While we really like the AMOLED+ display for its deep blacks, it also has major flaws:
- Severe black crush (loss of shadow details in dark scenes) when power saving is disengaged (which is the only way to obtain decent brightness)
- Greenish white, which becomes bluish after a few weeks of operation
- Oversaturated greens
- Loss of brightness after a few weeks of use
- Yellowish areas on the screen produced by the deterioration of AMOLED cells through heat, particularly prominent for gamers and overclockers
I wanted to run a few measurements to better understand what could be done at the software level to alleviate those issues. I am listing my findings below, following which I make a few recommendations to Samung, developers and users of the SGSII.
Findings
1. The maximum light outout with "Auto Adjust Screen Power" is limited
Note that the "Auto Adjust Screen Power" option is different to the automatic "auto-brightness" option. All measurements were made with auto-brightness deactivated and maximum brightness.
After measurements the results are as follows:
- Film Mode: 147cd/m²
- Standard Mode:149cd/m²
- Dynamic Mode: 147cd/m²
The lower value in film mode is due to the limitation of green and blue in film mode, which typically produce more luminance.
The lower value in dynamic mode is due to the picture becoming bright too fast above 50% brightness, there is actually white crush happening, as the Power Saving mode is trying to cap power consumption. This is similar to what is observed on a plasma, where Power Consumption is throttled
2. Disengaring the "Auto Adjust Screen Power" option (this is different to the Auto-Brightness option) significantly increases the brightness output
Not many people suspect the impact that "Auto Adjust Screen Power" option has. Engaging that option provides for much higher bighthness (at the expense of battery life):
- Film Mode: 276 cd/m²
- Standard Mode:285 cd/m²
- Dynamic Mode: 283 cd/m²
This is of course is at the expense of battery life but is still useful when trying to read in the sun. Unfortunately, as we will see later, this has a negative impact on shadow details and is not recommended for film viewing.
3. Light output diminishes though intensive use
The measurements after 3 weeks of use consistently show a deterioration of the maximum brightness over time.
Power Saving Engaged:
- Film Mode: 145 cd/m² (-1.4%)
- Standard Mode:147 cd/m² (-1.4%)
- Dynamic Mode: 145 cd/m² (-1.4%)
Power Saving Disabled:
- Film Mode: 270 cd/m² (-2.2%)
- Standard Mode:278 cd/m² (-2.5%)
- Dynamic Mode: 276 cd/m² (-2.5%)
I will continue to monitor this and post updated results in a few weeks.
4. The white balance exhibits a green push, which progressively becomes more bluish over time
I remember finding the whites greenish when I first got the phone. After 3 weeks, I wasn't bothered that much, they looked more neutral to me. I decided to test again after 3 weeks of use. The results confirmed by observations:
- Color temperature shifted after 3 weeks of use, with the proportion of blue increasing at the expense of green
- The color space after 3 weeks displays less saturated green
White balance at unboxing (green push)
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"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
White balance 3 weeks later (blue push)
3. Standard and Dynamic mode have the same color space. Film mode exhibits less green oversaturation
Dynamic/Standard Color Space:
Film Color Space:
4. Film Mode with engaged Power Saving has the best gamma
The dynamic mode has got a skewed gama with a white crush
Film Mode offers better gamma
Disengaging power saving creates black crush
When power saving mode is disabled, the loss of shadow details in dark video sequences becomes even more prominent:
As an example, I am including the gamma curve for the least faulty Film Mode with Power Saving disengaged. The much increased light output we saw earlier is at the expense of shadow details:
Recommendations to Samsung
The display clearly has a lot of potential:
-True blacks
- Large color space
- Very good maximum light output
- Standard Mode gamma is pretty linear
[/LIST]
Unfortunately, these qualities are poorly exploited:
- Gamma is overall too high at lower stimulas. Black crush is happening in any mode, thought at various degree
- White balance is biased toward green and blue, which leads to very high color temperatue. Whites are greenish on first year, evolving toward bluish with increased use.
- The color space could be toned down further. Even in film mode, the greens are too saturated
What Samsung could easily do:
- Further reduce light output in film mode by removing blue and green - this would allow for a color temperature of 65K
- Correct the gamma issues: a simple gamma control under the screen settings allowing to shift gamma incrementally across the whole bightness spectrum would allow very decent results indeed
- Although this has less of a priority in my book, allow a color space with further reduced green saturation.
Recommendations to Android Developers
Develop an app allowing to control:
- Bightness
- Contrast
- Gamma
- If possible for each individual color channel
Such an app would be beneficial to all smartphones on the market!
Recommendations to users
- Use the film mode when watching videos in order to avoid black crush, oversaturation and high color temperature. It is still far from the film standard, but will yield the best viewing experience
- Do not disable power saving mode or you will experience significant black crush. Only do so when viewing in bright environments where contrast is more important than accurate gamma.
Closing thoughts
It is obvious when looking at the numbers, that Samsung have struggled to throttle power consumption on the Galaxy devices while still maintaining brightness comparable to the iPhone 4:
When users reclaim more brightness by deactivating power saving, they indeed get nice peak brightness, but this is at the expense of the darker areas, which lose shadow details in order to limit power consumption.
Many users would be happy with an inbetween solution, with brighness around 180cd/m² but more accurate gamma
thanks for the post, but what secrets were revealed? Quite possible I am too tired (2 in the morning my time), but I only see thorough measurements here
How do you explain color space change and brightness decrease in the weeks you had the phone? Is this how quick the OLED light output degrades?
kreoXDA said:
thanks for the post, but what secrets were revealed? Quite possible I am too tired (2 in the morning my time), but I only see thorough measurements here
How do you explain color space change and brightness decrease in the weeks you had the phone? Is this how quick the OLED light output degrades?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You ask what secrets were revealed, but then you ask about one of the interesting findings. OLED displays in general are known to degrade over time, as OLED are especially vulnerable to heat.
