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Gizmodo rips the Tab

http://gizmodo.com/5686161/samsung-galaxy-tab-review-a-pocketable-train-wreck
Apologies if this is a repost -- searched, and didn't find this reference.
Scathing review by Gizmodo. Judging by their review (and much of it is simply fact-based, not spin -- for example the issues with Swype), I'd never go near this thing.
Basically, it sounds like the Galaxy S phone ROM put on the Tab. I.e., everything designed for the phone screen size simply on a larger screen, with a few exceptions.
What a disaster of an idea. Many things that work with the finger interface on a 3.7" screen become impossible to "thumb-swipe", or become annoying to finger-swype with any finger when it is simply larger. Swype seems to be a poster-child for this.
I agree that this idea of Samsung's to "tween" a tablet between a phone and the iPad was an idiotic idea. Gizmodo makes the point that a Tablet is all about size, not compactness. That's the point. You want something compact, you get a smartphone on steroids, like the Epic. You buy a tablet to supplement a phone, not replace it. It replaces books, notepads, folios, etc. -- not your phone.
Samsung, are you listening? Here's the ultimate tablet, better than the iPad: Same size or even a little bigger than the iPad screen, higher resolution. Linux/Android OS, redesigned (as well as apps) from the ground up for the larger screen experience, not simply scaled up because they're on a larger screen.
And here's the key, something that's been a complete mystery to me about cell phones, the only explanation I can think of is cost: An LCD screen using the same technology Garmin uses for their Vista Cx handheld GPS.
This technology is the absolute best, most versatile, most readable color screen technology that I have ever encountered, anywhere. It is like a kindle -- except in color -- in direct sunlight... the brighter the incident light on the screen, the sharper and brighter the display. In darker environments, the adjustable backlight produces just as awesome results.
I don't know how this LCD display is constructed, but it accomplishes well the task of reflecting back through the display incident light, as well as allowing backlighting to achieve the same effect.
It's amazing. White is bright and very white in sunlight.
Probably quite expensive. Is it justified for a phone? While we'd probably all have a technogasm to have such a phone, I can see that it probably isn't justified from a cost perspective and whatever market analysis they've done.
A tablet is a very different proposition. It needs to be used in the same environments as a Kindle and that where a self-lit laptop would be. The perfect display tech is what I describe above. Even Apple is moronic not to incur the extra cost for this, maybe in a high-end model, and charge the extra $100 or so for it. Then market the hell out of the feature.
I believe they'd make a killing.
So, back to the thread topic, I can stomach an iPad, given all the objectionable aspects to it (iOS being enough). However, looks like it'll be a year or two wait before someone really does an Android tab even close to right, and it won't be Samsung, their software arm being such an incompetent bunch of Keystone Cops (like we didn't know that already).
And, I have no hope of my display technology wet dream. But I needed to get it off my chest.

Xoom text quality

I have a 1st gen iPad that i was planning on returning and getting an iPad 2 for, but now I've been seriously considering the xoom. One of my main complaints with the ipad is the soft text it has in the browser because of the lack of sub pixel rendering that computers have. I just wanted to know how the text looks cause I really want the wifi xoom now

In my opinion, the text on the xoom is crisp, clear and perfect quality

double post oops

former ipad1 user here.
with the xoom, you can tell the text is crisper from the naked eye alone. 1280 x 800 > 1024 x 768
that being said though, the ipad1 IPS display is of higher quality (better colors, black levels, viewing angles) than the xoom's TFT-LCD display.
however, I did find the xoom's display easier to read under heavy light (outdoors) than the iPad1.
some ipad2's are suffering from some backlight bleeding. I noticed this as well with my iPad1, when using a dark background. as of yet, i have not noticed this issue on the xoom.

