OLED displays use organic materials that emit light when electricity is applied. OLEDs enable emissive, bright, thin, flexible and efficient displays. OLEDs are set to replace LCDs in all display applications - from small displays to large TV sets.

Samsung's Super-AMOLED displays, announced in January 2010, are AMOLED displays for mobile devices (such as smartphones, wearables and tablets) with an integrated touch function. The thickness of the touch sensor is just 0.001 mm and this allows the screen to provide better images and to have great visibility even in direct sunlight compared with regular AMOLED displays with an external touch layer.

Super AMOLED and the PenTile matrix

Samsung's Super-AMOLED displays use a Pentile matrix sub-pixel design. That means that the green sub-pixel is shared by two pixels and the display has only 2 sub-pixels per real 'pixel' compared to the classic RGB matrix design (or Real-Stripe). You can see a PenTile matrix vs a Real-Stripe one on the images below (the PenTile is on the right). Newer Super AMOLED displays use a different PenTile matrix (Diamond Pixel pattern).

Super AMOLED vs Dynamic AMOLED

In 2019 Samsung introduced its next-generation mobile display technology, which it calls Dynamic AMOLED. Basically a Dynamic AMOLED is similar to a Super-AMOLED display, but it adds HDR support. It seems as if Samsung is no longer using the Dynamic AMOLED brand for its latest displays.

Further reading

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The latest Super AMOLED news:

Samsung announces the Galaxy S10 (with 4 variants) and new OLED smartwatches

Samsung announced a handful of new devices, all with OLED displays. We'll start with the company's 2019 flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S10. It includes four different variants -

  • Galaxy S10 5G: 6.7" 3040x1440 flexible AMOLED
  • Galaxy S10+: 6.4" 3040x1440 flexible AMOLED
  • Galaxy S10: 6.1" 3040x1440 flexible AMOLED
  • Galaxy S10e: 5.8" 2280x1080 AMOLED (rigid?)

The S10 phones use Samsung's latest AMOLEDs, that are now HDR10+ certified, include an under-the-OLED fingerprint sensor (Qualcomm ultra-sonic) and cut-outs for the selfie cameras. Samsung calls these displays "Dynamic AMOLED" (due to the HDR support, probably) and "Infinity-O Display" due to the camera cut-outs.

Read the full story Posted: Feb 21,2019

Leaked ad shows Samsung upcoming foldable smartphone device

Update: the video has been removed, but the Galaxy Fold device has been announced.

In November 2018 Samsung unveiled its upcoming foldable smartphone, and according to reports it may officially launch this new product on February 20th (at the Samsung Galaxy S10 unveiling event). Samsung Vietnam accidentally published an ad showing several new technologies, including a foldable smartphone

Samsung foldable device (leaked ad image)

Samsung first foldable smartphone/tablet device will use two OLED displays - a large 7.3" 1532x2152 foldable AMOLED that folds inside, and a smaller secondary OLED (4.5" 840x1960). Samsung brands the foldalbe display as the Samsung Infinity Flex Display.

Read the full story Posted: Feb 06,2019

New 960fps videos show the fast refresh cycle of high-end AMOLED displays

BlurBusters posted an interesting article that uses high-speed video (960fps) capture to show the advantages of OLED displays over LCDs in terms of response time.

In the video above, you can see the almost instantaneous response times of the 10.5" 2560x1600 Super AMOLED display of Samsung's Galaxy Tab S4. In the video below, you can see the response time at 960fps of Apple's MacBook Pro 2015 (IPS LCD). Blurbusters explains that the Gray-to-Gray (GtG) response time of the OLED is around 0.1 ms - far better than the 5 ms one of the LCD.

Read the full story Posted: Jan 23,2019

DisplayMate: Samsung yet again improved its AMOLED displays, the Note 9 has the best mobile display ever

DisplayMate posted a review of Samsung's latest OLED display - the 6.4" 1440x2960 (516 PPI) flexible Super AMOLED used in the Galaxy Note 9. As we've seen many times before, Samsung managed to significantly improve its OLED quality - and DisplayMate says that this is the best mobile display ever tested.

