iPhone X OLED Display Technology Shoot-Out

Dr. Raymond M. Soneira

President, DisplayMate Technologies Corporation

Copyright © 1990-2017 by DisplayMate Technologies Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

This article, or any part thereof, may not be copied, reproduced, mirrored, distributed or incorporated

into any other work without the prior written permission of DisplayMate Technologies Corporation

iPhone X

Introduction

The key element for a great Smartphone has always been a truly innovative and top performing display, and the best leading edge Smartphones have always flaunted their super high tech displays. It is the display performance that determines how good and how beautiful everything on the Smartphone looks, including the camera photos and all of your Apps, and also how readable and how usable the screen is in high ambient lighting. The Display is the crown jewel of the Smartphone!

The iPhone X OLED is the most anticipated display in the history of the world!!

The overwhelming majority of all existing displays, from Smartphones to TVs, including all of the earlier iPhones, have L iquid C rystal D isplays, LCDs, which produce an image by varying the light transmission from a light source behind the display.

But starting in 2010, displays using a different technology called O rganic L ight E mitting D iodes, OLEDs, that directly emit light began appearing in Smartphones. While initially they couldn’t match the high image quality produced by LCDs, they rapidly improved in display performance as shown in the extensive lab tests and measurements in my Display Technology Shoot-Out article series.

Within a few years it became obvious that OLEDs would soon outperform LCDs, particularly in Smartphones. So the big question was when, not if, manufacturers would begin switching to OLED displays. For Apple, the transition was particularly difficult because it needs hundreds of millions of OLED displays, and Samsung Display was the only company manufacturing them in high volume.

By 2015 the switch to OLED iPhones became the single hottest topic in large numbers of technology publications, and then came the business and Wall Street analysts that piled on as well. By 2017 it was a deafening roar as it became obvious that Apple would launch an OLED iPhone this year... and it’s the iPhone X...

Switching from LCDs to OLEDs is a major engineering and manufacturing challenge, so I was eager to test and evaluate the new OLED iPhone X.

The result: Apple has produced an impressive Smartphone display with excellent performance and accuracy, which we cover in extensive detail below. What makes the iPhone X the Best Smartphone Display is the impressive Precision Display Calibration Apple developed, which transforms the OLED hardware into a superbly accurate, high performance, and gorgeous display, with close to Text Book Perfect Calibration and Performance!!

In this article we lab test, measure, analyze, and evaluate in depth the display on the iPhone X. This is an independent scientific objective lab test and analysis of OLED displays written for consumers and journalists. It is the latest edition in our seven year article series that has lab tested, tracked and analyzed the development of mobile OLED displays and display technology, from its early beginnings in 2010, when OLED displays started out in last place, into a rapidly improving and evolving display technology that now has a commanding first place lead and continues pushing ahead aggressively.

We’ll cover all of the these display performance topics and much more, with in-depth comprehensive display tests, measurements, and analysis that you will find nowhere else.

The Shift from LCD to OLED Displays

LCDs are a great cutting edge high performance display technology for Tablets to TVs, but for small handheld Smartphones, OLED displays provide a number of significant advantages over LCDs including: being much thinner, much lighter, without needing a bezel providing a rimless edge-to-edge design. They can be made flexible and into curved screens, plus they have a very fast response time, better viewing angles, and an always-on display mode. Many of the OLED performance advantages result from the fact that every single sub-pixel in an OLED display is independently directly electrically powered to emit light, so only the active image sub-pixels draw power based on their individual brightness levels. OLEDs can also provide better color accuracy, image contrast accuracy, and screen uniformity because of variations in the Backlights of LCDs.

As the result of their very versatile power management capabilities, OLEDs are not only more power efficient than LCDs for most image content, but they now deliver much higher peak Brightness than LCDs because the maximum power can be delivered to just the sub-pixels that are needed for producing the current image. However, for mostly all white screen content LCDs are likely to remain brighter and more power efficient for a while.

OLED displays are also manufactured on flexible substrates that can bend, which allows the screens to be curved and rounded and provides a number of innovative new screen geometries. The main production and availability issue for the next several years will be that the demand for OLED displays will significantly exceed the manufacturing capacity as we discuss in Flagship 2017 OLED Smartphones.