I'm not 100% sure on that, but Honeycomb text antialiasing seems to be the same as what you see on a typical Linux desktop - it looks like they're just using FreeType as is? So, in terms of text sharpness, it's slightly worse than Windows ClearType, but much better than OS X / iOS. That said, stock Android font is very well designed, and seems to be tailored for the smoothing algorithm that they use, so legiblity is very good.
Also not that subpixel antialiasing is not as helpful on tablets, because it only gives noticeable improvement when text direction is aligned with subpixel orientation (i.e. subpixels are horizontally arranged as in R-G-B, and so is the text). When you rotate your tablet to put it into portrait mode, subpixel antialiasing would only work vertically, which is much less important than horizontal for text legibility. I don't think Honeycomb uses it, in fact - I don't see the tell-tale color halo around letter edges.
You can find plenty Xoom screenshots by searching for "xoom screenshot" and restricting size to 1280x800 - do that, and judge for yourself.

aohus said:
that being said though, the ipad1 IPS display is of higher quality (better colors, black levels, viewing angles) than the xoom's TFT-LCD display.
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IPS display is also a TFT-LCD display like every LCD out there. Xoom is not IPS though - it's TN, MVA or PVA or something.

I have the Kindle app on both and I see a noticeable different in text with the Xoom being much better.

Screen Comparisons: Contrast Ratio

I've been trying to understand the relative differences between the IPS displays used in the IPAD 2 and the Transformer, the Super PLS display of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the TFT used in the XOOM. I settled on contrast ratio as an objective means of comparison.
Article 1 XOOM: 750
Article 2 XOOM: 597!
iPad 2: 775
Galaxy Tab 10.1: 830
Transformer: 763
Article Quote: "Contrast ratio is also better on the Galaxy Tab 10.1: 830:1 vs 763:1 on the Eee Pad Transformer."
What surprises me the most out of all this, besides the XOOM discrepancies , is that the contrast of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 display is not as incredible as we were lead to believe. It compares favorably with IPS, but isn't really leaps and bounds better. In fact, it might have equivalent or slightly lower contrast than an IPS display, or conventional display but better viewing angles.
Interesting quote: "On the other hand IPS (and PLS) has significantly lower contrast ratios compared to the best VA based panels that Samsung and other manufacturers have used in high-end phones for years."
Side note is that the multiple contrast ratios for the XOOM screen might reflect the multiple screen sources/manufacturers that were used in different XOOMs.
Sources:
http://galaxytablife.com/2011/06/eee-pad-transformer-vs-galaxy-tab-10-1-comparison/
http://www.tabletreaderinfo.com/content/Motorola-Xoom-Tablet-Review/Screen.htm
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4191/motorola-xoom-review-first-honeycomb-tablet-arrives/2
http://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1291980086

The most important things to me on a tablet screen:
1. Color reproduction. Is it uniform and even? This leads me to
2. Viewing angles, top, bottom, left and right. Does the screen stay relatively sharp or does the image dissolve/wash out?
3. No back-light bleed. This is inexcusable regardless of the lectures people spout out about it being inherent to the technology. It's not when the product is designed correctly.
The panel in the GTab 10.1 is beautiful. It meets my criteria where the xoom failed on all of them and the iPad failed miserably on back-light bleed.
Contrast ratio to me is just a number. I have tolerances for all my electronics devices and to me, the panel on the Samsung is the clear winner in the tablet race. Let's hope the build quality follows suit. I'm already starting to get annoyed at how long a full charge takes.

The screen looks amazing! The only thing I noticed is that the screen calibration is a
little bit oversaturated. I'm planning on using mine as a photography/design portfolio and have noticed color shift when compared to my calibrated monitor.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using XDA Premium App

I had Xooms (with both screen versions Auo and Sharp), an I pad and now a Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the screen on my tab is far and awy better than all of them.
The Xoom has 2 screen fkavors, Sharp and Auo optronics. the screen mfg by Sharp had much better color saturation and better contrast, but unfortunately for me, a ton of light bleed due to a defect in the panel.
Specs only tell part of the story.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk

lordwinkevin said:
The screen looks amazing! The only thing I noticed is that the screen calibration is a
little bit oversaturated. I'm planning on using mine as a photography/design portfolio and have noticed color shift when compared to my calibrated monitor.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When Samsung releases the kernel source, supercurio can start developing his Voodoo Sound and Screen tweaks for the SGT 10.1, which will make color reproduction much more realistic.

I'm new with android and this is awesome to hear. I also own the iPad 2 and Datacolor made an in app color calibrated picture viewer called SpyderGallery but an overall screen color calibration would be awesome!
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

matt310 said:
The most important things to me on a tablet screen:
1. Color reproduction. Is it uniform and even? This leads me to
2. Viewing angles, top, bottom, left and right. Does the screen stay relatively sharp or does the image dissolve/wash out?
3. No back-light bleed. This is inexcusable regardless of the lectures people spout out about it being inherent to the technology. It's not when the product is designed correctly.
The panel in the GTab 10.1 is beautiful. It meets my criteria where the xoom failed on all of them and the iPad failed miserably on back-light bleed.
Contrast ratio to me is just a number. I have tolerances for all my electronics devices and to me, the panel on the Samsung is the clear winner in the tablet race. Let's hope the build quality follows suit. I'm already starting to get annoyed at how long a full charge takes.
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I threw these numbers out there because, so far, almost all the info on PLS panels used in the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been primarily subjective. Its totally new technology.
However, recently, Samsung has started to develop the PLS Panels for use in stand-alone computer monitors, and some reviewers are beginning to analyze and reveiw the technology. This is a really interesting article, and "sheds some light" (to make a bad pun) on the PLS panel technology used in the Galaxy Tab 10.1, how it works and some of its pros and cons:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monitors/display/samsung-sa850.html
Remember this is a stand alone PLS monitor, so one would expect its performance would exceed that of an integrated tablet screen, but they found a contrast ration of only 545:1. Thats pretty bad in my opinion. They try to theorize why this occurs:
"The low contrast ratio may be due to the poor uniformity of the backlight. The picture based on the results of my measurements shows a bright spot in the center of the screen, just where I measured the contrast ratio. That spot is not as bright as the bottom left corner, though.
Although the extent of the variation in brightness is exaggerated in the picture for illustrative purposes, the monitor is obviously far from ideal, especially with black. Talking about the exact numbers, the average nonuniformity of brightness for black is 8% whereas the maximum deflection from the base level is as high as 45%! For white, the average and maximum are 3.6% and 8.3%, respectively. It’s hard to say why the monitor is so good with white and so poor with black....."
So, disturbingly, they found the first dedicated PLS prototype monitor to have POOR contrast ratio!! Not what you would expect. They theorize that it might be due to poor backlighting, but it is worrisome.
To summarize what the reviewers found after examining this prototype PLS monitor:
Highs:
•Low response time, good color rendering, excellent viewing angles
•Full coverage of the sRGB color space
Lows
•Low contrast ratio
•Poor uniformity of backlight for black
If this review is accurate, these first panels seem to show that the PLS technology is good, but not great. Its an OK alternative to IPS but really not that stellar in its performance. Its biggest advantage seems to be that it is a cheap alternatative to IPS that has much better viewing angles.
Remember, one of the biggest selling points cited by Samsung was cost! Its cheaper to produce than IPS. That may be a larger motivation to Samsung than increased performance.
Of course, how this translates to the performance of our own toys is debateable, but its something to think about beyond the subjective impressions we have already heard.

That's definitely interesting. Perhaps the larger the panel, the greater the difficulty in achieving a uniform amount of back-light. I have definitely experienced this with clouding and flash-lighting on TV sets (and mainly the reason I switched to plasma - I'd rather roll the dice with image retention than sit and stare at uneven back-lighting during movies)
Have you read about the issues Samsung's having with the panel thickness on the GTab 8.9? There's not much other than a translated-from-Korean report, but it seems the company (and panel suppliers) use a very thin "G1F" touch panel for the 10.1, and may be forced to use a (40%!) thicker application (GFF) for the GTab 8.9 due to either shortages in supply or complications in the manufacturing process.
^I think that bit is a key factor when comparing display performance - anything that sits on top of the actual pixels will contribute to the clarity of the content being displayed. Here's the article: http://tablets-planet.com/2011/06/10/samsung-to-use-lower-quality-dispalys-on-some-galaxy-tab-8-9s/

