iPhone X Display
iPhone X is the first iPhone with an OLED display. OLED — organic light emitting diode — has several advantages over the LCD technology Apple used in every previous iPhone. For example, the pixels emit their own light so there’s no need for a separate backlight the way there is on LCD. That allows for thinner displays and, because only the pixels that need to be lit are lit, deep, inky blacks.
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To make the diamond arrangement look as good as possible, Apple is applying its own subpixel anti-aliasing. It’s effective enough that, after leaving the iPhone X hands-on area after Apple’s September event, almost no one seems to have noticed the difference in pixel layout. Even now, staring at it, it looks great. Maybe under a macro you could see the difference but to my naked eye, Apple nailed the pixels.
Apple is also individually calibrating every iPhone X before it leaves the factory. That’s not something most vendors do.
It’s an awesome display. After reading your review I took this picture of the diamond PenTile pixel arrangement.
A closer look at the iPhone X display’s OLED diamond subpixel pattern.
I hate to say it, but it makes the iPhone 8 Plus LCD look kind of like butt. I love it, even though it is flawed in one noticeable way.
The one area where this display falls prey to standard OLED gripes is in off-axis viewing. Apple tells me that it has done work to counter the drop in saturation and shift to blue that affects OLED screens traditionally. I can tell you that, compared to other OLED screens, you have to get further “off of center” to see a real shift in color, holding the phone 30 degrees or more off of dead on. But it is still there. For people who share their phone’s screen or use it at odd angles a lot, it will be noticeable. On some phones, OLEDs go super blue. On the iPhone X it’s more of a slight blue shift with a reduction in saturation and dynamic range. It’s not terrible, but it definitely exists.
Apple (via Steve Troughton-Smith, Hacker News):
If you look at an OLED display off-angle, you might notice slight shifts in color and hue. This is a characteristic of OLED and is normal behavior. With extended long-term use, OLED displays can also show slight visual changes. This is also expected behavior and can include “image persistence” or “burn-in,” where the display shows a faint remnant of an image even after a new image appears on the screen. This can occur in more extreme cases such as when the same high contrast image is continuously displayed for prolonged periods of time. We’ve engineered the Super Retina display to be the best in the industry in reducing the effects of OLED “burn-in.”
Still getting comfortable with the iPhone X, but the Pentile artifacts are present. Especially on text.
Pentile is usually bad with hairline text and lines which helllllooooo iOS UI
As it does for each iPhone launch, DisplayMate has released a display shoot-out for the iPhone X, praising Apple’s technology in areas like the higher resolution OLED screen, automatic color management, viewing angle performance, and more. According to DisplayMate, the iPhone X has the "most innovative and high performance" smartphone display it has ever tested.
I’m seeing very different color temperatures with True Tone on X vs. 8 (iPhone 7 on right for reference)[…]
The dead pixels are visible throughout the video on all close-ups of the iPhone; this means it’s probably a hardware issue and not something that can be fixed via a software update.
This phone is absolutely unreal. It also seers my eyeballs this early in the morning. It can’t get as dim.
I’m going to miss the iPhone SE size. But the X screen is incredible. So crisp and close to the surface it looks fake.
As someone who uses the Plus phones more for vertical real estate than horizontal, the X looks to give me exactly what I want.
Update (2017-11-09): John Gruber:
Here’s a Reddit thread [suggesting the] iPhone X display is not responsive once temperature gets to around freezing.
We asked Apple about this situation and they sent us this response:
“We are aware of instances where the iPhone X screen will become temporarily unresponsive to touch after a rapid change to a cold environment. After several seconds the screen will become fully responsive again. This will be addressed in an upcoming software update.”
Update (2017-11-13): Steve Troughton-Smith:
So what does PenTile mean in practice on iPhone X? Only green is ‘true 3X’ You need exceedingly tiny text to notice the effect, just about the limits of decent human vision.
See also: Simon Helyar.
