There are reports that HTC is planning to launch a new Windows Phone 7 phone next week (in Australia, for some reason). The HD3 will have a 4.5" AMOLED display (1200x800). It will also feature a 1.5Ghz dual-core CPU, 1GB of ram, 32GB of flash memory, Wi-Fi and 4G network support.

The AMOLED display sounds too good (and too big) to be true, especially since HTC has already switched to S-LCDs in several phones. On the other hand, we do know that Microsoft expects most WP7 devices to use OLED displays. We'll have to wait till September 15th to learn if this is for real.

Back in May, Samsung (the only company with a mass-production AMOLED plant) announced that they can't meet up with the demand for AMOLED displays. Soon later we heard that the HTC Incredible is suffering from AMOLED shortage, and later on HTC decided to use LCDs instead of OLEDs in that phone (and others). Samsung, meanwhile, is said to be keeping all Super-AMOLED displays for themselves.

In fact, HTC is not alone: Pantech made the same decision, and we keep hearing of new devices that were originally said to have AMOLEDs, but actually use LCDs instead. Samsung's own Galaxy-S phone is a huge success, so even Samsung probably cannot use AMOLEDs in other devices.

A few days ago we reported that T-Mobile is set to release a new android phone, the HTC G2, which will have an AMOLED display. T-Mobile has officially announced the phone, although the specs aren't available yet. But it seems that it'll have a Super-LCD display rather than an AMOLED.

It seems that until the AMOLED supply shortage is over, we won't see a lot of new AMOLED phones (except from Samsung, in any case).

There are some reports of a new T-Mobile phone called G2. It's a QWERTY slider running Google's Android OS. According to a leaked WalMart page, it'll have a 3.7" touch AMOLED display. No official information yet...

Update: The video has been pulled from YouTube (it's been made private, actually).

Here's a nice video comparing the HTC Desire with an AMOLED to the same phone with a Super-LCD display (IPS-LCD). The AMOLED is on the right, and is brighter, and has a better contrast (the blacks are really black...). It does have a small 'pinkish' color effect though...

HTC are now offering the Desire with the LCD option because of AMOLED shortage. According to HTC, they look pretty much the same, although the LCD uses more power.

iSupply has published a teardown analysis of the HTC Droid Incredible, saying that the phone costs $163 to make. They say that the AMOLED display (Samsung's 3.7" 480x800) costs $31.20. This is rather strange, as back in January, they claimed that the same display, used in Google's Nexus-One phone costs $23.5.

HTC Incredible

So maybe the costs went up (because of Samsung's short supply). Back in January, iSupply estimated that the Touch Interface costs $17.75. So maybe the cost of both the touch and the AMOLED went down, and now they cost $31.2 together?

The HTC Incredible is now shipping for Verizon's network in the US - and it costs $99 with a new service plan (if you want to use an existing plan, it'll cost $530).

A few weeks ago it was rumored that HTC will start using Super-LCD displays instead of OLEDs in the HTC Desire and Nexus-One handsets. HTC says that the displays are comparable, and that the S-LCD actually consumes less power than the AMOLED displays.

The HTC Droid Incredible was not shipping for a while because of AMOLED shortage, and it was reported that it'll start shipping again in July 12th. So it's one day earlier, and indeed it seems that the Droid is shipping again - at least from Amazon.

The HTC Incredible is an Android (v2.1) phone with a large 3.7" 480x800 WVGA touch AMOLED display, 1Ghz processor, 8mp camera, 8GB of internal memory and a microSD slot.

HTC plans to start producing Incredible phones (and also Google Nexus One phones) that use IPS-LCD (or Super-TFT LCD) made by Sony. They will also keep using AMOLEDs - so we'll see two models of these phones. HTC is doing this because Samsung cannot deliver enough AMOLED panels.

HTC claims that there's no discernible difference between the LCDs and the AMOLEDs, and they are working on some prototypes that we'll hopefully see soon.

TechBlog has done an interesting test, putting a Super-AMOLED vs a 'regular' AMOLED and an LCD in direct sunlight. They used 3 phones for the comparison: Samsung Galaxy S (4" 480x800 super-AMOLED ), HTC Desire (3.7" 480x800 AMOLED) and a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 (4" 480x854 TFT LCD).

It seems that the best display is still the LCD, but the Super-AMOLED (which is a lot better than the regular AMOLED) comes close - and most of the times the difference is negligible.