PenTile display

[corneliusm]

According to this link, the Atrix 4G will have a PenTile RGBW display, which adds a white subpixel for 50% less power usage at the same brightness than conventional LCD screens.

Now before anyone jumps in and starts complaining about other PenTile displays, particularly the RGBG AMOLED displays (Samsung Galaxy S, Nexus One, etc), keep in mind that RGBW doesn't decrease the subpixel accuracy like RGBG- it simply brightens the overall display.

Can anyone here who has seen this phone in person care to comment about the screen quality? Not just the bump in resolution, but brightness, contrast and viewing angle?

I'm really curious about the new display.

 

[Auzo]

The videos I have seen of this phone make the screen look pretty impressive so I will hold out judgment until more information is known, but I'm not sure how adding a W-subpixel wouldn't decrease accuracy.

 

[textiaac]

See this pic of rgbg and imagine white entering the mess...

 

[DisplayGeek]

The videos I have seen of this phone make the screen look pretty impressive so I will hold out judgment until more information is known, but I'm not sure how adding a W-subpixel wouldn't decrease accuracy.

The PenTile RGBW maintains full resolution by using Metamer Sharpening W<>RGB energy transfer as well as traditional subpixel rendering. See the Nouvoyance website for more details:

Nouvoyance

 

[Generic_User_2]

See this pic of rgbg and imagine white entering the mess...

um....it would be 1g...not 2g

 

[scaots]

The documentation from Nouvoyance states that RGBW PenTile still only has two subpixels per pixel. This is still similar to the AMOLED PenTile which I find to be less sharp than LCD (though AMOLED is brighter and stronger color). But with the Atrix higher resolution (540x960) with this RGBW PenTile I would expect it to at least equal if not rival LCD at 480x854.

The image posted by textiaac shows a different technology with many subpixels per pixel. A high resolution display like that could be very impressive.

Which technology is in the Atrix display?

 

[Droid800]

The documentation from Nouvoyance states that RGBW PenTile still only has two subpixels per pixel. This is still similar to the AMOLED PenTile which I find to be less sharp than LCD (though AMOLED is brighter and stronger color). But with the Atrix higher resolution (540x960) with this RGBW PenTile I would expect it to at least equal if not rival LCD at 480x854.

The image posted by textiaac shows a different technology with many subpixels per pixel. A high resolution display like that could be very impressive.

Which technology is in the Atrix display?

Here's the thing; on larger displays, like the 4 inch display on the Galaxy S models, the PenTile setup doesn't have any noticeable impact on sharpness compared to other similarly-sized screens. The changes made for the S-AMOLED screens certainly helps, but the size also helps as well. I had a Nexus S, and that screen was noticeably less sharp than other similarly sized screens. The Galaxy screens, though, aren't all that different. (the biggest difference is that the PenTile layout is really visible in bright colors)

 

[Auzo]

The PenTile RGBW maintains full resolution by using Metamer Sharpening W<>RGB energy transfer as well as traditional subpixel rendering. See the Nouvoyance website for more details:

Nouvoyance

Its clear to me that PenTile configurations were designed for many reasons but the one thing they were not created for was to improve upon the existing configurations picture quality. It was developed to help overcome manufacturing/technology shortcoming as well as to give some added benefits for a mobile (power constrained) environment.

IMO its akin to lossy compression of an image. It looks nearly as good, but at the end of the day you have thrown some data away so it can't look as good.

With that said I still think it will at the very least be as sharp as a RGB configured panel with 800x480 resolution. I have decided that in this case the pluses out weigh the minuses.

 

[E_man]

It better not have pentile, unless they couple it with AMOLED. The Pentile on my SGS can look quite ugly at times (borders of black text can be multicolored, etc). Besides, they made a super high res display, why lower that with pentile that isn't necassary?

 

[eallan]

It better not have pentile, unless they couple it with AMOLED. The Pentile on my SGS can look quite ugly at times (borders of black text can be multicolored, etc). Besides, they made a super high res display, why lower that with pentile that isn't necassary?

Well it definitely doesn't have an AMOLED display.

The pentile is likely the reason they were able to make a high res display.

Technology

Have a look at the subpixel layout, I'm interested to see it in person before I make a call one way or the other.

 

[Droid800]

It better not have pentile, unless they couple it with AMOLED. The Pentile on my SGS can look quite ugly at times (borders of black text can be multicolored, etc). Besides, they made a super high res display, why lower that with pentile that isn't necassary?

Energy consumption, for one. Cost for another.

As I said further up, Pentile displays aren't that bad when you're talking about screens 4 inches or bigger.