AUO was supposed to start producing 4" to 5" AMOLED panels in Q2 2012, but new reports say that AUO's yields are still very low (less than 20%) and so they have delayed mass production to Q3 2012. The same reports suggest that AUO got orders for 4.3" qHD AMOLED panels from HTC and is likely to get orders from Nokia as well.

AUO first AMOLED plant is a Gen-3.5 fab that has a monthly capacity of about 8,000 substrates. The company is also planning to later start producing at their Singapore Gen-4.5 fab (at AFPD). According to the new reports, the company was considering a 5.5-Gen AMOLED fab as well, but isn't likely to go ahead with that plan due to the low yields from the 3.5-Gen fab. Earlier reports suggested that AUO was considering a 6-Gen fab for large size panels (for OLED TVs).

Engadget posted a review of the Galaxy S3, and while they think the phone is excellent, they're not sure if the S3 is the best Android phone on the market, with the main competitor being the HTC One X. They love the 1280x720 4.8" Super AMOLED HD display, and say that there are real visual improvements over the Galaxy Nexus. The colors aren't over-saturated and there's no unnatural blue-ish tint.

Regarding the controversial PenTile technology, Engadget says that it isn't so visible because the screen is large and you tend to hold it from a little bit further than in smaller phones. But it still makes text a bit fuzzy, and so if you like reading on your book, maybe it's better to choose a non-Pentile phone (I personally think it's better to use a dedicated e-paper e-reader if you actually want to read).

Reports say that AUO will start shipping 4.3" qHD AMOLED panels next month in June, and will supply panels to both Sony and HTC. HTC will use those panels in their One S smartphone. The One S currently uses a 4.3" qHD Super AMOLED display, which is a Samsung trade mark, so it's not clear how they will handle two suppliers.

SMD will still be the primary supplier of AMOLED panels to both companies, and currently the quality of the SMD panels is still superior to AUO's ones. Indeed the reports say that AUO suffers from very low yields (around 20%) in their first AMOLED 3.5-Gen line in Taiwan.

T-Mobile is now shipping HTC's One S phone for $199.99 (after a $50 rebate). The One S is an Android V4 (ICS) phone that features a 4.3" Super AMOLED display, dual-core 1.5Ghz CPU, a new version of the Sense UI (4.0), a 8mp camera and a uniformly thin alloy unibody that's only 7.9mm thick.

T-Mobile announced today that they will launch HTC's One S smartphone on April 25 for $199.99 (with a two-year contract). The HTC One S will be T-Mobile's first Android V4 (ICS) phone. Other features include a 4.3" Super AMOLED display, dual-core 1.5Ghz CPU, a new version of the Sense UI (4.0), a 8mp camera and a uniformly thin alloy unibody that's only 7.9mm thick.

Taiwan's government is forming an AMOLED alliance - to compete against Korean makers - mostly Samsung. The alliance will include seven partners: two AMOLED produces (AUO and Chimei Innolux) and ITRI, Acer, Asustek, HTC and MediaTek. It is reported that HTC and Asustek will secure all of AUO's upcoming AMOLED capacity.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), who is coordinating the alliance will invest around NT$10 billion (about $333 million US) in AMOLED R&D (mostly though ITRI). CMI will come up with an AMOLED production plan which will get subsidized by the government. Officials from the MOEA say that AMOLED is "rising as a must for next-gen smart phones", and is also likely to enter into the tablet and TV markets.

Our friends from PortableGear.nl are at MWC 2012, and they posted three interesting videos comparing AMOLED displays to LCD ones. Their conclusion is that it's getting harder and harder to distinguish between all those technologies, as all theses screens are superb. The first video compares the Super AMOLED HD on the Galaxy Note with the True HD IPS on the LG Optimus 4X HD:

There are reports that HTC is preparing a new Android smartphone - which will come with a 4.3" qHD Super AMOLED display (which seems to be the same one used in Motorola's Droid RAZR). This will be HTC's first OLED phone since they switched back to LCD in June 2010 due to Samsung's AMOLED supply issues. It's great to see HTC back into OLEDs...

The new handset (codename Ville) will sport a new UI (Sense 4.0), a 1.5Ghz dual-core processor and an 8mp camera (1080p video support). HTC will announce the Ville during MWC 2012 and release it in April 2012.

HTC has already switched to S-LCDs in their Desire and Nexus-One phones - due to AMOLED supply shortage. They say that they look pretty much the same, but the S-LCD actually uses less power. Now we hear that they might do the same for the Droid Incredible phone - which was also suffering from supply issues.

HTC Incredible

Samsung announced that they can't meet customer demand in their AMOLED plant - and they won't be able to do so until early next year (at the earliest).

Engadget has posted an interesting post about the HTC Desire SLCD and AMOLED displays. While the AMOLED is more vibrant and bright, the S-LCD shows a sharper image (this is due to the AMOLED's PenTile pixel matrix that uses two subpixels per pixel instead of three). They also claim that the SLCD offers a better contrast - even though the AMOLED's blacks are much blacker. This is again due to the PenTile arrangement.

In the sunlight visibility test, the AMOLED actually comes on top, but both are hardly readable. HTC's glossy glass is to blame for this, really. In terms of power efficiency, Engadget say that the AMOLED comes on top - after 5 hours of showing movies, the LCD-Desire ran out of power while the AMOLED one had 30% power left (HTC and Samsung say otherwise, by the way). Here's a video comparing both phones: