GSM Arena preview Omnia Pro and Highlight OLED legibility issue.

I have been waiting for this issue to come up. OLED screens can be a problem in bright daylight.

I’ve seen it on an OQO 2+ device (terrible in bright sunlight) and heard from others about OLED screens in daylight. GSMArena have highlighted it as an issue in their recent preview of the Omnia Pro. [Thanks Carl for the tip] The problem is that like LCD screens, it’s a transmissive technology and you need extremely high brightness levels to fight for supremacy with the sun. Once you pump the power up on OLED you lose the power-efficiency advantage too. Especially with a screen filled with light pixels. OLED is great indoors but it’s not really suitable for a mobile device. This is an important issue to note for all potential Omnia Pro owners.

What else does GSM Arena have to say?

Banding noticeable with the 65K colour screen
Touchscreen sensitivity nowhere near that of a capacitive touchscreen.
Smooth, spring-assisted keyboard mechanism.
Excellent keyboard quality. [I’m very pleased to hear this.]
Micro-SD card is hot-swappable
Positive feedback about the battery life. [Again, this is good to hear.]
Pleased with the TouchWiz UI.

“The Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO is a very good handset overall with capabilities that can easily match the HTC Touch Pro2 class-leader. In fact the faster CPU and the AMOLED screen are quite significant improvements that one can receive by choosing the Samsung over the HTC.”

GSM Arena haven’t written anything about browser speed and completeness (something many potential customers are going to be waiting to hear about before they order) and the review has been done on a pre-release sample. Despite that, it’s worth a read.

GSM Arena Omnia Pro preview.

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#1 by Carl on July 21st, 2009

One correction; OLED is a direct view technology like plasma displays, not a transmissive one. In fact, it may be the transmissive nature of TFTs that help them reject some off-axis light, whereas projection displays, CRTs, PDPs, etc can only deal with sunlight by way of brute-force light output and optical coatings.

In any case, I’ve yet to encounter any kind of display that had perfect sunlight legibility, but I’ve always found it easy enough to find some shade to sit in, but I can’t say I’ve ever microblogged from the Gobi Desert.

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#2 by chippy on July 21st, 2009

@Carl
By transmissive I mean that the light power comes from the device itself. It’s not a reflective type like eink or a transflective (combination of both like in the pixelqi screens (which are pretty good at being a reflective screen in sunlight)

#3 by Carl on July 22nd, 2009

Yeah, I understand what you mean, but in display technology terms a “transmissive” type display is one that uses a transparent layer to control the light of a backlight to make images, ie. LCD and MEMS displays.

In any case, OLEDs are getting better at sunlight legibility with time, so eventually we’ll get to a point that using a smartphone/MID in direct sunlight is equivalent to watching a television with the curtains open. It’s probably another decade off, though.

#4 by chippy on July 22nd, 2009

@Carl
Got it. I’m not familiar with the industry terms so thanks for correcting me.

Would you also call OLED ‘emmissive’ (I.e. it generates the light itself rather than filtering a backlight?)

Steve

#5 by Carl on July 22nd, 2009

Emission is how they work, but I’m not aware of anyone calling them as such. Probably too easy to confuse that with field emission displays (FEDs, incidentally another technology that would look great on a smartphone/MID, it would be like having a CRT in one’s pocket only without the size and weight).

Displays where you look straight at the light producing elements (namely phosphors and LEDs) are called direct view. Although the term is often misused to refer to any non-projection display, that is not technically correct.

#6 by Daniel Wellsddod on July 22nd, 2009

So no one is really talking about the difference between the Omnia Pro and the Omnia II. From looking at the specs it appears that the screen size and keyboard are the only differences. Everything else is identical. Am I missing anything?

#7 by Carl on July 22nd, 2009

The Pro/II/Jet are all based off the same platform, so they are mostly the same hardware wise. The differences in the Pro are the slightly smaller screen, lower internal disk capacity, stylus silo, and of course the keyboard.

In my opinion the Pro has the better software package. The Work & Life mode seems really practical.

#8 by dave on July 23rd, 2009

Do we know who will be carrying the pro in the US? Its GSM right?

#9 by Carl on July 23rd, 2009

Possibly no one. Yes, it’s quad-GSM and 900/2100 UMTS.

A CDMA version of the Omnia II without the keyboard passed through the FCC, so you’ll probably see that on Verizon/Sprint, but I have no idea when that might happen.

#10 by chippy on July 23rd, 2009

dave :

Do we know who will be carrying the pro in the US? Its GSM right?

So far i’ve heard nothing about the Pro in the U.S.
I’m keeping an eye on the US market so expect a post if something happens!

#11 by dave on July 27th, 2009

That’s too bad. I am up for a new phone (on verizon) and have thought about waiting for the new Omnias to get released before deciding on a new phone. The Omnia II looks good but I think the Omnia Pro would work better for me.

I have been thinking about getting the i-phone but that would require moving to AT&T which I would really like to avoid. We will see I guess.

#12 by Carl on July 28th, 2009

@dave
Your best be would probably be the Touch Pro 2 or perhaps the N97 or Pre. The iPhone is great as a portible application platform given its huge software library but is rubbish at the sort of thing the Omnia Pro is targetted towards (mobile internet, messaging, multimedia). It depends what you want from the device, of course.

#13 by Carl on July 28th, 2009

In unrelated news, Coming Soon to Vodaphone Germany

http://de.engadget.com/2009/07/27/bald-bei-vodafone-samsung-omnia-pro-b7610/

Of course, there’s no quantification of exactly what they mean by “soon”.

#14 by dave on July 28th, 2009

Is the touch pro II coming to verizon? And how does it it compare to the Omnia II?

#15 by Carl on July 28th, 2009

It’s coming to T-mobile, but I’m not sure about any other carriers. Both phones are WVGA touchscreen+QWERTY slider designs running Windows Mobile, but deciding how they compare should wait until the Omnia Pro is on the market.