First negative review I have seen... blames Pentile

[jameskuma]

Re: Love the Phone...Hate the Display

I can definitely see the pixels with the grass live wallpaper.

The phone is ridiculously fast though. When swiping through the screens, it's not as smooth as it was on my old Fascinate.

Still got 2 weeks to play around with the phone to see if I really like it or not.

 

[pnoozi]

Re: Love the Phone...Hate the Display

I love the phone and the display. To my eyes, the colors are true and beautiful and I love how bright this thing is.

Bright? No.

 

[saltysteve]

Its amazing how different we all see!!! Thanks for all the great detailed reviews so far!!

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[gorgalis]

Re: Love the Phone...Hate the Display

I have been waiting for this phone since it was announced. Now that I have it I am on cloud nine I love it; would also prefer a ROM but this "non-blur" isn't that bad. That being said I hate the display. Absolutely hate it. And only because it is grainy, which is what I feared. Looking at other pentile displays I didn't have this issue, but on the Bionic it was evident immediately. I'm hoping this is just an issue with my phone, even though I'm pretty sure it's not. Regardless, I would never think of getting a different phone (for the time being ) and other than the display this phone is awesome.

Turn on auto brightness. I know it sounds weird, but when I set it manually to somewhere around 20%, it actually made the screen brighter and I noticed the Pentile screen. When it is set darker, you do not notice it at all.

 

[flashpiti]

You can really see all 500,000 pixels? Thats quite a talent.

And just an FYI, pentile or not, the resolution on the bionic lays waste to that of the OG droid. They aren't even comparable.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Actually it's the ppi which matters most which is very comparable precisely due to the pentile matrix.

 

[tbssawd07]

Re: Love the Phone...Hate the Display

Love the phone and have no problem with display.

 

[ice9mike]

Re: Love the Phone...Hate the Display

I've had issues with Pentile Matrix sub-pixel setup since Samsung started the trend with their AMOLED and Super AMOLED displays. I can see every single pixel on the display... Every single one.

However... After reading so many comments from those that didn't notice the pixels when the Fascinate was released, I went to check it out with a group. I even made a second trip when family was in town to get the opinion of my mother and grandmother. What I found was that most people don't notice it or it doesn't bother them enough to care. After looking for the pixels and comparing pentile with non-pentile, it was about 1/2 and 1/2. If I hadn't pointed it out, more than 50% thought it looked great.

I was truly dumbfounded. I also found people were not bound by age - even with the same genes. My mother, at 58, couldn't see a single pixel - no matter how hard she tried. Meanwhile, my grandmother at 78 could pick them out right away. Both wear glasses and are near sighted, as I am. I cannot make out the gigantic E on an eye chart, but pentile displays are horrid to me.

So, it essentially comes down to how well you see up close. In some ways I wish it didn't bother me - I've wanted this phone for quite a while.

For those of you loving every minute of it... Enjoy.

- AdamZ

I really think it's particular to your eyes and brain. I can definitely see a diamond grid in some instances. The best place to see it is on the lock screen. I see it from time to time on every screen, but it comes and goes. It's hard to explain. Still it is very fast and well built so it's a keeper for me.

 

[gorgalis]

If you try to see it you can, I have good eyes so I can see it, but I pretend that it is supposed to look that way.

Honestly, after having the Bolt for a few months, it is amazing to look at what is using the battery and seeing that the screen is only using 15 to 20% of the battery. With the Tbolt it would always be around 75 or 80%.

Excellent trade off in my opinion

 

[Droid800]

Actually it's the ppi which matters most which is very comparable precisely due to the pentile matrix.

Erm. Subpixels have absolutely nothing to do with ppi. They make up the pixel itself, but the actual number of pixels remain the same. The two screens are comparable for PPI (because the droid's screen is over .5" smaller), but the original droid is in no way sharper than the Bionic.

 

[darkmatter]

Bright? No.

You're saying these screens aren't bright?

http://pentileblog.com/lcd/pentile-rgbw-enables-the-brightest-of-smartphones/

I like the point the author makes there, of these displays topping the brightness while also using considerably less power. Despite any percieved loss of image quality, remember these are phones, I'll take better power consumption and outdoor visibilty. When I really care about the display for movies etc, I'll look at tablets instead of phones.

Eh, I think at this point people are just trolling about moto screens....

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk

 

[eallan]

You're saying these screens aren't bright?

PenTile RGBW Enables the Brightest of SmartPhones | PenTile Blog

I like the point the author makes there, of these displays topping the brightness while also using considerably less power. Despite any percieved loss of image quality, remember these are phones, I'll take better power consumption and outdoor visibilty. When I really care about the display for movies etc, I'll look at tablets instead of phones.

Eh, I think at this point people are just trolling about moto screens....

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk

2 phones above the droid three are not pentile.

I think it's ridiculous to think that the bionic display is in any way comparable to the iPhone 4.

The worst part about moto's pentile is that because of the arrangement, there are no solid vertical stripes like in RGBG. At least samsungs layout had vertical green line. It kept it free of the screen door look.

 

[darkmatter]

But notice the dx2 at the top. Also, can those other phones achieve that brightness while maintaining single digit power consumption percentages?

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[rkeller62]

2 phones above the droid three are not pentile.

