[Q] Screen color temp and contrast? - Nexus 7 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Okay, so, one of the things that's really disappointed me with some recent Android tablets I've tried out has been the screen's color temperature and contrast:
1. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7" and Toshiba Excite 10 all had very cold screens, with very blue-ish whites. Also, contrast was poor on both, so reading ebook on them with black text on a "white" background was unpleasant.
2. On some Primes I tried, whites were a dingy yellowish color (although I'm not sure that's because of the temp or some other issue), while some were a nice neutral-to-warm color.
3. The Toshiba Excite 7.7 screen varies depending on how much black/dark colors are being shown, clearly a power-saving feature. On screens with a lot of whites, the temp is made much coolor and contrast is reduced. On screens with a lot of darker colors, temp is warmer, contrast is increased, and whites are much less blue.
So, what I'm wondering about the Nexus 7 is this: what's the apparent color temp? Are whites "white," or are they yellow-ish (warmer) or blue-ish (colder)? And how's contrast, specifically black text on white?
I know I'll get the darn thing in a few weeks, but in the meantime I'm not finding any reviews that say anything other than "great screen for the money." And unless someone's being really careful, it's tough to show screen colors and temperature in pics and video...

Related

Screen viewing angles different color tints

I'm enjoying my Nexus 4 since last friday and I just noticed an issue I want to check if it's intrinsical to IPS technology or maybe a failure on my N4.
Load any white background image and look at your N4 from different view angles. I'm getting different color tints (from brown to bright white) for that white background (it looks really good if you look at it frontwards).
Is this normal?
Thank you very much in advance.
Normal for any LCD.
Color shifts are normal for IPS. I have a high-end IPS monitor, and it does it at extreme angles. The viewing zone for good color is better for IPS than others.
Ok, thank you both for your quick answer!
Normal for N4. Compare it with Samsung oled s**t, the N4 is way better. But compare it with a HTC One X and the N4 is worse. Well, at half the price of a One X(+)..

LCD Contrast Test

This is the app I used to test: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=engn.test.screencolor&hl=en
Contrast - Black: Squares 6 and above are clearly distinguishable, 4 and 5 are just about visible
Contrast - White: All squares are distinguishable
Color Scale - Brightness: All squares are distinguishable
Color Scale - Saturation: Highest 4 squares are equally saturated on all but orange, light blue and grey
This is with an AUO panel and default white balance - I'm hoping someone with a JDI panel (or indeed another AUO) can weigh in with their observations.
what is wrong with your display then?
I have the JDI (Novatek) and confirm the same crushed black levels with Color Test and Display Tester - except that only 7 and above are distinguishable. White contrast and brightness are the same as yours, but color saturation tests vary between the two apps .... personally I trust Display Tester better, which shows blues only are moderately over-saturated.
The crushed blacks are definitely noticeable in dark scenes with or without X-Reality. The panel is quite warm compared to others, and the White Balance settings are somewhat useless since they involve an overlay filter, it seems, and so just darken the screen.
ghtop said:
I have the JDI (Novatek) and confirm the same crushed black levels with Color Test and Display Tester - except that only 7 and above are distinguishable. White contrast and brightness are the same as yours, but color saturation tests vary between the two apps .... personally I trust Display Tester better, which shows blues only are moderately over-saturated.
The crushed blacks are definitely noticeable in dark scenes with or without X-Reality. The panel is quite warm compared to others, and the White Balance settings are somewhat useless since they involve an overlay filter, it seems, and so just darken the screen.
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Yeah not too happy with the white balance setting compared to voodoo/cm colour settings on my old galaxy s, but gets the job done for the most part. Call me crazy but I like it even warmer than default
And hopefully there will be some software improvements to the display in Kitkat
how can i know if my device use JDI or AUO panel?
It says on the back of the screen
Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk
pepeo123 said:
how can i know if my device use JDI or AUO panel?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Assuming you don't like the idea of dismantling your phone to check the back side of the panel you might want to follow my instructions in this post.
Yes Louis has the best way, sorry for my late reply, only just got my screen back in. Mines a JDI
Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk
Z1c black w9 telenor-hungary auo-panel (no "blue" problem)
To dark, the dark areas (too high contrast/gamma), dislike me...
But, good deep-black.
Automatic background light regulation not a good idea (automatic brightness: OFF, x-reality: OFF ).
- sorry my bad english -
solution for "crushed blacks" here : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=51945091
that's good
Darkimmortal said:
This is the app I used to test:
Contrast - Black: Squares 6 and above are clearly distinguishable, 4 and 5 are just about visible
Contrast - White: All squares are distinguishable
Color Scale - Brightness: All squares are distinguishable
Color Scale - Saturation: Highest 4 squares are equally saturated on all but orange, light blue and grey
This is with an AUO panel and default white balance - I'm hoping someone with a JDI panel (or indeed another AUO) can weigh in with their observations.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AUO Panel here. Results are pretty much similar in mine.
Color Scale - Saturation: The last 4 squares on the right end are clearly distinguishable for all except yellow and bluish green. Just about distinguishable for the green line.
On an unrelated note, I noticed that the INDOOR brightness level on the AUO panel is getting decreased by at least 4 levels on a scale of 100, when I put the slider to the lowest end and checked 'Adapt to lighting conditions'. You can see the difference very clearly by checking and unchecking the 'adapt to light' check box. Might save some battery during indoor use or ebook reading.

