This post is from our Windows Phone 7 archive. For our current coverage of phones, see our 2026 best phones in the UK for 2026.
Read the 2026 best phones in the UK for 2026 guide →UPDATED · News · 17 Nov 2010 · MTW Editorial Team
Samsung’s Super AMOLED screen panel is gorgeous, especially when displaying Windows Phone 7′s Metro UI (with the drak theme) unfortunately there are several ugly drawbacks. First, you have to live with fuzzy text because of the PenTile Matrix Sub-pixel arrangement. Secondly, you will witness sever color banding, thanks in parts to the same PenTile Matrix (it is RGBG compared to a regular RGB lcd…) and also to the extremely vibrant and high color contrast of the screen. I took two photos to show you how ugly it can look like on the Samsung Omnia 7 vs the regular TFT LCD screen of the LG Optimus 7. This is really a problem especially for developers who now have to pay close attention to the assets they are using when building their applications. I’m not entirely sure if the OS is currently running at 32bit color depth but if I had to guess I would say that it is probably set at 16bit (could be wrong thought). Moving up to 32bit could potentially diminish the problem a bit on Samsung’s AMOLED screens. Samsung can also tweak the amplitude of the modulation of the sub-pixels to reduce the problem. One more picture after the break:
I just want to add that this isn’t specific to Windows Phone 7 at all. The same issue is present on Android to and only appears with certain color gradients.
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