Article Overview

This article has the following major sections:

· Highlights and Performance Results

· iPhone X Conclusions

· Improving the Next Generation of Mobile Displays

· Lab Measurements and Comparison Table

The Display Shoot-Out

To examine the performance of the new iPhone X OLED Display we ran our in-depth series of Mobile Display Technology Shoot-Out Lab tests and measurements in order to determine how the latest OLED displays have improved. We take display quality very seriously and provide in-depth objective analysis based on detailed laboratory tests and measurements and extensive viewing tests with both test patterns, test images and test photos. To see how far OLED and LCD mobile displays have progressed in just six years see our 2010 Smartphone Display Shoot-Out, and for a real history lesson see our original 2006 Smartphone Display Shoot-Out.

Apple provided DisplayMate Technologies with a retail unit of the iPhone X so that we could perform our well known objective and comprehensive DisplayMate Lab tests, measurements, and analysis, explaining in-depth the new display performance results for consumers, reviewers, and journalists as early as possible.

Highlights and Performance Results

In this section we review and explain the principal results from the extensive DisplayMate Lab Tests and Measurements covered in the Display Shoot-Out Comparison Table under the following categories: Display Specifications, Overall Assessments, Screen Reflections, Brightness and Contrast, Colors and Intensities, Viewing Angles, OLED Spectra, Display Power.

Main Topics Covered

This Highlights and Performance Results section has detailed information and analysis on the iPhone X display for the main topics listed below. You can skip this section and go directly to the iPhone X Conclusions.

· Larger Full Screen Display

· 2.5K Higher Resolution Display

· Industry Standard Color Gamuts

· Automatic Color Management

· Record Absolute Color Accuracy

· Record High Screen Brightness

· High Dynamic Range Mobile HDR

· Night Shift mode for Better Night Viewing

· Diamond Sub-Pixels

· Display Power Efficiency

· Viewing Angle Performance and Viewing Tests

· Display Related Enhancements

· Larger Full Screen Display with a New Aspect Ratio of 19.5 : 9

The iPhone X has a new larger 5.85 inch full screen display that fills almost the entire front face of the phone from edge-to-edge. The display also has a new form factor with a taller height to width Aspect Ratio of 19.5 : 9 = 2.17, which is 22% larger than the 16 : 9 = 1.78 on most Smartphones (and widescreen TVs) because the display now has the same overall shape as the entire phone. It is taller in Portrait mode and wider in Landscape mode. This provides extra space for Notifications and for displaying multiple Apps and content simultaneously on-screen side-by-side.

The very top of the screen has a black 0.2” high (5 mm) cutout area from the display that holds the front facing camera, ambient light and proximity sensors, and the ear speaker. It’s noticeable but easy to get used to because it only takes up 2% of the total screen area.

· 2.5K Higher Resolution Full HD+ 2436x1125 Display with 458 pixels per inch

As a result of its larger display size and larger Aspect Ratio, the iPhone X has a new 2.5K Higher Resolution Full HD+ display with 2436x1125 pixels and 458 pixels per inch, with 2.7 Mega Pixels, 32% more than an HDTV. The display has Diamond Sub-Pixels (see below) and Sub-Pixel Rendering with 458 pixels per inch (ppi), providing significantly higher image sharpness than can be resolved with normal 20/20 Vision at the typical viewing distances of 12 inches or more for Smartphones, so the display appears perfectly sharp. As a result, for Smartphones it is absolutely pointless to further increase the display resolution and pixels per inch (ppi) up to 4K (3940x2160 pixels) for a silly marketing wild goose chase into the stratosphere, with no visual benefit for humans!

· Industry Standard Color Gamuts

The iPhone X supports the two most important Industry Standard Color Gamuts: the sRGB / Rec.709 Color Gamut that is used for most current consumer content, and the new Wide DCI-P3 Color Gamut that is used in 4K Ultra HD TVs. The DCI-P3 Gamut is 26 percent larger than the sRGB / Rec.709 Gamut. But Automatic Color Management provides many more Gamuts...

· Automatic Color Management

Most Smartphones and Tablets generally provide only one to up to several fixed Color Gamuts. The iPhone X has Automatic Color Management that automatically switches to the proper Color Gamut for any displayed image content within the Wide DCI-P3 Color Space that has an ICC Profile, so images automatically appear with the correct colors, neither over-saturated or under-saturated. Color Management with multiple and varying Color Gamuts are a very useful and important state-of-the-art capability that all manufacturers will need to provide in the future.