[Q] Stretchy blacks in low brightness

When in low brightness the blacks get jelly like stretching effect when in motion. I notice this all the time, with text and whatever. Most noticeable if a picture has something dark surrounded by bright area, scroll up and down and see the block stretch like rubber. What's up with that and why haven't I seen it mentioned in any review.. Very obvious artifact.
Keisarinn said:
When in low brightness the blacks get jelly like stretching effect when in motion. I notice this all the time, with text and whatever. Most noticeable if a picture has something dark surrounded by bright area, scroll up and down and see the block stretch like rubber. What's up with that and why haven't I seen it mentioned in any review.. Very obvious artifact.
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I have this same problem. Anyone have any idea what it can be?
You're seeing the pixels turn on and off as they turn off for black. All amoleds do it. Usually more noticeable when the brightness is lowered and it is white on black.
There is no pure black color. Black pixels aren't off. Later I will try make some photos to show this. I don't have this in S5, where black and gray colors are perfect and looks like in every amoled LCD's should be.
on older devices(saw this with the note 2) black would be near-black(leaving a slight grey/greenish glow only visible in complete darkness)
with the note 4(don't know about S4/5 and note 3) they decided to enable "true" black, allowing the pixels to turn off completely when displaying black.
switching on/off takes a tiny bit longer than changing intensity, which causes visible ghosting.
this is only noticeable in very specific circumstances, so most people never see it happen.
Black color looks it like with sephia filter. I don't know what it is. I changed ROM-s and kernels, still this same. On S5 black color is beautiful, Note 4 looks terible, especially in dark rooms. See atachments.

Great Phone, same old AMOLED problems.