The degradation you observe is typically more important in the first few weeks of operation, so there is no need to panic. I will continue to monitor this over time and post updated findings.
Why is green most affected? Green is responsible for most of the light output in any display, because it has a high luminance. This is why Samsung's AMOLED exhibits a green push in the white balance, which no other type screen exhibits. Green oversaturation is very hard to compensate with red, and it would likely reduce battery life. You could see green as an economical way of producing more light output at the lowest power consumtion possible.
Balanced greyscale is only achievable if one is prepared to live with a lower maximum brightness on AMOLED's...or insane battery consumption.
I guess, this is the undisclosed truth that Samsung of course will not publicly admit to, but this is what the measurements reveal when you are used to calibrating displays. Basically, Samsung have had to make compromises in terms of white balance and black crush in order to squeeze some extra brightness out of the battery!
I really have no clue what you just wrote in your OP but you seem to know a lot about displays and color. What I do know about the SGS2 is that is shows color banding in gradients maybe you could explain why that happens, is it a characteristic of the display or a software problem?
eg see these threads:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1102766
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1075364
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1121840
godutch said:
I really have no clue what you just wrote in your OP but you seem to know a lot about displays and color. What I do know about the SGS2 is that is shows color banding in gradients maybe you could explain why that happens, is it a characteristic of the display or a software problem?
eg see these threads:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1102766
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1075364
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1121840
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This probably needs to be solved at the driver level, just like the color gamma and white balance issues. This is related and is something that Chainfire could have a look at. That's his domain of expertise after all...
I only calibrate displays. I am totally unskilled as a developer.
Cool so the display is capable of 24 bits color at least?
maybe u can forward this to supercurio. He has some interest as well as experience developing voodoo color for the last gen samsung phones.
MiG123 said:
maybe u can forward this to supercurio. He has some interest as well as experience developing voodoo color for the last gen samsung phones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great idea. I posted to Chainfire already, but Supercurio may actually be an even more natural choice.
This has me worried "Greenish white, which becomes bluish after a few weeks of operation"
Is there a bedding in period for oled when they are new, like a plasma tv , that they say to keep the brightness low and avoid frozen images and logos for the first 100hrs until the phosphor settles down.
Hopefully the degradation of the colours will slow down.
EDIT : Also any owners of previous generation oled mobiles, how much degradation of the colours and brightness do they show after a few months/years.
EDIT 2 : It looks like the "Samsung W2400 Special Edition" from 2007 is one of the first oled cell phones , I wonder how it`s display is holding up.
puremind said:
Great idea. I posted to Chainfire already, but Supercurio may actually be an even more natural choice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is indeed a Supercurio thing
What worries me the most is the left side yellow tint ... and samsung says noting.
I went for S2 because of the SAMOLED+ screen and now I get yellow tint for 600€
Thanks for taking the time to do the testing. I'm used to a calibrated environment (I'm a photographer) and I have to say that I really don't like looking at non-calibrated displays of any kind (usually over saturated, too bright and very obvious colour shifts). If anyone can come up with a way of making proper adjustments to the S2, I would be soooo happy
Nice info. Another dirty secret I'm on the fence about is how power hungry white screens actually ate on amoled screens. Look at the test results I did and how power usage spikes to -900 mA just loading a white web page.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=998544
RogerPodacter said:
Nice info. Another dirty secret I'm on the fence about is how power hungry white screens actually ate on amoled screens. Look at the test results I did and how power usage spikes to -900 mA just loading a white web page.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=998544
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not surprised. This confirms my theory that Samsung indeed hat to fiddle a lot to contain power consumption within acceptable levels, hence the lack of reds across the greyscale, the black crush we observe without screen power auto adjust and the limited brightness output with it engaged...!
Still, I wouldn't mind having a power hungry but accurate color profile that I can engage only as needed! The screen definitely has the potential. The only question is: at what brightness level is a balanced greyscale achievable. I am betting at around 110cd/m². Considering the true blacks this is very acceptable in dark environments (similar to the best plasma screens), but will not be satisfying under day light conditions, which is most of the time...
Still, I wouldn't mind attempting such a calibration providing the right tool is developed.
Tinderbox (UK) said:
This has me worried "Greenish white, which becomes bluish after a few weeks of operation"
Is there a bedding in period for oled when they are new, like a plasma tv , that they say to keep the brightness low and avoid frozen images and logos for the first 100hrs until the phosphor settles down.
Hopefully the degradation of the colours will slow down.
EDIT : Also any owners of previous generation oled mobiles, how much degradation of the colours and brightness do they show after a few months/years.
EDIT 2 : It looks like the "Samsung W2400 Special Edition" from 2007 is one of the first oled cell phones , I wonder how it`s display is holding up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe the degradation is visible after a month-two, we just do not want to believe our eyes.
I think when I first unboxed my phone, it looked so much brighter!
And this is how Samsung is selling us these HyperSuperAMOLED+++ "upgrades" - whenever we look at a new version it is by design looking better than our old previous generation AMOLED
Which firmware did you have in the first test and any firmware changes prior to the last test?
jvidia said:
I went for S2 because of the SAMOLED+ screen and now I get yellow tint for 600€
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
100% same here. Nah, seriously I should've gone for the S-LCD displays. S-AMOLED + is still an unfinished product, under development, unless it comes to the stage of a finished and ready for market product we should avoid it. Thanks to OP for doing some good measurements.