· Record Absolute Color Accuracy

Delivering great color with high Absolute Color Accuracy is incredibly difficult because everything on the display has to be done just right. In order to deliver accurate image colors, a display needs to closely match the standard Color Gamut that was used for producing the content being viewed – not more and not less. In addition the display also needs an accurate (pure logarithmic power-law) Intensity Scale, and an accurate White Point.

Since the iPhone X supports two Standard Color Gamuts it needs to also implement Color Management in order to get the second smaller sRGB / Rec.709 Gamut to also appear correctly, which is generated from the wider native DCI-P3. Each iPhone X display is individually calibrated at the factory for both color and contrast accuracy.

The Absolute Color Accuracy of the iPhone X is Truly Impressive as shown in these Figures. It has an Absolute Color Accuracy of 1.0 JNCD for the sRGB / Red.709 Color Gamut that is used for most current consumer content, and 0.9 JNCD for the Wider DCI-P3 Color Gamut that is used for 4K UHD TVs and Digital Cinema. It is the most color accurate display that we have ever measured. It is Visually Indistinguishable From Perfect, and is very likely considerably better than any mobile display, monitor, TV or UHD TV that you have.

See this Figure for an explanation and visual definition of J ust N oticeable C olor D ifference JNCD and the Color Accuracy Plots with 41 Reference Colors showing the measured display Color Errors. See the Color Accuracy section and the Color Accuracy Plots for measurements and details, and also this regarding lots of Bogus Color Accuracy Measurements.

· Record High Screen Brightness and Performance in High Ambient Lighting

Mobile displays are often used under relatively bright ambient lighting, which washes out the image color saturation and contrast, reducing picture quality and making it harder to view or read the screen. To be usable in high ambient light a display needs a dual combination of high Screen Brightness and low Screen Reflectance – the iPhone X has both. This is extremely important for screen readability, picture quality, and color accuracy in ambient light.

The iPhone X has a record high Full Screen Brightness for OLED Smartphones of 634 nits, which improves screen visibility in high Ambient Light. The Samsung Galaxy Note8 can produce up to 1,240 nits, but only for small portions of the screen area (Low Average Picture Levels) – for Full Screen Brightness the Note8 can produce up to 423 nits with Manual Brightness and 560 nits with Automatic Brightness only in High Ambient Light. For small portions of the screen area the iPhone X can produce up to 809 nits (Low Average Picture Levels). On its Home Screen the iPhone X produces an impressively bright 726 nits. See the Screen Brightness section for the measurements and details.

The measured iPhone X Screen Reflectance is 4.5 percent, close to the lowest that we have ever measured for a Smartphone. Our Contrast Rating for High Ambient Light quantitatively measures screen visibility and image contrast under bright Ambient Lighting – the higher the better. As a result of its high Brightness and low Reflectance, the iPhone X has a Contrast Rating for High Ambient Light that ranges from 141 to 180, among the highest that we have ever measured for a Smartphone. See the Screen Reflectance section for the measurements and details.

· HDR High Dynamic Range Mobile HDR Premium Display

The iPhone X provides Mobile HDR, which allows it to play 4K High Dynamic Range content made for 4K UHD TVs. H igh D ynamic R ange (HDR) is the newest performance enhancement feature developed for the latest 4K Ultra HD TVs. HDR provides expanded the Color, Contrast, and Brightness of video content. In order to provide HDR, the iPhone X has the required Digital Cinema DCI-P3 Wide Color Gamut, plus perfect Blacks and an Infinite Contrast Ratio from its OLED display

· Night Shift Mode for Better Night Viewing

The Night Shift mode on the iPhone X is designed to change the color balance of the display in order to reduce the amount of Blue light produced by the display, which some recent research indicates can affect how well users sleep afterwards. In a separate article we explain and analyze the Blue Light issue for displays. The iPhone X includes a user adjustable slider to vary the amount of Blue light produced by the display, and a timer that allows the Night Shift to be turned on and off automatically every day. The measured variation in the display light spectrum with the adjustable Night Shift slider is shown in this Figure and below.

As the Night Shift slider setting is increased, the amount of Blue light emitted by the display decreases. When that happens, White and all screen colors take on an increasing yellowish tint and color cast. At the Middle setting the measured White Color Temperature decreases to 4,200K, and at the Maximum setting it decreases to 2,800K, the Color Temperature of traditional incandescent lighting, which is yellowish. With Night Shift at its Maximum setting, the measured Blue Light component from the iPhone X is reduced by 80 percent. Turning down the screen Brightness will further decrease the amount of Blue Light. The measured display spectra for several of the Night Shift settings are included in this Figure and below.