I'm about done with AMOLED panels and I'm about done with the S7 because of it. Ever since phones went quad HD (Turbo, S6, Nexus 6, Turbo 2, Note 5, 6P, S7, etc), this has been a problem, and unfortunately it still seems to exist on the S7. This is my second one - the first one had it in a different area on the screen and it was even worse. It's the pink fade on light or white backgrounds. Once you see it you can't unsee it. I'm sure some will come in here and say they can't see it. I noticed it looks all white at the right angle so if you're not seeing it, you might move your screen a bit. Also, the first image (the horizontal one) shows it the most b/c it has the subtle camera lines which make the fade even more obvious. Not sure if there's a point to this except to vent a bit and, I guess, see if anybody else has had this issue on theirs. Given that the screen is supposed to be one of the main selling points of this device, it's hard to keep it when I see the fade every time a lighter background comes up...
Honestly, I don't really see one benefit to having an AMOLED panel any more - even the highest quality ones eventually deal with burn-in, the battery life is not any better, and they have inconsistencies which are apparently just par for the course. #frustrated
Hmm my S7 doesn't have this effect at all angles and I don't think this is something with AMOLED displays. I think it's the new gorilla glass and the refractive properties of it. At some angles it looks blue and others pink but looking straight at the phone I don't see any weird hue just perfect white. The colours on the S7 display are the best for an AMOLED screen so far and I can say that since I work in a paint store and colour matching is my life.
Tw1tchy said:
Hmm my S7 doesn't have this effect at all angles and I don't think this is something with AMOLED displays. I think it's the new gorilla glass and the refractive properties of it. At some angles it looks blue and others pink but looking straight at the phone I don't see any weird hue just perfect white. The colours on the S7 display are the best for an AMOLED screen so far and I can say that since I work in a paint store and colour matching is my life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know what you're referring to with the refractive properties on Gorilla Glass 4 and this definitely isn't that. I'm even able to see the inconsistencies on darker backgrounds as well. I've uploaded two more photos, attached to this post. That's a solid dark grayish/blue background.
Pick your poison. With AMOLED you're going to get higher brightness, contrast and color saturation, but it will shift colors on whites with various viewing angles. With LCD you'll get colors that are less saturated but more stable and no true blacks (thus worse contrast), and it's brightness, contrast and saturation will all degrade at higher viewing angles.
Source: gizmag.com
AMOLED screens are also thinner and consume less energy.
CafeKampuchia said:
Pick your poison. With AMOLED you're going to get higher brightness, contrast and color saturation, but it will shift colors on whites with various viewing angles. With LCD you'll get colors that are less saturated but more stable and no true blacks (thus worse contrast), and it's brightness, contrast and saturation will all degrade at higher viewing angles.
AMOLED screens are also thinner and consume less energy.
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Click to collapse
I know, and I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Though I don't think we're talking about just color shifting at various viewing angles. This fade (and prior fades) appears to be "burned" in to the screen itself, and while differing angles help a bit, it doesn't change the problem.
jntdroid said:
I know, and I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Though I don't think we're talking about just color shifting at various viewing angles. This fade (and prior fades) appears to be "burned" in to the screen itself, and while differing angles help a bit, it doesn't change the problem.
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Click to collapse
And it looks even worse when you compare it with your friend's perfectly white iPhone screen..
But the better sunlight legibility and perfect blacks appear as a fair trade in for me..
Fullmetal Jun said:
And it looks even worse when you compare it with your friend's perfectly white iPhone screen..
But the better sunlight legibility and perfect blacks appear as a fair trade in for me..
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Click to collapse
I don't know - obviously that's subjective, but even my iPhone 5S is still just as readable in sunlight, and having inconsistencies in the screen appearance on a $700 device, to me anyway, is hard to justify for the sake of pure blacks.
Many will disagree, but this is why I still think the iPhone 6 Plus has the best display. I own an S7 Edge and while my screen colors are even with no pink tint, the entire display does have a bit of a green tint to the whites and I can occasionally make out horizontal lines where the brightness isn't perfectly even on grays and whites, especially noticeable when scrolling. My S7 Edge is about as good as I've seen any QHD AMOLED display, certainly much better than any of the S6s I owned, but it's still not perfect, and I would still prefer the display from the iPhone 6 Plus. To me, good, even, uniform whites are more important than perfect blacks because most of the things I do on my phone involve white backgrounds (web pages especially).
