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!!