Display Spectra Click to Enlarge

· True Tone Viewing Mode

The True Tone viewing mode automatically changes the White Point and color balance of the display based on real-time measurements of the ambient light falling on the screen. The idea is to make the display behave more like paper reflecting ambient light and taking on its color. It is implemented with an Ambient Light sensor that measures the Color of the ambient light in addition to its Brightness.

· Super Dim Setting

The iPhone X also has a Super Dim Setting that allows the Maximum Screen Brightness to be set all the way down to just 2 cd/m2 (nits) using the Brightness Slider. This is perfect for night use on a beside table, and useful for working comfortably without eye strain or bothering others in very dark environments, or affecting the eye’s dark adaptation, such as when using a telescope. The display still provides full 24-bit color and the picture quality remains excellent.

· Diamond Sub-Pixels

A high resolution screen shot obtained with an optical microscope camera shows a Diamond shaped layout for the Sub-Pixels on the iPhone X. This Diamond Sub-Pixel layout is used on many OLED displays. On the iPhone X the resulting Sub-Pixel fill factor is much higher than other OLEDs, which is a key factor in providing the much higher full Screen Peak Luminance of over 625 nits.

The Red, Green, and Blue sub-pixels have very different sizes -- Blue is by far the largest because it has the lowest light emission efficiency, and Green is by far the smallest because it has the highest efficiency. The alternating Red and Blue sub-pixel arrangement leads to a 45 degree diagonal symmetry in the sub-pixel layout. This allows vertical, horizontal, and particularly diagonal line segments and vectors to be drawn with reduced aliasing and artifacts. In order to maximize the sub-pixel packing and achieve the highest possible pixels per inch (ppi), that leads to a Diamond rather than Square or Striped arrangement of the Sub-Pixels. It's a form of high-tech display art...

· Display Power Efficiency

While LCDs remain more power efficient for images with mostly full screen white content (like all text screens on a white background, for example), OLEDs are more power efficient for typical mixed image content because they are emissive displays so their power varies with the Average Picture Level (average Brightness) of the image content over the entire screen. For OLEDs, Black pixels and sub-pixels don’t use any power so screens with Black or dark backgrounds are very power efficient for OLEDs. For LCDs the display power is fixed and independent of image content. Currently, OLED displays are more power efficient than LCDs for Average Pictures Levels of 65 percent or less, and LCDs are more power efficient for Average Picture Levels above 65 percent. Since both technologies are continuing to improve their power efficiencies, the crossover will continue to change with time. See the Display Power section for the measurements and details.

· Viewing Angle Performance

While Smartphones are primarily single viewer devices, the variation in display performance with viewing angle is still very important because single viewers frequently hold the display at a variety of viewing angles. The angle is often up to 30 degrees, more if it is resting on a table or desk. While LCDs typically experience a 55 percent or greater decrease in Brightness at a 30 degree Viewing Angle, the OLED iPhone X display shows a much smaller 22 percent decrease in Brightness at 30 degrees. This also applies to multiple side-by-side viewers as well, and is a significant advantage of OLED displays. The Color Shifts with Viewing Angle are also relatively small. See the Viewing Angles section for the measurements and details.

· Viewing Tests

The iPhone X provides very nice, pleasing and very accurate colors and picture quality. Although the Image Contrast is slightly too high (due to a slightly too steep Intensity Scale), the very challenging set of DisplayMate Test and Calibration Photos that we use to evaluate picture quality looked absolutely stunning and Beautiful, even to my experienced hyper-critical eyes.

The iPhone X excels due to its record Absolute Color Accuracy (1.0 JNCD), which is Visually Indistinguishable from Perfect, and is very likely considerably better than any mobile display, monitor, TV or UHD TV that you have. So photos, videos, and online content and merchandise will appear correct and beautiful. See the Color Accuracy Figures and the Colors and Intensities section for quantitative details.

· Display Related Enhancements

· The iPhone X is IP67 water resistant in up to 1 meter (3 feet) of water for up to half an hour, which means you can comfortably view the display in typical wet indoor and outdoor conditions – even carefully use it in a tub or shower, and it should be fine if you accidentally drop it in a sink or toilet.