Regards.
kreoXDA said:
I believe the degradation is visible after a month-two, we just do not want to believe our eyes.
I think when I first unboxed my phone, it looked so much brighter!
And this is how Samsung is selling us these HyperSuperAMOLED+++ "upgrades" - whenever we look at a new version it is by design looking better than our old previous generation AMOLED
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's hard for me to judge if i had any screen degradations on my captivate since i had it flashed to a new rom quite often and i never had the screen on high brightness (never felt the need to do so)
kreoXDA said:
I believe the degradation is visible after a month-two, we just do not want to believe our eyes.
I think when I first unboxed my phone, it looked so much brighter!
And this is how Samsung is selling us these HyperSuperAMOLED+++ "upgrades" - whenever we look at a new version it is by design looking better than our old previous generation AMOLED
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Note that not all of the degradation is negative. The alleviates the oversaturated greens, and a bluish greyscale is arguably better than a greenish one.
Also, the brightness is still more than enough and bighter than many laptops even after a few weeks of operation.
I will keep monitoring to see how things develop.
ithehappy said:
100% same here. Nah, seriously I should've gone for the S-LCD displays. S-AMOLED + is still an unfinished product, under development, unless it comes to the stage of a finished and ready for market product we should avoid it. Thanks to OP for doing some good measurements.
Regards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Note that the limitation seems to be the battery rather than the display itself. Also the software is responsible for the presets and lack of controls. When Supercurio comes up with Voodoo for the SGSII, we should be able to rectify most of the issues.
The screen is still excellent for films watched in a dark environment if you keep screen power auto adjust activated.
Bightness can be as bright as on a retina display, yes, but at a high power consumption cost.
Related
Hello.
Anyone else noticed that the display is lower quality than sgs ?
I mean in terms of gamma.
I am a photographer and I was amazed how good the contrast and brightness f the first galaxy was, however this one seems to have way too big contrast, making everythig that is dark much darker, giving a fake and strange appearence.
Also the auto brightness in general is lower than sgs.
Does somebody know if it can be tweaked through a kernel recompile, like sharpness and color in voodoo ?
Go to options-->display-->uncheck automatical screen power adjustme(don't know the exact english term, got it in dutch). I bet it is this again...
Let me know... you're not the first one.
No, it's not that but thanks
It's the actual gamma of the driver I think
However I did notice there is now a "background effects" that can adjust saturation and hue so there is access to the drivers. Maybe a bunch of new effects added there like "classic gamma, normal saturation..."
I came from the captivate, and ran just about every rom that was out there. One of the ubiquitous mods was the color fix. I noticed when I first booted the SGS2 up, the color was off (in relation to my expectations) sure enough in display settings there was an option to change it. Without looking I believe it's called "cinema", which perfectly returned that color richness I loved.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App
there is something wrong with auto brightness , it doesnt work very well , but its not true that SGS 2 has a lower quality display than sgs , Super AMOLED Plus displays are an upgrade to Super AMOLED. They use a real-stripe subpixel matrix and not pentile - and so has 50% more sub-pixels. The PPI is a bit larger but Samsung will soon make them at much higher resolutions. Super AMOLED Plus displays are also thinner, brighter and use 18% less energy than the older Super AMOLED displays.
Today,I was playing around with my Note, still worried about the black clipping and blocky videos changing ROM after ROM and didnt find any solution.
Out of curiosiry, I copied the GammaTest image to my PC, went to my display adapter settings, and cranked up the gamma from 1.0(default) to 1.5-1.9 and guess what?
http://imageupload.org/en/file/235342/gamma-normal.jpg.html
The first image shows the gammatest as it should. Here the computer's default gamma is set to 1
I increased my gamma value to 1.5-1.9 and this is the result.
http://www.imageupload.org/en/file/235344/gammahigh.jpg.html
And when setting the gamma to highier values, play all your test videos and images, there will be clipping and blocky pixellation just like you see on the Note. Try this for yourself on your PC.
This clearly shows that the clipping on the note is a software issue rather than a hardware defect and if we could somehow get to tune the gamma on the note, its the END of all the clipping and the horrible video playback.
A point to note is, when increasing gamma values, the images tend to become artificially bright and on reducing them, they tend to get darker. Maybe this explains why the Note produces the best whites as far as AMOLED displays are concerned and seems to be brighter than all the other Galaxy devices which includes, the Galaxy S, S2 and S3.
So the only and truly effective solution is to find a way to tune gamma values under the MDNIE settings and this should be implemented in a kernel. I've seen none so far which is capable of doing this. All CM9 based ROMS have Gamma control disabled under MDNIE settings. This also explains why the same problems were corrected on the Google Nexus with the LEAN Kernel.
This is definitely a GAMMA issue and definitely Software related.
I may be wrong, please do feel free to correct me if so.
Although I do agree (in my non-expert and in this regard completely worthless opinion) it is probably a software issue, this does not confirm whether our Notes' black crush is caused by software or hardware, or if it is fixable. This only means that you can make your display crappy by cranking up the gamma too high. The same result can be achieved in different ways.
I still dont understand the gamma test picture.. Which numbers should be seen? I see 4 to 21 perfectly and can barely see 3.. Should 2 and 3 be seen too?
Sry if I went off topic..
