Nokia Confirms Full RGB Matrix Display On Lumia 900 Windows Phone

As if you didn’t have enough reasons to crave the new Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone!

As soon as the Nokia Lumia 900 was announced during the Nokia keynote of CES 2012, many questions were raised about the device concerning specifications, technology and more. The minds over at The Nokia Blog had only one determined question they wanted an answer to (and got one). Their question was whether the Nokia Lumia 900 is built with the same PenTile AMOLED display as the Lumia 800. They asked their question on Twitter to NokiaUS, and low and behold, they got an answer! The answer is…the Nokia Lumia 900 is not a PenTile AMOLED display but a Full RGB AMOLED display, also known as a SAMOLED Plus.

Now, lets pretend you didn’t know what a PenTile display was, we got you covered. When a device has a PenTile display onboard there are big differences in technology, even some differences which will be noticed by the end user. A PenTile display does offer RGB technology, but in another form as RGBG which means each pixel on the display shares a green sub-pixel with the next display pixel. In a nutshell, you are not getting a Full RGB experience and you will notice, not only the pixels more easily, but a blurry effect along the edges of images on contrasting backgrounds. In a Full RGB display there are also 12 sub-pixels, whereas in a PenTile display you only find 8 sub-pixels, hence it is not a full RGB display.

The PenTile display technology shares green sub pixels with other RGB pixels, so you get one-third fewer sub-pixels in total due to the new arrangement. In fact, a 4.3″ screen would have the same resolution as a 4″ display using PenTile technology! In a full RGB panel, each pixel is made up with 12 sub pixels, whereas in a PenTile display, only 8 sub pixels are present. The effects a PenTile display produces are often noticeable by the end user: some colors look grainy and fuzzy, and whites have an odd tone to them. In summary, PenTile displays aren’t as sharp and accurate as a full RGB matrix display: they are cheaper versions of the real thing.