What is Retina Display? And Other Display Names

What is Retina display? What is Sony Triluminos? AMOLED Plus? Clear Black? Pure Motion? And all the other dazzling names that smartphone manufacturers are using to amaze us. Believe it or not, these are all merely names that big companies are creatingto brand smartphone displays that they are developing. What is the difference between these displays and what’s so special about them, we will find out today. We will help you demystify display brand names! To make things simpler, we could say that all displays used on smartphones today are just LCDs or OLEDs (advanced LED) that are a bit modified to provide you with better general performances. While display technology is mainly the same, each company is adding different hardware components to create that special something that will make screens on their smartphones a bit better and brighter.

Apple Retina display

Retina display is Apple’s brand. The name “Retina display” stands for IPS LCD that Apple is using for most of the devices that they are making. Retina display first appeared on iPhone 4S in 2011, and they have spread all over Apple computers, tablets and wearable ever since. The thing that makes Retina different from the other displays is the pixel density on the screen. They have very high pixel density, so high that individual pixels are not visible to the human eye from a normal viewing distance. At least, this is what Apple is saying. The exact density of pixels is different for each device and the closer it gets to our eyes, the thicker they are. For example, the latest iPhone 6+ (with a 5.5-inch screen) have 401 pixels per inch, while iMac with a 27-inch screen has a pixel frequency of only 218 pixels per inch. So, as you can see the pixel density depends from your point of view. [caption id="attachment_8215" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Retina display on iPhone 6[/caption]

HD Super AMOLED

HD Super AMOLED display family comes from Samsung. These displays are using OLED technology and have very high resolution, higher than 1280x720. Samsung is experimenting all the time and every once in a while they release a new series of AMOLED displays, with new prefix and suffix to spice it up. The rumor has it that a new name for Samsung displays will be Youm, to avoid confusion with all the Supers, pluses and HDs added to AMOLED. Some reviews claim that AMOLED display used in the latest generation of Samsung's smartphones (such as Galaxy S6, Edge and Note 5) is superior to Retina. They give this type of display a title of the best in the world. [caption id="attachment_8216" align="aligncenter" width="300"] HD Super AMOLED display[/caption]

Sony Triluminos

Triluminos displays have LED technology in the background. At first, Triluminos displays were used for LED tv only. Sony’s brand of TVs, Bravia was the first device where Triluminos appeared. In 2013, such displays first appeared on some other device with the release of Xperia Z series of smartphones and tablets. The feature that makes these displays unique is the fact that they are using separate LEDs for red, green and blue and applies different engines to turn them on and off periodically. With such technology, they can produce vivid colors and excellent contrast. Such performance was a huge news back in 2004 when Triluminos first appeared. These displays are still one of the top screens in the smartphone industry. [caption id="attachment_8217" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Sony Triluminos display[/caption]

Pure Motion HD+

Pure Motion is a series of Nokia displays. The basis of these displays is OLED technology. They have first appeared with the release of Nokia Lumia series of smartphones in 2012. Pure Motion displays have the ability to reduce background light automatically and to adjust to the environment. By using this technology, your screen will adapt automatically when you step out into the sunny day. They also have a quite high resolution of 1280x768 pixels and higher. And, they should be touch sensitive even if you are wearing gloves. [caption id="attachment_8219" align="aligncenter" width="265"] Pure Motion HD+ display[/caption]

Nokia is in a crisis at the moment, but we hope that they will manage to make a comeback and continue to surprise us with similar innovations.

Clear Black

Clear Black is another patent made by Nokia. Clear Black is actually not a display type, but a filter that helps you see the screen of your smartphone even on an entirely sunny day. It is a reflection-blocking polarized layer between touch layer and display panel. Clear Black filter can be applied to both, LCDs and OLEDs.

In Conclusion

And… that’s about it. We have tried to cover most of the display brand names. We have seen that companies are not only attempting to impress us, but also to make some great things with displays and make them more comfortable for everyday use. After all, this is something that you always look on when playing with your smartphone, so it might as well be a quality piece of technology.

Have we covered it all? In case we missed some of the displays, please let us know in comments and we'll make sure to update our list.

Image sources: Techsport.com, TechByte.com, TheVerge