First of all, the image should be quite dark to see in a lit environment and on an ideally calibrated display, the image show a gradual fade to black. So theoritically speaking, on a good display, the left side is barely visible and is seen as a dark gray fading to black.
On the stock ICS kernels, the image is seen upto 4 and then clips to black. If you enable, Force GPU acceleration, you can see upto 1 which means more clipping. On stock GB, you can see all the way to 1. It varies from kernel to kernel.
We just need some way to access the gamma control under MDNIE settings on the Note which is at present, disabled on the CM9 kernel and is not present on any other kernels either.
When you wrote "CONFIRMED" i thought there was some quote from Samsung saying it was a software issue and they were looking into it
I had mailed GSMArena regarding this issue and even after they published it and many other blogs too, Samsung didnt give a damn about it. So I dont think they do now either. The EMMC Bug is more of a fatal issue and to date, even after announcing that they are "working" on a fix, there are none. People are literally bricking from the latest stock when all the other custom kernels have disabled the MMC_CAP_ERASE value from their kernels. So its better not to rely on Samsung for anything. They just sell their phones and thats it. The Note and everything alike are experimental phones and we are their lab rats. They basically only focus on the flagship Galaxy Phone. read GS3 and new ways to sell it.
satishp said:
We just need some way to access the gamma control under MDNIE settings on the Note which is at present, disabled on the CM9 kernel and is not present on any other kernels either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah because we have a unique display that is different from the I9100/I777 - so display tweaks for those won't work on N7000.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk 2
problem
1) Seriously guys, we have to get to the root of this problem. If we can get to the gamma setting on this display we can solve the problem. But how hard can it be to get there?
2) On the other hand, i think that what you did, was change the gamma on an LCD display. As far as I know there are a lot of diferences between LCD and OLED, appart from the fact that we have a pentile display (2 subpixels per pixel, pixels are in RGBG formation) and the LCD uses 3 subpixels per pixel (RGB).
We should join our forces and start on a mission to solve this issue once and for all.
Regards.
It is DEFINITELY a software issue. Try this out: reboot your phone, and while it is still booting and slowish, quickly start the calculator and see the top of the screen perfect and then, for no apparent reason, it gets some kind of a half-circle color spill. Also, when you open the gallery, find a folder with a stock video clip with jelly fish, and when you open that folder, gallery turns to black, and for a half of second it is perfect and then gets sort of color rendering problem. Final test is to start the camera when the night falls, switch to camcorder (for the smoothness), and just look at the screen, it is perfect, no black clipping, and then, as soon as you take the picture, the picture spoils and you get the black clipping- the live image on the screen while observing is totally normal. So, it is 100% SW issue!
I compared my Note to my friend's SIII and the screen is much darker on S3, and images themselves. So, it IS gamma issue. When you open the front camera on the SIII, in a bit darker environment, and look at yourself, you barely see the shape of your head, since gamma is much lower and it only picks up the bright parts, such as your forehead and cheeks. Also, images appear much MUCH darker on the s3 screen than what you see in reality. That is what samsung did to solve the issue: lowered the gamma.
Hope I gave some useful info (no pressure to hit the thanks button )
Cheers
P.S. please, those of you with good screens, post images here of your good note
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1801333
shatroghistro said:
It is DEFINITELY a software issue. Try this out: reboot your phone, and while it is still booting and slowish, quickly start the calculator and see the top of the screen perfect and then, for no apparent reason, it gets some kind of a half-circle color spill. Also, when you open the gallery, find a folder with a stock video clip with jelly fish, and when you open that folder, gallery turns to black, and for a half of second it is perfect and then gets sort of color rendering problem. Final test is to start the camera when the night falls, switch to camcorder (for the smoothness), and just look at the screen, it is perfect, no black clipping, and then, as soon as you take the picture, the picture spoils and you get the black clipping- the live image on the screen while observing is totally normal. So, it is 100% SW issue!
I compared my Note to my friend's SIII and the screen is much darker on S3, and images themselves. So, it IS gamma issue. When you open the front camera on the SIII, in a bit darker environment, and look at yourself, you barely see the shape of your head, since gamma is much lower and it only picks up the bright parts, such as your forehead and cheeks. Also, images appear much MUCH darker on the s3 screen than what you see in reality. That is what samsung did to solve the issue: lowered the gamma.
Hope I gave some useful info (no pressure to hit the thanks button )
Cheers
P.S. please, those of you with good screens, post images here of your good note
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1801333
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok, it is software. good. let's solve it !
It is not that easy..supercurio worked on it for 6 months and then left us hanging... He is not obliged, though..
We need a kernel which can access the gamma control. That is the only 'real' solution for this issue. You are right about the s3 having lower gamma and hence darker images. I've seen this myself and thats why I mentioned on my post that the Note's screen looks brighter due to the heavily cranked up gamma.
Apparently, this might be an issue with pentile amoled. Lower the gamma and lose pure whites for a clipping free darker image like on the Galaxy S or S3 or crank it up and get "richer" looking colours and whiter whites at the cost of extreme clipping in darker shadows.
This is the root of the cause. Improper gamma. Now only if someone who is experienced in developing Kernels would somehow enable gamma control which is present in the MDNIE settings but strangely disabled due to unknown reasons.
I saw that Liquid Black ROM has Gamma Control but didnt try that ROM yet. I really love the Tablet Mode in the Paranoid ROMS. So I want to stick to it while getting a solution.
I tend to agree with satish, it is then a hardware issue that could be remedied partly at cost other colours. I guess I was wrong, I use to think it was only caused by lower quality images, like watching tv on old crt, then watching same on hdtv, that also looks crap lol.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2
gbb14 said:
1) Seriously guys, we have to get to the root of this problem. If we can get to the gamma setting on this display we can solve the problem. But how hard can it be to get there?