In the Galaxy Note 9, Samsung concentrated on significantly raising the on-screen absolute picture quality and absolute color accuracy by implementing precision factory display calibration. This could have been a response to the excellent calibration done by Apple in the iPhone X.

Read the full story Posted: Aug 13,2018

Samsung aims to ship 43 million Galaxy S9 phones in 2018

Yesterday reports from Korea suggested that pre-orders for the Galaxy S9 in Korea are 30% lower compared to the pre-orders of the Galaxy S8 in 2017. The Korea Herald, however, today says that Samsung believes it will sell more Galaxy S9 phones than it did with the GS8.

Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus photo

The Korea Herald says that Samsung told its suppliers that its target is to sell 43 million GS9 (and GS9 plus) phones in 2018. In 2017, Samsung shipped 41 million GS8 and GS8 plus phones. In 2016, Samsung shipped 48 million GS7 phones, so even if it reaches its target of 43 million GS9 phones, it will still lag behind The GS7.

Read the full story Posted: Mar 13,2018

Galaxy S9 pre-orders in Korea are 30% lower than the S8 preorders in 2017

According to reports from Korea, pre-orders for the Galaxy S9 in Korea are 30% lower compared to the pre-orders of Samsung's Galaxy S8 in 2017. Yonhap news says that Korea's three largest carriers distributed only 180,000 GS9 phones, while at the same time last year these three companies distributed 260,00 GS8 phones.

Samsung did not yet disclose any pre-sales data. The GS9 has a flexible 5.8" 1440x2960 (570 PPI) Super AMOLED display (6.2", 529 PPI, on the S9 Plus). DisplayMate says that this display is the best mobile display ever tested, surprassing in quality the 5.8" flexible AMOLED used in the iPhone X.

Read the full story Posted: Mar 12,2018

DisplayMate: the Galaxy S9 has the world's best ever mobile display, setting several new display performance records

Samsung introduced its Galaxy S9 flagship phone a couple of days ago, with its flexible 5.8" 1440x2960 (570 PPI) Super AMOLED display (6.2", 529 PPI, on the S9 Plus).

Display measurement experts from DisplayMate already tested the new display (with a pre-production GS9), and published a comprehensive report. As expected, Samsung continues to improve its OLED displays, and the GS9 again is announced by DisplayMate to be the world's best ever mobile display, better than the iPhone X OLED.

Read the full story Posted: Mar 01,2018

Apple announces the iPhone X with a 5.8" flexible Super AMOLED

Yesterday Apple announced its new iPhone lineup which includes the flagship iPhone X that, as expected, features a 5.8" 1125x2436 (458 PPI) flexible Super AMOLED display that covers almost the entire front of the phone. Apple's first OLED iPhone will ship in November starting at $999.

Apple iPhone X photo

Some reports suggest that SDC is only able to supply a limited number of displays to Apple which will severely limit iPhone X shipments.

Read the full story Posted: Sep 13,2017

Android Authority: LG's V30 pOLED display is very competitive with Samsung's Super AMOLED display

Android Authority performed some preliminary tests of LG V30's display, which uses LGD's flexible P-OLED panels. AA says that the first impressions are very positive, and LGD's mobile OLEDs are highly competitive with Samsung's latest Super AMOLED displays (AA compared the V30 to the Galaxy S8, although to be fair SDC has since improved its OLEDs).

LG V30 photo

LG's color temperature is quite higher compared to the OLED of the GS8 - 8500K vs the GS8 7500K. On manual brightness both phones are able to reach almost the same brightness (421 nits on the V30, 398 nits on the GS8), while on automotive mode the LG reaches 606 nits and the GS8 only 535 nits (DisplayMate says the GS8 should reach 1,020 nits - but AA could not reach this high brightness in these tests). AA reviewers say that the LG V30 is quite comparable to Samsung's display in terms of black levels and vibrant colors.

Read the full story Posted: Sep 02,2017