I think it's ridiculous to think that the bionic display is in any way comparable to the iPhone 4.

The worst part about moto's pentile is that because of the arrangement, there are no solid vertical stripes like in RGBG. At least samsungs layout had vertical green line. It kept it free of the screen door look.

Samoled used RGBG because there is no backlight. Including a green sub-pixel in each pixel made sense on this case to minimize the 'screen door' effect, which is most noticeable on green. This is because green is the easiest color for our eye to locate.

LCD panels use the RGBW layout because, with a white backlight, it makes sense to have one white subpixel to help with screen brightness and battery life.

Also, whether you have good or bad vision is completely irrelevant as the bulk of our ability to 'see' and focus happens in black & white.

The people that are bothered by the pentile matrix have a much better ability to precisely locate color than other people. These people could have 20/20 vision or 20/200 vision.

Finally, the new samoled HD screens will be pentile RGBG as that was the only way they could get HD resolution in an amoled display. And for those that don't know, Samsung thought highly enough of pentile technology to buy all rights to the tech. It now controls all pentile IP.

 

[Johnly]

Pentile will get better with pixel saturation.

 

[roberte1342]

I stopped by my VZW store today to check it out myself.
Yes it is pixelated, but not terrible. Text was actually just as readible as on my X unlike the X2 or D3. But solid colors are pixelated but not annoying and I'd bet that I really would stop noticing it after a few days use. It is probably the best pentile screen to date.
I haven't committed to upgrading yet but if I were in the market this would be my next phone.

[tapatalk - shadow]

 

[eygraber]

Actually looking at my phone again closely I've noticed two things.

1. When I hold the phone at certain angles the pixelation disappears
2. The places that have the most pixelation seem to be things that are part of the NB (not-blur) skin. So perhaps it's something that could be changed through software (ie it happens with widgets and icons but not with my background photo)

 

[saltysteve]

Actually looking at my phone again closely I've noticed two things.

1. When I hold the phone at certain angles the pixelation disappears
2. The places that have the most pixelation seem to be things that are part of the NB (not-blur) skin. So perhaps it's something that could be changed through software (ie it happens with widgets and icons but not with my background photo)

Interesting.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[flashpiti]

Erm. Subpixels have absolutely nothing to do with ppi. They make up the pixel itself, but the actual number of pixels remain the same. The two screens are comparable for PPI (because the droid's screen is over .5" smaller), but the original droid is in no way sharper than the Bionic.

Sure it is, for the same reason the iphone 4 is much sharper than the bionic. Read this article and be illuminated. AnandTech - The Motorola Atrix 4G Preview

And I'll give you that the pixels may be similar in numbers but the output which an eye sees is much different.

 

[george_k]

Sure it is, for the same reason the iphone 4 is much sharper than the bionic. Read this article and be illuminated. AnandTech - The Motorola Atrix 4G Preview

And I'll give you that the pixels may be similar in numbers but the output which an eye sees is much different.

I would recommend that you take what that article, above, says and shows with a big grain of salt. Yes, the article was interesting, since I'm very much into that sort of technical discussion/analysis. However, what's true in theory or in a laboratory isn't always what matters. Curious as to what the discussion was all about, I visited my local Verizon today, and carefully compared the iPhone 4, Samsung Droid Charge, and the Droid Bionic. Either the lighting conditions or display settings used in the article (not to mention the ridiculous magnification) exaggerate the difference, or maybe the Droid Bionic Pentile implementation is much better than for the HTC Incredible. In any case, I did not notice any pixelation or other weird side effects on the Droid Bionics that I saw in the showroom. I looked at Google Maps in traffic map mode, at black on white text on a website, photos and video on websites, the app icons on the home view, etc., and it all looked very crisp and clear to me. I compared side-by-side with the Droid Charge, and did notice that the Charge had the very bright, highly saturated colors that everyone talks about, but I did not discern a difference in clarity, sharpness, pixelation, readability, etc. On the other hand, for the iPhone, I did notice the higher resolution making text look a bit sharper/crisper, but that's if you stared at it very close-up. At normal reading distance, I could not tell much difference between the higher resolution of the iPhone versus the lower resolution of the Charge and Bionic. What mattered more for me, for being able to read text, is that the two Android phones with the larger 4.3" screens were much easier to read from than the iPhone with its significantly smaller screen.

Anyway, these are just my personal observations. I don't discount what others have observed that may contradict what I have just stated. I'm just saying that anyone who is choosing between these phones needs to check it out for themselves. Really, who cares what lab results, critics, reviewers, or forum posters say? What matters is how it looks to *you*.

 

[916ninja]

Not sure what you were seeing, but I just loaded up angry birds on my x2 and colors were spot on.


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For the color yellow, pentile has an issue. They even mention it on a blog about saving energy on the phone. It causes yellow to appear mustard. If you download color palette from the market, you can make the display show yellow and it is definitely off. I also went full bright green and it looked great. They definitely improved the screen somehow. I am returning the phone tomorrow because of this. I hope it can be fixed through software but I refuse to hold my breath. Ever since I bought my Xoom, it has been a fiasco that I am not playing with the Bionic. I wish I bought it from costco. That way I would have had three months to see if they addressed the issue. Assuming they even acknowledge it.

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