2) On the other hand, i think that what you did, was change the gamma on an LCD display. As far as I know there are a lot of diferences between LCD and OLED, appart from the fact that we have a pentile display (2 subpixels per pixel, pixels are in RGBG formation) and the LCD uses 3 subpixels per pixel (RGB).
We should join our forces and start on a mission to solve this issue once and for all.
Regards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wasn't comparing LCD and OLED. I just wanted to prove the point that it is indeed gamma which is set higher on the Note and it is not a hardware issue. I dont know why no kernel for the Note is able to access the gamma control settings. Maybe like Entropy said, the Note's display panel might be a unique design such that any tweak applied on the display may cause unwanted results. As you all know OLEDs have certain hidden characteristics and its more or less like DNA. Every OLED panel is different. So the manufacturer tunes it into the most optimum settings possible on the particular technology used in the panel. But here, Samsung just did it wrong.
If you have noticed, many custom ROMS offer scaling down the brightness even below the default Samsung values and thats when AMOLED's hidden weaknesses start showing up.
In the end, I feel the only solution to this is a Kernel which enables the Gamma Control or somehow enabling the Gamma Control in CM9 which is currently disabled in most CM9 based ROMS.
baz77 said:
I tend to agree with satish, it is then a hardware issue that could be remedied partly at cost other colours. I guess I was wrong, I use to think it was only caused by lower quality images, like watching tv on old crt, then watching same on hdtv, that also looks crap lol.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not exactly a hardware "issue" but maybe more like a hardware "limitation" of "Pentile" AMOLED. Samsung has hidden this issue in the Original Galaxy S and in the Galaxy S3 by lowering the gamma which results in darker images but "NO" or "Invisible" clipping hence satisfying consumers. Due to the lower Gamma on those phones, darker shadows seem to blend into eachother hence we dont see any clipping as darks are "Dark". And hence, when consumers dont "see" any artefacts, banding or clipping on their videos and images, they are satisfied. But this is at the cost of "dull" whites or artificial whites and lower overall perceived brightness.
As the Note has its Gamma cranked up, White looks white. I may even go forward and say that the Note produces the best whites ever seen on any AMOLED panel. Hence web browsing looks richer, colours look richer and the overall perceived brightness is again higher than other devices, But this again comes at the cost of clipping in darker shadows and hence poor looking videos and images, blocky pixellation,etc
So in the end, everyone is ready to sacrifice their "whites" for a clipping free display. Thats how it works out for consumers. As long as they dont "see" the problem, they believe its not there. So this may be a limitation of "Pentile" AMOLED and lowering the gamma may be Samsung's way of hiding the weakness.
The Galaxy S2 has an overall best screen which I've seen and thats due to the RGB AMOLED Technology. Colours look richer, the percieved brightness is higher and no clipping either. Thereby best of both worlds.
gamma
1) I saw some minor fixes on this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1715416 but nothing really gets deep down to the problem. Those fixes are actually some kind of effects, they aren't so good. They talk there about some kernels that helps the black clipping issue.
2)I have found an apk that is called voodoo display filter, can you check it out? it does seem to enhance the black.
3)As i was playing around with the screen settings on cm9, i noticed that if i set the screen scenario to VT, the mode to MOVIE, and the outdoor mode to ON, i can see down to number 4 on the gamma test image (usually with the default settings i can see everything down to 1).
regards
gbb14 said:
1) I saw some minor fixes on this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1715416 but nothing really gets deep down to the problem. Those fixes are actually some kind of effects, they aren't so good. They talk there about some kernels that helps the black clipping issue.
2)I have found an apk that is called voodoo display filter, can you check it out? it does seem to enhance the black.
3)As i was playing around with the screen settings on cm9, i noticed that if i set the screen scenario to VT, the mode to MOVIE, and the outdoor mode to ON, i can see down to number 4 on the gamma test image (usually with the default settings i can see everything down to 1).
regards
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are talking about the screen adjuster app which in my opinion is neither a fix nor a workaround for the problem. It destroys the blacks and uses the screen out of specification.
I have searched everywhere but couldnt find the apk for vodoo screen tuning. So, couldnt try that.
Anyways, this issue cannot be resolved with an app but only a kernel which supports gamma control.
You can find the app on bazaar android, i think it was made by super mario super curio, or something who used to work on this issue, and had a thread of over 50 pages, until he decided to quit the work because of flamers and stupid people.
I've had some ideas:
Can the devs add some new settings under cm9>settings>advanced>screen>mode ? ooooor instead of bumping the gamma on outdoor mode, to lower it?
regards
Op please change thread title, as it is hardware.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2
Bought the 10...love the way it runs but I bought it to show my photography work on (would use an ipad but I really detest the ios software).
The entire screen seems to be washed out overall with weak black levels and reds in particular are low saturation.
Sharp as a tack for sure....is it just mine? I see such conflicting reports in reviews although I am seeing more now about low saturation and contrast.
Very frustrating....unless someone out there knows some way of calibrating this display which I haven't found?
you are right
i am also a photographer (Canon 5D MkII)
i have watched some photos now(got my N10 yesterday) and as you said the screen is sharp as hell
i have never seen this amount of details with my DSLR photos.
im also doing hardware calibration and i see whats wrong right away and i have also tested it...the problem is that the gamma is to low.
The N10 has a Gamma Level around 1.4 - 1.5 where it should be 2.2!
