Samsung is reportedly shrinking down the size of full high-definition screens and will create them for large smartphones and small tablets. The company’s Super AMOLED Plus technology, which arrived earlier this year, will support 1280×720 resolution displays on mobile devices, exceeding Apple’s Retina Display which currently provides a 960×640 resolution. According to Ron Mertens on the OLED Info site, Samsung will bring the new screens to smartphones over 5 inches in size, as well as 7-inch tablets:
I just had an interesting talk with two industry insiders (one of them is a Samsung supplier) – about Samsung’s upcoming Super AMOLED HD display. It turns out that these displays are indeed real – and will be unveiled soon. We can expect 5″ to 6″ smartphones in fall 2011 (the first will probably be the GT-I9220 with a 5.3″ display) and 7″ tablets by the end of 2011.
Samsung’s Super AMOLED Plus technology is better seen than described; the display colors are extremely vivid when compared to any other screens. Here in the U.S., one of the first smartphones to use it was the Samsung Infuse 4G on AT&T’s network. I was blown away by the colors on the 4.5-inch display and attempted to share the experience near the end of this video demonstration.
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It’s noteworthy that Samsung may boost the size of the displays because many consider 4-inch smartphones to be the largest acceptable size. I tend to disagree, mainly because carrying the Infuse with 4.5-inch screen wasn’t a problem for my hands or my pockets. And Samsung’s fastest selling phone, the Galaxy S II with 5 million sales in 85 days, uses a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display; clearly the larger size isn’t hurting sales any. For these reasons, I’ve long suggested that Apple might want to consider bumping the display size of its iPhone.
Regardless of the size of smartphones or tablets that end up with Samsung’s screen technology, the company is also cutting production costs. Merten’s sources suggest that the Super-AMOLED price premium is now around 20 percent when compared to a Super LCD screen with the same size and resolution. That means Samsung could reap more profit per phone, even as smartphone sales are close to rivaling those of Apple.
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