LCD vs AMOLED, the battle of the screens

The screen of our smartphone has changed a lot in the last 10 years. Its evolution has been spectacular and we have gone from very small panels with low resolution to smartphones with virtually frameless screens, with a very high quality and that look spectacular.

At the same time, progress has been made in panel technologies to offer us a better experience, the panels being LCD and AMOLED the two main screen technologies that we find in these devices today, with their differences, advantages and not so strong points.

The different types of panels

The essential basis of AMOLED displays, which stands for Active Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode, is that this panel is made up of a matrix of organic diodes that emit light independently. On the other hand, in LCD (Liquid-Crystal Display) screens, the liquid crystal panel is fully illuminated with a backlight.

For years and until now, many smartphone manufacturers have opted for panels IPS LCD, which were introduced to improve the shortcomings of the old TFT LCDs. In addition, the “veteran” of LCD screens also translates into lower manufacturing costs, which also affects us users with more adjusted prices for our next smartphone.

Color reproduction

The section on how smartphone screens show colors is very important. For example, it is useless to make and edit a photograph that on our mobile looks spectacular and super striking, if when we share it or print it in a physical format, it does not look at all like how we had really left it.

In the color fidelity section, AMOLED panels tend to have high contrast and deep blacks, more striking to our eyes, but sometimes those colors do not correspond to reality.

On the other hand, this is one of the great advantages of IPS LCD panels. They have the best color reproduction, so the images and videos shown are as they should be. The chromatic range is wider, with bright, clear and very defined colors.

In the section of brightness LCD panels also take the point, which are capable of reaching higher peak brightness than AMOLED screens. The full backlighting of the LCD panel allows a greater intensityWhat does this translate to for us? In better visibility when lighting conditions are difficult, such as when using the smartphone in broad daylight, outdoors.

All this, together with the better response times and fluency (now that 120Hz is on the rise in smartphones), along with the power consumption and the better viewing angles of LCD screens, ensure that we will continue to see them for a long time in terminals of all kinds.

The LCD vs AMOLED entry, the battle of the screens appears first in The Free Android.