matt310 said:
That's definitely interesting. Perhaps the larger the panel, the greater the difficulty in achieving a uniform amount of back-light. I have definitely experienced this with clouding and flash-lighting on TV sets (and mainly the reason I switched to plasma - I'd rather roll the dice with image retention than sit and stare at uneven back-lighting during movies)
Have you read about the issues Samsung's having with the panel thickness on the GTab 8.9? There's not much other than a translated-from-Korean report, but it seems the company (and panel suppliers) use a very thin "G1F" touch panel for the 10.1, and may be forced to use a (40%!) thicker application (GFF) for the GTab 8.9 due to either shortages in supply or complications in the manufacturing process.
^I think that bit is a key factor when comparing display performance - anything that sits on top of the actual pixels will contribute to the clarity of the content being displayed. Here's the article: http://tablets-planet.com/2011/06/10/samsung-to-use-lower-quality-dispalys-on-some-galaxy-tab-8-9s/
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Thanks. Very interesting article. Especially considering that there has been a lot of talk about the quality control of the existing 10.1 panels. There have been threads about moisture under the screen, dust under the screen, lots of people with dead pixels. Haven't encountered nearly so many screen anomalies in other device forums. Wonder if that's the reason the GTAB 10.1 is so scarce in many places. Perhaps there are problems producing the 10.1 screens.
Oh and I went Plasma for all my TV's as well for the same reason, in addition to the faster response time. Even my video gaming TV is a Plasma. And I have never had a single problem with image retention.
Edit: Looks like another website has an article about the screen supply problem, only this time relating specifically to the GTAB 10.1. They speculate on a change in GTAB thickness if they can't make enough of the screens.
http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-galaxy-tab-10-1-to-be-thicker-than-ipad-2-due-to-supply-shortage-10158766/
Maybe soon there will be THREE versions of the GTAB 10.1: The 10.1, the 10.1v and the 10.1 series 2 extra thick!

I just found dust on my screen. Its definitely behind the glass panel.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Slashgear is rife with editorial errors. that article misquotes the one I linked earlier. They even have published content that indicates it's the 8.9 and not the 10.1 affected but the different panel thickness:
http://www.slashgear.com/galaxy-tab...tter-screen-in-some-areas-at-launch-10158611/
Either way, I doubt the US will see the thicker screen - they continued shipping AMOLED phone displays here despite a worldwide shortage, causing many other markets to receive Super LCD screens instead.

Defective screen, ghost image.

Hello.
I wanted to share my experience... I love my Kindle Fire. It's an awesome little device. Even not taking into account the ridiculous price ^^
I love gaming in it, browsing, and fiddling with customization stuff in ADW Launcher EX.
But I noticed shortly after I received it that the screen was kind of funky. After displaying a still graphic or text for a couple of minutes, the image becomes "burned" in the screen around all borders, about half an inch into the screen. It is most noticeable by switching to a flat neutral color... The easiest way to check it is by bringing down the notifications overlay, which has a gray background. At first I thought that the notifications tray was kind of transparent, but that is not the case.
My 2 brothers also bought Kindle Fires, so I compared mine to theirs and found out that my screen is completely different. Colors are more greenish, and it seems brighter when looking at it perpendicularly. However, when looking at it at an angle, it loses a lot of brightness, which the other screens did not.
So I contacted Amazon tech support, and after doing just a cold reboot, they sent me a replacement kindle fire (which i'm currently waiting on)...
This leads me to think that this is a known issue. Maybe Amazon has 2 different screen suppliers, and one of them is of crappy quality. I recommend checking your screen against another KF, or at least checking to see if it has the "burned image" problem... You can do so by displaying a webpage, preferably white bg and black text, for 5 minutes still. Then bring down the notifications tray. If you see the "ghost" of the letters and graphics, then your screen is like mine and you should ask amazon for a replacement device.
Hope this helps someone!
Cheers.

haha damn... I was so sure there were no other threads about this. Not even google brought up any other posts talking about this. Still, more info on the topic is better, right? ^^ Sorry!