(yeah that should make some attention hehe)
thats a fact and thats why we have washed out colors and bad contrast
but the good thing is that even at that low gamma we have a decent picture quality with good black levels!
i dont think the black levels on my device is washed out
it shouldnt be this good with this crappy gamma but it is
thats amazing and that tells that this is a quality screen above normal.
with correct gamma at 2.2 this screen will rock for sure.
so lets wait for some kernel guru to make some gamma adjustments
i have said i before that im willing to pay that person that makes gamma adjustment possible for the N10s.
You are correct...gamma is definitely too low.
As far as washed out reds go, I suppose I could process specifically for display on this tablet but that's a pain in the butt.
I wish the darned ipad wasn't such a restrictive ecosystem for the software. The colors rock on the ipad unfortunately but it's just too darned restrictive.
jfenton57 said:
You are correct...gamma is definitely too low.
As far as washed out reds go, I suppose I could process specifically for display on this tablet but that's a pain in the butt.
I wish the darned ipad wasn't such a restrictive ecosystem for the software. The colors rock on the ipad unfortunately but it's just too darned restrictive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im waiting for a i1 Display Pro colormeter
when i get it i will do a hardware calibration.
but i have checked some stuff already and i think that the colors is right for its low gamma.
also the brightness for the colors seems the same for Red/Green/Blue and thats a good thing
also the contrast and black level is reference.
i also think the color temp is close to 6500k
that means that the grayscale is correct.
so the only thing that messes up this display is the low gamma.
(or wrong gamma curve/line)
you have some tests here that you can do without a colormeter,if you want to check it out
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/
also you can download the AVSHD 709 Patterns here.
http://www.avsforum.com/t/948496/avs-hd-709-blu-ray-mp4-calibration
just copy the mp4 files to your N10 and run them.
one note that i can see is that it seems that the gamma is higher at the lower shades
it seems to be around 1.8 there
that could explain why we dont have completely washed out blacks.
but what you want is a plain straight gamma line at 2.2
the N10 seems to have a hill shaped line starting high at lower shades and lower around maximum white.
I have tested the N10 with a Pantone "hocky puck" and can confirm the observations posted above. As compared to overly saturated profiles most normal users are used to, it's no wonder many see the N10 as flat and dull. My N7 is horrible, not only flat but had a color temp that was blueish green.
Much of my publicly displayed work for general web based consumption, has the saturation pumped up farther then I like, but my "fans" (sarc) seem to enjoy my photographs when contrast and saturation is pushed high. Ironically, my over saturated photographs look good to me on the low gamma N10, lol.
Either way, most all of us would benefit from being able to adjust our N10s. As many of you know this is best done at the kernel level and the master of sound and color Samsung kernels is SuperCurio and his project Voodoo. I have heard hearsay that he is working on kernel code and color profiles that can support adjustments for the N10, but I have yet to confirm this myself.
As usual we are given hardware that needs code improvements to be fully realized and that seems to always be done by the development community. It will taken time but I am confident we'll get there to some degree soon.
As far as I could tell there is no gamma correction in the kernel because the Nexus 10 uses a new display port interface thats in the Exynos 5. Most devices I've seen have at least a static gamma table in the kernel but that doesn't appear to be true for the Nexus 10.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk HD
12paq said:
I have heard hearsay that he is working on kernel code and color profiles that can support adjustments for the N10, but I have yet to confirm this myself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
give him my money!
that sounds great
post in this thread if you hear more about it!
as i said in other threads i will pay around 50$ for the person that makes gamma adjustment possible for the N10.
btw: hockey puck?
are you serious ?
I wonder if the shield can, through a custom kernel, adjust rgb, gamma, or color calibration. similar to a nexus 6p with a custom kernel like franco or elementalx i can adjust to a much cooler screen similar to the galaxy series.
Also I saw in the shields display settings there is a dynamic range setting which i changed to full and the screen seemed to have dramatically changed. the darks seemed much darker. i dont have an hdr tv but a sony bravia about 2 yo so i didnt think it was actually hdr but only the output from the shield.
dontbeweakvato said:
I wonder if the shield can, through a custom kernel, adjust rgb, gamma, or color calibration. similar to a nexus 6p with a custom kernel like franco or elementalx i can adjust to a much cooler screen similar to the galaxy series.
Also I saw in the shields display settings there is a dynamic range setting which i changed to full and the screen seemed to have dramatically changed. the darks seemed much darker. i dont have an hdr tv but a sony bravia about 2 yo so i didnt think it was actually hdr but only the output from the shield.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
full vs limited is in the range that the device will output colors to the screen. with limited the normal range of 0-255 values per color is limited to 16-235. (256 values per color ^3 equals 16,7million colors (3 colors: RGB)
most particularly (older) tv's won't process the full amount of 16,7m colors, in comparison to monitors which almost always do. Reason why is probably cost, to make them cheap, and to save bandwidth. So they compressed the output, losing some of the detail in between (more like MP3 in comparison to using 160kbps vs 320kbps mp3's, most people won;t notice the difference, but it is there unconsciously)
Anyway. by compressing the range, the tv then stretches these out so that those values become the new white and black. Else everything would look greyish and faded. But now you have less detail because you miss some information, because some of the gradient is missing.
Your TV is set up to the limited range, so that it stretches those to be the new black and white. But when you switch the incoming signal to the full 256 range, the tv will still stretch these as if they were the limited range, and it basically cuts off black and white information, making everything higher contrast but losing a lot of information because it's cut off. And then you'll have to set your TV to full as well, but that's not always possible. Because most tv's can't process more color information.