gtg465x said:
Many will disagree, but this is why I still think the iPhone 6 Plus has the best display. I own an S7 Edge and while my screen colors are even with no pink tint, the entire display does have a bit of a green tint to the whites and I can occasionally make out horizontal lines where the brightness isn't perfectly even on grays and whites, especially noticeable when scrolling. My S7 Edge is about as good as I've seen any QHD AMOLED display, certainly much better than any of the S6s I owned, but it's still not perfect, and I would still prefer the display from the iPhone 6 Plus. To me, good, even, uniform whites are more important than perfect blacks because most of the things I do on my phone involve white backgrounds (web pages especially).
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One thing I would like to point out that you are completely missing is the contrast, not only black-white but the colour contrast! This is another area where S7 screen is clearly superior than 6s plus or any other mobile lcd. You can verify that by viewing a colorful wallpaper side by side on both the screens. Another thing is colour accuracy and colour gamut in which S7 screen again comes on top.
Both types of screens obviously have their pros and cons but SAMOLED screens arguably do have more pros over lcds than cons imho!
gtg465x said:
To me, good, even, uniform whites are more important than perfect blacks because most of the things I do on my phone involve white backgrounds (web pages especially).
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Master gtg! Thanks for the goodies of the Infuse 4G..
gtg465x said:
To me, good, even, uniform whites are more important than perfect blacks because most of the things I do on my phone involve white backgrounds (web pages especially).
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Agree 100%. And at least the blacks on LCD's are consistent. They might not be "pure", but they are consistent unlike the whites in AMOLED.
Dpk1 said:
One thing I would like to point out that you are completely missing is the contrast, not only black-white but the colour contrast! This is another area where S7 screen is clearly superior than 6s plus or any other mobile lcd. You can verify that by viewing a colorful wallpaper side by side on both the screens. Another thing is colour accuracy and colour gamut in which S7 screen again comes on top.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You call it superior, I call it over-saturated (), even still on the latest and greatest. Don't get me wrong, they look nice and my eyes get used to it after awhile, but no matter what I do the S7's screen (and S6's, and Turbo's, etc.) feels "cartoonish" to me when navigating through the UI. Every time I go back to LCD from AMOLED my eyes feel a small sense of relief - almost like the contrast was too much. I know that's not the norm, so fortunately we have choices. But I love everything about the S7 except, ironically, its screen because of these inconsistencies. I simply shouldn't be seeing a fade from white to pinkish grey on an all-white background on a 2016 flagship.
Lol.. it would be a shame then if apple goes with amoled displays in future ?! Anyway you seem very clear about your preference of the display type so I'm not going to contest that, but I would say that lcd displays are not free from fault like amoleds and they do have issues like backlight bleeding, abnormal tints, non-uniformity issues, dead / stuck pixels etc.
BTW, I'm not here to preach about amoled or lcds, it's only my own experience with both the display types in the past. My experiences might vary from yours but I've always had them better with samoled screens than lcds.
I just bought a s7 flat 2 weeks ago and its my first AMOLED phone., i dont have any kind of color uniformity but i can see the strong blue tint in white when i look at the screen from an angle, and its really distracting me too much. I dont know if i go to warranty and they can fix it.
OFFlee said:
I just bought a s7 flat 2 weeks ago and its my first AMOLED phone., i dont have any kind of color uniformity but i can see the strong blue tint in white when i look at the screen from an angle, and its really distracting me too much. I dont know if i go to warranty and they can fix it.
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No, as that is the nature of the technology. When viewed at an angle, LCDs maintain color uniformity but lose saturation, brightness and contrast. AMOLEDs shift to blue green but maintain saturation, brightness and contrast. Refer to my post above (#4) and check out the picture.
CafeKampuchia said:
No, as that is the nature of the technology. When viewed at an angle, LCDs maintain color uniformity but lose saturation, brightness and contrast. AMOLEDs shift to blue green but maintain saturation, brightness and contrast. Refer to my post above (#4) and check out the picture.
