One of my big worries about the Omnia Pro and it’s AMOLED screen was sunlight readability. As I expected, the Omnia Pro B7610 can be tough to read if you get stuck in full sunlight with a bright screen reflection…
Pic taken in full sunlight F4.0 1/125
This is similar to what I see on most LCD/LED-backlit screens. Unless you’ve got high quality filters, touch layer and backlighting you’re stuffed! Transflective is the way to go if you need full-sun readability. I agree with John [see comments] Most phones suck when it comes to outdoor viewing. The iPhone has proved itself well and yes, the E90 (and my N82) have great transflective screens. All phones should have part-reflective screen technology in my opinion.
The trick with the Omnia Pro is to angle the phone towards a dark area. You don’t need to be in a shadow, just angle the phone to reflect it. Here’s the same device, same screen brightness (max) in the same position at the same time. I simply angled the phone towards a darker area. In this case, me and my camera! I guess you know this already but it’s good to see it in pics sometimes.
Picture taken in full sunlight. F4 1/80 sec (slightly brighter exposure than on first pic. See grass brightness for comparison)
#1 by Carl on September 17th, 2009
How bad is the dithering from the 65k colour limitation, Chippy?
#2 by chippy on September 17th, 2009
I havent noticed dithering although on video playback i’m seeing some artifacts that could be attributed to the 65K colour limit. Quality looks much less than optimal on one of the Divx files i’ve tried although it could be attributed to low-quality decoding. In general use (on images etc) i havent seen anything obvious yet. I’ll look more closely now that you’ve reminded me of the limit but I would usually notice this.
#3 by stn on September 17th, 2009
Tell me one thing, while you were doing this test did you have auto adjustment on or off? because if it was on it doesn’t really matter whether you will give max settings or not ‘cos it’ll adjust it. Did you try do look at PRO with full manual brightness setting (no auto)?
BTW did you try the rest of the codes I gave you?
#4 by chippy on September 17th, 2009
Auto adjustment is off on these images. Max brightness.
Havent tried the codes you sent, no.
#5 by John on September 17th, 2009
I really can’t understand why Samsung is advertising AMOLED screens on their omnia site as extremely bright??Actually, at the second picture the screen seems reall bright, but it is annoying try to find the right angle!
#6 by chippy on September 17th, 2009
It’s bright for sure. Minimum brightness is way too bright for ‘in bed next to sleeping wife’ use but outdoor brightness is just average in my opinion.
#7 by Gunnar on September 18th, 2009
Sad to hear that,
reading ebooks after lights out was what I was looking forward to. I am really missing my broken ipaq, and the omnia pro looked like the perfect replacement. I will probably still get i though, my wife can sleep with a pillow over her head
//Gunnar
#8 by Swim on September 18th, 2009
Could we have a photo with the backlight turned on? The comments on this YouTube video for the Omnia II suggest it should be really good even in sunlight:
http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=JVYI4ko6_E0&fromurl=/watch%3Fv%3DJVYI4ko6_E0
One guy says “Don’t get the “brightness” and backlight settings mixed up. I think most people including the pocketnow reviewer is mistaking the brightness levels for the backlight. You can adjust the brightness level and also switch on the backlight which will make your screen look awesome in sunlight “
#9 by chippy on September 18th, 2009
This is an OLED screen which, if i’m not mistaken, produces its own light thus negating the need for a backlight.