· The iPhone X can be used with Polarized Sunglasses in both the Portrait and Landscape orientations unlike many LCDs, which generally work in only one of the two orientations.

· The iPhone X Cover Glass is 50% stronger compared to iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, which provides higher resistance to breakage.

iPhone X Conclusions: A Very Impressive Smartphone Display…

The primary goal of this Display Technology Shoot-Out article series has always been to publicize and promote display excellence so that consumers, journalists and even manufacturers are aware of and appreciate the very best in displays and display technology. We point out which manufactures and display technologies are leading and advancing the state-of-the-art for displays by performing comprehensive and objective scientific Lab tests and measurements together with in-depth analysis. We point out who is leading, who is behind, who is improving, and sometimes (unfortunately) who is back pedaling… all based solely on the extensive objective careful Lab measurements that we also publish, so that everyone can judge the data for themselves as well…

The Best Smartphone Display

· The iPhone X is the most innovative and high performance Smartphone display that we have ever tested.

· First we need to congratulate Samsung Display for developing and manufacturing the outstanding OLED display hardware in the iPhone X.

· But what makes the iPhone X the Best Smartphone Display is the impressive Precision Display Calibration that Apple developed that transforms the OLED hardware into a superbly accurate, high performance, and gorgeous display!!

See the Display Shoot-Out Comparison Table section below for the complete DisplayMate Lab measurements and test details.

See the Highlights and Performance Results section above for a detailed overview with expanded discussions and explanations.

See the Display Assessments section for the evaluation details.

The iPhone X has the following enhanced state-of-the-art display performance functions and features:

· A state-of-the-art OLED display that is manufactured on a flexible plastic substrate. While the OLED display itself is flexible, the screen remains rigid under an outer hard cover glass.

· A 2.5K High Resolution 2436 x 1125 Full HD+ Display with 458 pixels per inch, and Diamond Sub-Pixels with Sub-Pixel Rendering for enhanced sharpness and higher Peak Brightness.

· A radical new Full Screen design with a larger 5.85 inch OLED display that fills almost the entire front face of the iPhone X from edge-to-edge, providing a significantly larger display for the same phone size.

· A new display form factor with a taller height to width Aspect Ratio of 19.5 : 9 = 2.17, which is 22% larger than the 16 : 9 = 1.78 on most Smartphones (and widescreen TVs) because the display now has the same overall shape as the entire phone. It is taller in Portrait mode and wider in Landscape mode.

· A record high Full Screen Brightness for OLED Smartphones of 634 nits, which improves screen visibility in high Ambient Light. The Samsung Galaxy Note8 can produce up to 1,240 nits, but only for small portions of the screen area (Low Average Picture Levels) – for Full Screen the Note8 can produce up to 423 nits with Manual Brightness and 560 nits with Automatic Brightness only in High Ambient Light. For small portions of the screen area the iPhone X can produce up to 809 nits (Low Average Picture Levels). On its Home Screen the iPhone X produces an impressively bright 726 nits.

· The Highest Absolute Color Accuracy of any display we have ever tested, 0.9 JNCD (from Smartphones to TVs) based on our extensive Lab Measurements, which is Visually Indistinguishable From Perfect.

· 2 Industry Standard Color Gamuts: the sRGB / Rec.709 Color Gamut that is used for most current consumer content, and the new Wide DCI-P3 Color Gamut that is used in 4K Ultra HD TVs. The DCI-P3 Gamut is 26 percent larger than the sRGB / Rec.709 Gamut.

· Automatic Color Management that automatically switches to the proper Color Gamut for any displayed image content within the Wide DCI-P3 Color Space that has an ICC Profile, so images automatically appear with the correct colors, neither being over-saturated or under-saturated.

· The iPhone X supports Mobile HDR, which allows the iPhone X to play 4K High Dynamic Range content produced for 4K UHD TVs.

· A Night Shift Mode that allows the user to adjust and reduce the amount of Blue Light from the display for better night viewing and improved sleep.

· A True Tone viewing mode that automatically changes the White Point and color balance of the display based on real-time measurements of the ambient light falling on the screen to make the display behave more like paper reflecting ambient light and taking on its color.

· Small Color Shifts and Brightness Shifts with Viewing Angle.

· The iPhone X can be used with Polarized Sunglasses in both the Portrait and Landscape orientations unlike many LCDs, which generally work in only one of the two orientations.

