Smartphone Literacy_1- What Is Display???

Going ahead with smartphone Literacy today we are going to dig something related to mobile display.

Yes that day, my friend also gave this type of expression.... What to know about display???  i just want a big size display.... Thats it.... But when salesman asked him "sir, which type of display you are looking for??" then he didn't understand what to answer.....

Let's analyse what is display??


Whatever mobile user type on the keypad and whatever the output come from the mobile is showcase on a particular area termed as "display".
There are lot of display types used in mobile phones.
You remembered those days when there were monochrome display. These displays can be alphanumeric or graphics.  Alphanumeric displays can show only symbols with a constant size and graphic display can show fonts of different sizes and animations.

Of course old is gold but.....

Apart from displaying only the incoming and outgoing numbers, people start sending messages where they find it difficult to see one full message at a time. Now there is need of more space. When we started adding cameras in mobile phone, we want more clear picture to be displayed on screen.

The color displays usually are TFT, TFD, or OLED. Currently most of the  mobile phones use TFT displays.

Now the mobile world is in the era of touchscreens. We expect them to be as good as our laptop/desktop screens.

There are two types of touchscreen display - capacitive and resistive.

Capacitive touchscreen work by sensing the electrical power of the human body.
Resistive touchscreen work by sensing direct pressure applied by the user.

Here i am summarising the touchscreen information so you will know what to look out for your next smartphone.

TFT-

TFT is one of the best LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) technology in terms of image quality. Friends but this is in the expense of power and cost. These displays consumes more power and are very expensive.
This TFT is an active matrix technology where a transistor is placed next to each pixel and are allowed to turn on and off individually, ensures faster response time and good contrast.

OLED-

Organic Light Emitting Diode uses a technology thats consists of small dots of polymer which emits light when charged with electricity.
AMOLED (Active Matrix OLED) which you have find in new generation mobiles. These displays don't need a backlight, each pixel produces it's own light.
These displays are thinner, lighter, brighter, need less power, better viewing angles. It has several advantages over LCD... Isn't it :)
But... Again friends when there are advantages how come there are no disadvantages.

These displays are costly and difficult to produce in the same numbers of LCD. AMOLED Uses different subpixel arrangement to LCD, which can result in images that don't appear as sharp.

Like that you can find different displays in market. There are some displays which are brands of different companies, some of them are

Retina Display :- By Apple
BRAVIA :- By Sony
NOVA :- By LG


Mobile phone screen resolution also plays important role.

QVGA (Quarter Video Graphics Array)

This is the bottom end of modern phone resolution and is normally used for basic or budget phones.
It's resolution is 240*320

WQVGA (Wide QVGA)

This display has same height as QVGA (240) but has greater width so the name Wide QVGA.

HVGA (Half VGA)

Most common resolution is 320*480. which is half the size of VGA hence named as HVGA.

WVGA(Wider)

Displays with height of 480 pixels but width greater than 640 pixels. This resolution can be found on lots of smartphones.

FWVGA, qHD, XGA, HD, WXGA, are some of the widely used resolution in todays smartphones.

After all this analysis my friend will definitely ask me Hmmmm which smartphone screen is best one ????

Well it's depend on you. what is the purpose or for what you are going to use your mobile.
If you like to watch movies or like to play games on mobile AMOLED will be the better choice, of course because of it's better contrast ratio than LCD.
And if want your mobile to be used for only web browsing and document viewing LCD will work for you. It will give clearer text makes it easier to read text for longer period.


So best Of luck and enjoy your phone shopping.

Don't forget to share your valuable comments, experience and suggestions.