Hasta La Gadget!

Google Nexus One’s luminous OLED screen may be state of the art when it comes to display technology in smartphones but an iPhone’s LCD screen ranks better, according to tests by DisplayMate, a firm that calibrates and optimizes displays.

“The high-resolution, high-pixel-density OLED display on the Nexus One is beautiful, even stunning on first view, but there are lots of issues, problems and artifacts lurking just below the surface,” said Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate, on the company’s blog.

Since OLED displays are still so new, they are yet to be perfected for use in consumer products, which can result in a less-than-optimal experience, he says.

Organic LED displays, or OLEDs, are gaining favor among gadget makers because they can offer a brighter display at lower power than traditional LCDs. The Nexus One has a 3.7-inch screen and a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. The iPhone 3G has a 3.5 inch display with a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels.

To test the Nexus One’s screen, DisplayMate used 24-bit native resolution 800 x 480 test patterns and 24-bit HD resolution test photos.

Their conclusions? The “peak white brightness” of the Nexus One is low for a display that used often in outdoor settings.  In terms of picture quality, the Nexus One  photos had “way too much contrast and color saturation, to the point of appearing gaudy,” says DisplayMate.

The Nexus One’s Gallery app also uses 16-bit color instead of 24-bit color, which results in poor images, says the firm.

Another reason for the Nexus One display’s performance could be the “PenTile pixel arrangement” that it uses, says Soneira. Instead of the three sub-pixels of red, green and blue for every pixel, the Nexus One’s display just divides each pixel into two. Every PenTile pixel includes a green sub-pixel, but the red and blue sub-pixels appear in alternating pixels, he says.

“In principle, that is only a minor issue because if red or blue isn’t available in a particular pixel, then the display driver can just use one from an adjacent pixel. But in practice, it makes things a lot harder for the software and makes it very likely that artifacts will creep into the on-screen images,” says Soneira.

DisplayMate suggests, among other things, Google improve the factory display calibration to correct color saturation and contrast.

Check out their complete two-part series discussing the tests conducted and the results for this Nexus One vs. iPhone 3G shootout.

Not surprisingly, the OLED Association isn’t happy with the results. The tests are flawed and just because the OLED screen does not react the same way as an LCD screen does not mean the former is inferior, Barry Young, managing director of the OLED Association told OLED-Display.net.

Photo: Comparing the Nexus One display to the iPhone/ DisplayMate

The world’s first e-reader and netbook hybrid is set to start shipping next week. The dual-screen eDGe, made by Entourage, comes with a 9.7-inch E Ink screen on the left half, and a touchscreen LCD on the right, meaning you can use it as an e-reader, a notepad, or a regular netbook — at the same time.

“Pre-orders received by January 12 will start shipping at the end of this week. New orders will ship in March,” says Doug Atkinson, Entourage’s VP of Marketing and Business Development, in an interview with E-Reader.info.

The other big news is that Entourage launched its own e-book store to compete with the bigger boys, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the upcoming Apple iBooks store. Why not simply partner with someone already in the book business?

“Having our own e-bookstore allows us to offer books and documents based on our customer demand,” says Atkinson in the interview. Entourage is mostly aiming at public domain books – about a million of them in a partnership with Google – but have also managed to sign up publishers like Oxford Press, Ingram Digital and LibreDigital.

As reported by Gadget lab in January, the device will come with 4 GB storage, 2 USB ports and a SD card slot, weighing roughly 2.5 pounds. Which, when you consider Macbook Air’s 3 pounds, isn’t that light.

The $490 device runs on Google’s Android OS and will be able to handle Microsoft Office documents.

There seem to be some pretty cool features, though, especially when it comes to playing around between the two screens. You can drag a grayscale image from the E-Ink screen and view it in full color on the LCD one, or attach video (on the right screen) to a passage from an e-book (on the left screen).

When using two screens, or primarly the LCD screen, the battery life is 6 hours. When only using the E-Ink part, you can squeeze out about 16 hours out of your eDGe, the company claims.

Note: In case you were wondering why the weird capitalized letters, Entourage people say the “DG” in eDGe stands for “Digital Generation”. Edgy.

Face it, folks — the days of windows being just windows are behind us. Before long, our panes will double as widget displays or makeshift televisions, and AIST has the prototype to prove it. The demonstration seems to utilize technology that’s far different than that seen in Samsung’s iceTouch PMP, but it’s certainly no less exciting. According to DigInfo, AIST is developing florescent glass suitable for excitation by near-UV LEDs, and by combining this [borosilicate] glass with LEDs, it’s possible to obtain transparent, flat light sources.” Better still, we’re told that the prevailing thought is that this here technology could be used to develop see-through displays as well as “light sources and displays that use solar cells without modification.” Anxious to see what a transparent LCD could do for you? Hop on past the break, mash play and let your imagination run absolutely wild.

Continue reading AIST shows off see-through display prototype on video

AIST shows off see-through display prototype on video originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  DigInfo  | Email this | Comments

Feel like making your own 3D movie? That 3D camcorder and the bucket of blue paint alone won’t be enough — consider Panasonic‘s new BT-3DL2550 3D production monitor. This 1920 x 1200 IPS display relies on an Xpol filter for the 3D magic through passive polarizing glasses (like the ones in the 3D cinemas; two pairs included), and sports two HD-SDI ports plus a DVI-D socket — both are for jacking your beastly video processing rigs, while the former also take direct feed from HD cameras. Little else is known about this professional Panny screen, but given the jaw-dropping $9,900 price we’d expect a pretty impressive stat sheet when it comes out in September.

Continue reading Panasonic launches BT-3DL2550 25.5-inch 3D IPS monitor, breaks your piggy bank

Panasonic launches BT-3DL2550 25.5-inch 3D IPS monitor, breaks your piggy bank originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Akihabara News  |  Panasonic  | Email this | Comments

Do you care about color? We mean do you really care about getting the most true-to-life color reproduction on your monitor? Then you’ll probably be wanting an IPS panel, preferably with 99.3 percent coverage of the Adobe RGB color spectrum and 100 percent of the sRGB stuff. What’s that — you’d also like more headroom than what these silly new 16:9 ratio displays can give you — yup, the PA241W has you covered with 1200 pixels of vertical workspace as well. A solid 1,000:1 contrast ratio, 360 nits of brightness, 8ms response time and 178-degree viewing angles flesh out the spec sheet, while a tilt-and-swivel ergonomic stand, USB hub and DisplayPort connectivity figure as the predictable extras. Less foreseeable is the generous 4-year parts and labor warranty, but then you’d want nothing less when splashing a cool $1,079 on a monitor. NEC is ready to ship it to you today, but if you’re feeling in a thrifty mood we’d suggest also checking out Dell’s competing model, which offers a similar spec at a much lower price point.

NEC MultiSync PA241W brings full 1920 x 1200 IPS glory to the well-heeled old schooler originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink SlashGear  |  NEC  | Email this | Comments