The iPhone X matches or sets new Smartphone display performance records for:

· Highest Absolute Color Accuracy for any display (0.9 JNCD) which is Visually Indistinguishable From Perfect.

· Highest Full Screen Brightness for OLED Smartphones (634 nits).

· Highest Full Screen Contrast Rating in Ambient Light (141).

· Highest Contrast Ratio (Infinite).

· Lowest Screen Reflectance (4.5 percent).

· Smallest Brightness Variation with Viewing Angle (22 percent).

The Best Smartphone Display

The iPhone X delivers uniformly consistent all around Top Tier display performance and receives All Green (Very Good to Excellent) Ratings in all of the DisplayMate Lab test and measurement Categories (except for a single Yellow in Brightness Variation with Average Picture Level that applies to all OLED displays). See the Display Shoot-Out Comparison Table below for all of the measurements and details, and the Highlights and Performance Results section above for expanded discussions and explanations, and the Display Assessments section for the evaluation details.

Based on our extensive lab tests and measurements the iPhone X becomes the Best Performing Smartphone Display that we have ever tested, earning DisplayMate’s highest ever A+ grade. The iPhone X is an impressive display with close to Text Book Perfect Calibration and Performance!!

Improving the Next Generation of Mobile Displays

The iPhone X has a very high resolution 2.5K 2436x1125 pixel display with 458 pixels per inch (ppi) producing images that look perfectly sharp with normal 20/20 Vision under all normal viewing conditions, which always includes some ambient light that always lowers the visible image contrast and perceived image sharpness (Modulation Transfer MTF). Note that displays are almost never viewed in absolute darkness under perfect viewing conditions with ideal image content. Some clueless reviewers have been pining for 4K 3840x2160 Smartphones, which would require more than triple the pixels, memory, and processing power of the 2436x1125 display on the iPhone X, but there would be no visual benefit for humans! As a result, it is absolutely pointless to further increase the display resolution and pixels per inch (ppi) for a marketing wild goose chase into the stratosphere, with no visual benefit for humans!

With screen size and resolution already functionally maxed out, manufacturers should instead dedicate their efforts and resources into improving real world display performance in ambient light by using advanced technology to restore and compensate for the loss of color gamut, color saturation, and image contrast due to ambient light, something that every consumer will benefit from, and will also immediately notice and appreciate – providing a true sales and marketing advantage…

The most important improvements for OLED and LCD mobile displays will come from improving their image and picture quality and screen readability in real world ambient light, which washes out the screen images, resulting in reduced image contrast, color saturation, and color accuracy. The key will be in lowering the Screen Reflectance and implementing Dynamic Color Management with automatic real-time modification of the display’s native Color Gamut and Dynamic Intensity Scales based on the measured Ambient Light level in order to have them compensate for the reflected light glare and image wash out that causes a loss of color saturation and image contrast from ambient light as discussed in our Innovative Displays and Display Technology and SID Display Technology Shoot-Out articles.

In our High Picture Quality in Real World Ambient Lighting article we demonstrate that a major advantage of using Dynamic Color Management and Dynamic Intensity Scales rather than the current brute force method of just increasing the Picture Brightness in ambient light is that it can produce the same vibrant on-screen colors in ambient light with 75 percent less display power up through 2,000 lux, which is very important for TV energy efficiency, and also very important for Smartphones because they depend on limited battery power.

The displays, technologies, and manufacturers that succeed in implementing this new real world high ambient light performance strategy will take the lead in the next generations of mobile displays… Follow DisplayMate on Twitter to learn about these developments and our upcoming display technology coverage.

DisplayMate Display Optimization Technology

All Smartphone, Tablet, Monitor and TV displays can be significantly improved using DisplayMate’s proprietary very advanced scientific analysis and mathematical display modeling and optimization of the display hardware, factory calibration, and driver parameters. We help manufacturers with expert display procurement, prototype development, display performance improvement and optimization, testing displays to meet contract specifications, and production quality control so that they don’t make mistakes similar to those that are exposed in our public Display Technology Shoot-Out series for consumers. This article is a lite version of our advanced scientific analysis – before the benefits of our DisplayMate Display Optimization Technology, which can correct or improve all of these issues. If you are a display or product manufacturer and want to significantly improve display performance for a competitive advantage then Contact DisplayMate Technologies.

iPhone X

Display Shoot-Out Comparison Table

Below we examine in-depth the OLED display on the Apple iPhone X based on objective Lab measurement data and criteria

in the following sections: Display Specifications, Overall Assessments, Screen Reflections, Brightness and Contrast,

Colors and Intensities, Viewing Angles, OLED Spectra, Display Power.