That's why HDR is such a big improvement, more color information, more visible dark and bright gradients and the overall brightness contrast is wider.
But I think in your case by setting it to full you will get the feeling of more contrast, but essentially you are cutting off a bunch of information. You'll probably notice in dark scenes that you can't see much, because it's clipped out.
If this makes sense to you. (I may have made some mistakes explaining this)
Regarding calibration, you should calibrate your tv in stead. There's no use in calibrating your shield. That's only necessary if you can't control your screen, which TV's can, but phones can't. So mess around with your tv color settings.
If you're colorblind, please disregard this thread. Rate this thread to express how you deem the color saturation and accuracy of the Samsung Galaxy S21 / S21+ / S21 Ultra's display. A higher rating indicates that you think that color accuracy is very high and saturation is excellent.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!
Just bought the Hong Kong version of the S21+. You guys be very careful in your purchase. The 'normal' display mode is very under-saturated and the vivid mode is very over-saturated. White point can be adjusted but it doesn't help with adjusting color saturation at all.
For the ones who buy this phone for color accuracy. You will not be able to tolerate it. Don't know why Samsung is taking a huge step backward on their flagship phone.
The S10 and S20 are both better.
This is still early so I cannot be sure if this is one particular case but it seems like it from the reviews that I can find on the web.
Vivid mode is always over saturated on the newer Samsung's.
Natural mode on my 10+ pretty good but not good enough to edit photos... not by a long shot.
Color calibration on Android's is/has always been a nightmare...
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Finally took the time to measure the S21+ display. This is Natural Mode, as expected, very unsaturated colors. The worst part is the shifted greens, almost make my eyes hurt.
Look at the gamma, also as expected. More like a 2.0 instead of 2.2
This is what is giving you the 'washed out' look of this display.
This is measured with an i1Pro so anything above 30 on the grayscale should be accurate. White point is warmer. This is actually acceptable if they can get everything else right!
We need some answers from Samsung. I may go as far as filing a complain to Samsung in order to get a refund.
I am not so sure if they can rectify the problems with a firmware update.
I gone out today to see how the Ultra perform. From my eyes, 95% similar to the s21+, totally unacceptable. You better put your sunglasses on if you are planning to use Vivid Mode for display.
It is in NATURAL Mode, not VIVID.
Slimer777 said:
View attachment 5205239
Finally took the time to measure the S21+ display. This is Natural Mode, as expected, very unsaturated colors. The worst part is the shifted greens, almost make my eyes hurt.
View attachment 5205243
Look at the gamma, also as expected. More like a 2.0 instead of 2.2
This is what is giving you the 'washed out' look of this display.
View attachment 5205245
This is measured with an i1Pro so anything above 30 on the grayscale should be accurate. White point is warmer. This is actually acceptable if they can get everything else right!
We need some answers from Samsung. I may go as far as filing a complain to Samsung in order to get a refund.
I am not so sure if they can rectify the problems with a firmware update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for taking the measurements!
Try some of the different screen modes accessible through adb commands.
###
adb shell settings put system screen_mode_setting a number from 0 to 4
- 0 AMOLED Cinema (DCI P3 target)
- 1 AMOLED Photo (Adobe RGB target)
- 2 Basic (sRGB target)
- 3 Natural
- 4 Vivid
###
In order for this to work, you need to set your screen mode to Natural first and switch in and out of the screen mode menu after you've sent the command for the screen to update. Personally, I found that Basic marginally improves upon the Natural color profile without being oversaturated. From what I understand, both Basic and Natural target sRGB yet has a noticeable different output. Though something about the Basic profile still seems off to my eyes.
I didn't discover these commands. Instead I found them over on reddit here.
Maxit228 said:
Thanks for taking the measurements!
Try some of the different screen modes accessible through adb commands.
###
adb shell settings put system screen_mode_setting a number from 0 to 4
- 0 AMOLED Cinema (DCI P3 target)
- 1 AMOLED Photo (Adobe RGB target)
- 2 Basic (sRGB target)
- 3 Natural
- 4 Vivid
###
In order for this to work, you need to set your screen mode to Natural first and switch in and out of the screen mode menu after you've sent the command for the screen to update. Personally, I found that Basic marginally improves upon the Natural color profile without being oversaturated. From what I understand, both Basic and Natural target sRGB yet has a noticeable different output. Though something about the Basic profile still seems off to my eyes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks very much, Maxit228.
I will try this and report back. I am surprised why Samsung doesn't simply put these modes on the Display menu.
Mode 0 and 1 still have way larger color gamut than sRGB so I guess like you said the only mode left is Basic....
Ok, tried it and here's what I think.
Mode 0 Cinema, this mode still give you over-saturated colors but at least the green is more correct than Mode 1 and the gamma seems to be closer to 2.2 than Natural or Basic.
Mode 1 Photo, this mode has colors that is not as saturated as Mode 0, kind of in between Cinema and Natural which is good but the green is just too over-saturated and tilts towards cyan so I would rather use the Cinema mode for now
Like you said, Basic looks the same as Natural. I am sure there are subtle differences if we measure it with a spectro but I wouldn't bother.
Pick your poison, Cinema or Photo!
Slimer777 said:
Ok, tried it and here's what I think.
Mode 0 Cinema, this mode still give you over-saturated colors but at least the green is more correct than Mode 1 and the gamma seems to be closer to 2.2 than Natural or Basic.