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I see it, and i aggree with you but, color shift is more disturbing then losing brightness. Its not affecting when using phone most times but whenever i use my phone with one hand and try to open notifications, blue tint is appearing and i really hate it. Actually iam in love with blacks of amoled screen, but this thing is driving me crazy. Maybe i am just too sensitive this color changes.
And btw, my father have a Galaxy A3, and it has exactly same blue tint on his phone too. I Think samsung should something to fix it for next Galaxy S. Its really annoying.
OFFlee said:
And btw, my father have a Galaxy A3, and it has exactly same blue tint on his phone too. I Think samsung should something to fix it for next Galaxy S. Its really annoying.
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It has to do with the varying luminescence and longevity of the various colored pixels. AMOLEDs have been like that since the beginning and it won't be fixed by the next generation of devices. Once you get in the habit of keeping the phone perpendicular to your eyes, it's not so bothersome. Then you go back to an LCD and see that it looks so flat and dim and decide it's totally worth it.
Dpk1 said:
Lol.. it would be a shame then if apple goes with amoled displays in future ��! Anyway you seem very clear about your preference of the display type so I'm not going to contest that, but I would say that lcd displays are not free from fault like amoleds and they do have issues like backlight bleeding, abnormal tints, non-uniformity issues, dead / stuck pixels etc.
BTW, I'm not here to preach about amoled or lcds, it's only my own experience with both the display types in the past. My experiences might vary from yours but I've always had them better with samoled screens than lcds.
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Sorry, didn't mean to sound so dogmatic. I really don't dislike AMOLEDs, the imperfections just frustrate me on such a high end device. You're exactly right that LCD's can also have flaws, but I see them much less than I see them in AMOLED panels - which is just inherent to the two different types of technology and how well the OEMs implement them. I was able to exchange the one in the photos of this thread for a new one (two guys at the store agreed it was an issue) and while the new one isn't perfect, it's MUCH better to where it's not all I see now.
CafeKampuchia said:
Then you go back to an LCD and see that it looks so flat and dim and decide it's totally worth it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is truth in this statement. Despite my overall preference for LCD, when I use AMOLED for a period of time and go back, it's a two-fold reaction... one reaction is slight relief on my eyes, but the other reaction is getting used to the "dullness" - though I find I get used to that much faster than I get used to the high contrast when going from LCD to AMOLED. I would imagine if I stuck to a phone for more than a few months and that phone was AMOLED, the change back to LCD would be even more difficult.
if you have polarized sunglasses then lcd display is a curse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5snWrD6txI
Disappointed this is still an issue with AMOLED screens, this frustrated me to no end on my Galaxy S2 where the screen would shift yellow from one end to the other. Glad you posted this thread as it's not a widely addressed issue, guess I'm going with HTC 10.
I've never noticed this on any of my AMOLED displays. Nor have I noticed any burn in, and I'm not sure what you mean by "other inconsistencies," but if you mean sample to sample variation that affects LCD panels, too. And if you don't like the high contrast, that's adjustable in Display settings.
What I have noticed is vibrant color and ease of using in daylight that no LCD panel can match. Or even come close to. I guess I'm done with LCDs.

How accurate are your display's black and white levels? Software fixes?

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php
I've always used the above link for testing how accurate my displays are. The tests on that site I've found most important in descending order are black level, white saturation, and contrast. (the gamma calibration test never seems to work well on phones)
The Axon 7 (A7) is my first AMOLED display. My old phone is the Nexus 5 (N5) with an IPS display.
On the black level test, squares 1-6 all blend with the black background on the A7, while the N5 only loses square 1 to the background. On white saturation, the A7's last visible square is 251, while on the N5 I can see up to 253. Finally, on the contrast test the A7 colours start at 2-3, with red and pink washing out the soonest at 21. On the N5 all the colours are visible at 1, and red and pink wash out at 25.
Through all these tests it seems the stock A7 AMOLED display is over saturated with poor contrast. On the stock ZTE firmware, the only display adjustments are in settings under "screen effects". Mine is set to Natural and Warm, but all settings here do not affect the test results.
I've read that after many complaints, OnePlus updated their firmware to give the OnePlus 3 special RGB calibration tools. Are there any apps that could do similar corrections on the Axon 7? Any rooted apps, or would CyanogenMod correct this?
It's becoming quite obvious when browsing photos or watching video, and especially takes away from the experience in dark movies.

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