more accurate color and contrast -

The conclusion in the summary - The HTC One is "2.15 to 2.20 Close to Perfect" The Huwaei is "2.27 Close to Perfect" and the Sony is " 1.98 to 2.16 Somewhat Irregular"

That is why I question how the results don't match the tests. There are other examples throughout.

 

[Farish]

of these other issues are more important in judging a display overall. And, given that they "help" for a fee no dbout, manufacturers as noted above, it makes me wonder if there was some i.

You know what payola is? If Displaymate does a review for a fee, they will be shutdown. Maybe HTC rubbed them the wrong way in some form.

 

[SCjRqrQCnBQ19QoYCtdl]

You know what payola is? If Displaymate does a review for a fee, they will be shutdown. Maybe HTC rubbed them the wrong way in some form.

Well, I just don't think you can assume a company that specializes in color management and provides such services to device manufacturers can be assumed to be independent, especially with no disclosure of who they have financial arrangements with.

There are many levels of lacking independence short of payola. And, who do you think would investigate and prosecute such a practice if it was payola? Are you saying there aren't biased reviews of tech products on the web? In printed magazines?

And you could be right. The reviewer could just hate someone at HTC or whatever. Or he could be friends with someone at Huwaei. Or he could really believe what he wrote.

But to take him serious, I would like to know a little bit more about his feelings on using 1 sample of each device and the provenance of those devices. Did Huwaie provide a sample that had been calibrated specifically for the test? Did they test 10 of each device to determine if the results were consistent?

I don't know. It could be absolutely accurate and true. But I have seen the screen of the HTC One and have seen S4s. I don't know if I will ever see a Huwaie, so I can't really judge.

 

[mcantu]

they've done tons of other display comparison reviews:

Galaxy S4 Display Technology Shoot-Out

iPhone 5 Galaxy S III Display Technology Shoot-Out

Samsung Galaxy S I,II,III OLED Display Technology Shoot-Out

Smartphone ?Super? LCD-OLED Display Technology Shoot-Out