What is AMOLED ? Mobile Phone Screen Types Explained

What the heck is AMOLED?

The technology world has enough complicating terms and crazy acronyms to puzzle even the smartest people in the world. Walk into any mobile phone store nowadays and you will see a number of confusing terms like GPRS, GSM, UMTS, EDGE and HSDPA to mention a few.

And just to make it even harder for us, there is now yet another popular acronym for us to learn – AMOLED!

There appears to be some dispute about how to pronounce this word, but anyway AMOLED stands for active-matrix organic light-emitting diode. Still confused? Well don’t worry – you wouldn’t be the only one.

In layman’s terms, AMOLED is a display technology used in many mobile phones, cameras and televisions. The technology is believed to produce one of the most efficient and effective displays for mobile appliances, and as a result, has been used in a heap of new designs.

In the mobile phone world, Samsung was one of the first companies to launch the technology back in 2009. At the moment they have a number of touch screen phones using AMOLED, including their popular Samsung Galaxy. Nokia, Nexus and LG are also using the technology in their new models.

So, is it all worth the fuss? In short, WhatPhone says “yes”.

AMOLED pixilation is believed to be three times faster than conventional movie picture films, and produce clearer and sharper images.

The screens have superior viewing angles, meaning you can write a text message from a tilted screen and watch videos from all kinds of angles. They are also lighter and cheaper and are supposed to use less power. Basically this means that stuff looks better and costs less – so you win both ways.

So, the bottom line is, if you have a choice between an AMOLED and an LCD screen, WhatPhone says – “go for the AMOLED!”