For additional background information see this earlier article covering the Flagship OLED 2017 Smartphones.

Detailed Test and Measurement Comparisons between the iPhone X, the Galaxy Note8, and the iPhone 7 Displays

You can directly compare the data and measurement results for the iPhone X with the Galaxy Note8 and iPhone 7 displays

in detail by using a Tabbed web browser with our comprehensive Lab measurements and analysis for each of the displays.

For each Tab click on a Link below. The entries are mostly identical with only minor formatting differences,

so it is easy to make detailed side-by-side comparisons by simply clicking through the Tabs.

Apple iPhone X Lab Measurements Comparison Table

Samsung Galaxy Note8 Lab Measurements Comparison Table

Apple iPhone 7 Lab Measurements Comparison Table

For comparisons with the other leading Smartphone, Tablet, and Smart Watch displays see our Mobile Display Technology Shoot-Out series.

About the Author

Dr. Raymond Soneira is President of DisplayMate Technologies Corporation of Amherst, New Hampshire, which produces display calibration, evaluation, and diagnostic products for consumers, technicians, and manufacturers. See www.displaymate.com. He is a research scientist with a career that spans physics, computer science, and television system design. Dr. Soneira obtained his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from Princeton University, spent 5 years as a Long-Term Member of the world famous Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, another 5 years as a Principal Investigator in the Computer Systems Research Laboratory at AT&T Bell Laboratories, and has also designed, tested, and installed color television broadcast equipment for the CBS Television Network Engineering and Development Department. He has authored over 35 research articles in scientific journals in physics and computer science, including Scientific American. If you have any comments or questions about the article, you can contact him at dtso.info@displaymate.com.

DisplayMate Display Optimization Technology

All Smartphone, Tablet, Monitor and TV displays can be significantly improved using DisplayMate’s proprietary very advanced scientific analysis and mathematical display modeling and optimization of the display hardware, factory calibration, and driver parameters. We help manufacturers with expert display procurement, prototype development, display performance improvement and optimization, testing displays to meet contract specifications, and production quality control so that they don’t make mistakes similar to those that are exposed in our public Display Technology Shoot-Out series for consumers. This article is a lite version of our advanced scientific analysis – before the benefits of our DisplayMate Display Optimization Technology, which can correct or improve all of these issues. If you are a display or product manufacturer and want to significantly improve display performance for a competitive advantage then Contact DisplayMate Technologies.

About DisplayMate Technologies

DisplayMate Technologies specializes in proprietary advanced scientific display calibration and mathematical display optimization to deliver unsurpassed objective performance, picture quality and accuracy for all types of displays including video and computer monitors, projectors, TVs, mobile displays such as Smartphones and Tablets, and all display technologies including LCD, OLED, 3D, LED, LCoS, Plasma, DLP and CRT. This article is a lite version of our intensive scientific analysis of Smartphone and Smartphone mobile displays – before the benefits of our advanced mathematical DisplayMate Display Optimization Technology, which can correct or improve many of the display deficiencies. We offer DisplayMate display calibration software for consumers and advanced DisplayMate display diagnostic and calibration software for technicians and test labs.

For manufacturers we offer Consulting Services that include advanced Lab testing and evaluations, confidential Shoot-Outs with competing products, calibration and optimization for displays, cameras and their User Interface, plus on-site and factory visits. We help manufacturers with expert display procurement, prototype development, and production quality control so they don’t make mistakes similar to those that are exposed in our Display Technology Shoot-Out series. See our world renown Display Technology Shoot-Out public article series for an introduction and preview. DisplayMate’s advanced scientific optimizations can make lower cost panels look as good or better than more expensive higher performance displays. If you are a display or product manufacturer and want to turn your display into a spectacular one to surpass your competition then Contact DisplayMate Technologies to learn more.

Article Links: Apple iPhone 7 LCD Display Technology Shoot-Out

Article Links: Samsung Galaxy Note8 OLED Display Technology Shoot-Out

Article Links: Display Color Gamuts Shoot-Out NTSC to Rec.2020

Article Links: Absolute Color Accuracy Display Technology Shoot-Out

Article Links: Watching Displays at Night

Article Links: Display Technology Shoot-Out Article Series Overview and Home Page

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