jedivulcan said:
Absolutely. No worries. I couldn't find but maybe one or two posts on it either using Google.
I threw our the other forum link because there's a few pictures and a link to Amazon'sessage boards with customers that have similar issues.
I went "OOO" when I saw your post though because the observations about the Kindle were similar to mine.
It's either multiple component suppliers or really bad QC or a combination of the two. I returned both of my Kindles and might wait it out for something else.
I hate LCD display raffles. The odds of getting two that are completely different ones seem pretty high or it's an extreme coincidence.
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Yeah, it's really annoying to get a bad LCD... It has happened to me with Dell laptops, but never with mobile devices.
My particular issues with the Kindle don't seem to be exactly the same as other people, since they only get dead pixels, light bleed or weird color temps. None (that I know of) have noticed image ghosting or poor viewing angles on their devices. Maybe this thread can work as a warning to check for these particular signs so you can see if you got an inferior LCD panel in your kindle.
I really like this device, kudos to Amazon for introducing a whole new price point for android tablets... But they should continue to acknowledge and take responsibility for poor quality items. And people should be aware of the issue so they can ask for a refund or replacement unit.

However, when looking at it at an angle, it loses a lot of brightness, which the other screens did not.
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Definitively sounds like a bad screen. IPS display panels (which kindles are supposed to have), should have a near 180 degree viewing angle without loss of image. That sounds more like what you get with a TN panel (what cheaper displays [sub 300-400 dollars in terms of desktop displays] typically use). Either the IPS display was damaged somehow in the process of making it or they stuck the wrong kind of panel on it.
IPS displays are also exceptionally bright. If any of you are experience "too much" light bleed all the time then that is generally not a defect. Read on:
Light bleed around the edges is typical for IPS displays (which nearly all tablets, touchscreen phones (minus the OLED ones like samsung's) and high end desktop/laptop displays are). The solution is basically turn down the brightness (because IPS monitors are also exceptionally bright). I have 3 IPS desktop monitors (HP2475 and 2 HP2335) and 2 IPS tablets (HP touchpads) and one phone and the brightness on all are around 30-35%.
Even ipads have the issue, because they too, are IPS displays (and so are iphones). Just random information..."retina" is just a fancy marketing buzzword for "high resolution IPS display."
Light bleed tends to obviously be more noticeable on dark backgrounds such as black. If it's really noticeable, your display is most likely too bright.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPS_panel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_crystal_display#In-plane_switching_.28IPS.29
The kindle fire uses LG displays, (same supplier to many HP products, Apple, HTC and others). That should be a good thing, but defects do happen. Just another random fact...there's only a handful of IPS display panel manufacturers (LG, Sony/Samsung [a partnership], a few chinese outfits and maybe another Japanese one). Reason being the cost to make them mostly. Most monitors are just displays from those companies re-branded and wrapped in a monitor shell.
The single most expensive subsystem in the Kindle Fire is the display and touch screen, at a combined cost of $87.00, or 46.9 percent of the BOM. Amazon sources the display from two companies: LG Display and E Ink Holdings. The display uses E Ink’s FFS technology, which LG Display has licensed.
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2019 Tab A 10.1 display

The Samsung website says it is TFT, but several reviews from earlier this year say it is IPS. Which is it ?

IPS is a type of TFT, so it's both.

Well, ah, sort a ...
From ASUS Zen Talk
IPS stands for In-Plane Switching and it is a further improvement on TFT LCDs. The way the crystals are electrically excited on them is different and the orientation of the crystal array is rotated. This orientation change improves viewing angles, contrast ratio and color reproduction. Energy consumption is also reduced compared to TFT LCDs. Because IPS LCDs tend to be better than TFT LCDs, they are also more expensive when put on a smartphone (or tablet).
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From my own personal observations, IPS tends to be brighter and sharper. It biggest benefite is the vastly improved viewing angle with no color shift. This may not be an issue for phones and tablets, but it is HUGE for large screens used by artists and photographers.
Why wouldn't Samsung advertise this when their main low end competition, Amazon Fire HD 10, makes a big deal about ?