Mode 1 Photo, this mode has colors that is not as saturated as Mode 0, kind of in between Cinema and Natural which is good but the green is just too over-saturated and tilts towards cyan so I would rather use the Cinema mode for now
Like you said, Basic looks the same as Natural. I am sure there are subtle differences if we measure it with a spectro but I wouldn't bother.
Pick your poison, Cinema or Photo!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the update. It's a shame that Samsung can't get the calibration correct. Unfortunately Cinema and Photo mode is far too saturated for my tastes and I might just return my S21+ or swap it for the Ultra.
Ok, the more I look at Basic, I think it is more accurate than Natural so I dive in and take some measurements. To my surprise, it is quite a bit more accurate than Natural! The color saturation is way closer to sRGB standard than Natural mode.
Unfortunately Gamma is the same as Natural.
Hope this helps.
Slimer777 said:
View attachment 5206557
Ok, the more I look at Basic, I think it is more accurate than Natural so I dive in and take some measurements. To my surprise, it is quite a bit more accurate than Natural! The color saturation is way closer to sRGB standard than Natural mode.
Unfortunately Gamma is the same as Natural.
View attachment 5206559
Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks again. I just swapped my S21+ for a S21 Ultra and I agree with you that the Ultra display performs similarly to the S21+ in the natural mode. I do not believe the gamma is as bad though since the Ultra display looks nowhere near as washed out.
In Basic mode, the S21 Ultra display looks very good to me.
Maxit228 said:
Thanks again. I just swapped my S21+ for a S21 Ultra and I agree with you that the Ultra display performs similarly to the S21+ in the natural mode. I do not believe the gamma is as bad though since the Ultra display looks nowhere near as washed out.
In Basic mode, the S21 Ultra display looks very good to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They wouldn't allow me to return it so unless I go get another Ultra. Is it worth it? You mean the Basic mode on the Ultra looks better than the Basic mode on the S21+ ?
Slimer777 said:
They wouldn't allow me to return it so unless I go get another Ultra. Is it worth it? You mean the Basic mode on the Ultra looks better than the Basic mode on the S21+ ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, to my eyes the Basic mode on the Ultra looks better than the Basic mode on the S21+. I believe the gamma tracks closer to 2.2 on the Ultra since colors are nowhere near as light/washed out. I still don't think it's perfect though. For me, it was worth swapping for the improved display nevermind the other improvements the Ultra has over the plus.
Bit of a shame if the above is all correct, Hopefully someone else picks up on these issues and Samsung takes note.
Uniformity is the one for me. I'd rather have consistent uniformity on the screen, than perfect colours and a non-uniform display. The S21, well, my unit at least, is uniform.
This was my biggest gripe with the Pixel range, non-uniform screens. Which is why I constantly returned them.
Hoping Displaymate look at the S21 too.
superleeds27 said:
Bit of a shame if the above is all correct, Hopefully someone else picks up on these issues and Samsung takes note.
Uniformity is the one for me. I'd rather have consistent uniformity on the screen, than perfect colours and a non-uniform display. The S21, well, my unit at least, is uniform.
This was my biggest gripe with the Pixel range, non-uniform screens. Which is why I constantly returned them.
Hoping Displaymate look at the S21 too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I hope Samsung would upgrade their firmware to correct the issue. Should be simple enough for them.
I thought uniformity would not be an issue since the screen is so small and you rarely display a full screen in a uniform color.
Me too, waiting for Displaymate to confirm on the issue.
Maxit228 said:
Yes, to my eyes the Basic mode on the Ultra looks better than the Basic mode on the S21+. I believe the gamma tracks closer to 2.2 on the Ultra since colors are nowhere near as light/washed out. I still don't think it's perfect though. For me, it was worth swapping for the improved display nevermind the other improvements the Ultra has over the plus.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was looking at the Ultra. But I don't need the 100x zoom and I mostly take macro so I picked the S21+.
I will wait to see if other authority can confirm that the Ultra does have a better screen before buying one!
Slimer777 said:
I was looking at the Ultra. But I don't need the 100x zoom and I mostly take macro so I picked the S21+.
I will wait to see if other authority can confirm that the Ultra does have a better screen before buying one!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
XDA's S21 Ultra display review should be coming up, unfortunately the reviewer doesn't have the S21/S21+. Andrei over at Anandtech noticed the gamma on his S21 unit and will almost certainly bring it up in his full review.
I was actually disappointed in the macro capabilities of my S21+ since the ultrawide has a fixed focus relatively far away. The Ultra is an quite an upgrade since it has PDAF on the ultrawide with the minimum focus about an inch from the lens.
I just got the US S21 moving up from the exynos note 9 which feels like a fricking downgrade, side to side the note still has a better panel and color accuracy. I keep the colors in basic mode.
If it wasn't for samsung trade in program, I'd keep the note.
Slimer777 said:
Yes, I hope Samsung would upgrade their firmware to correct the issue. Should be simple enough for them.
I thought uniformity would not be an issue since the screen is so small and you rarely display a full screen in a uniform color.
Me too, waiting for Displaymate to confirm on the issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I mean uniformity seems good compared to the Pixel 3/4/5 I returned because of random patchy greys. The S21 on a full grey screen looks fairly uniform to me, or at least to my eyes.
There's times when I feel like it isn't, but, that's purely down to how I'm holding the phone and looking at the screen at certain angle. Square on everything seems fine.
Let's see if FW updates change anything, few reviews popping up saying the screen is well calibrated though?
I just updated to the latest Hong Kong firmware and seems like they have made changes to the display mode. Colors become more saturated in 'natural' mode.
You guys try to update to the latest firmware and see if it changes anything. This is for S21+