It's not everyday that you learn something - I've known for a while that a) OLED displays are supposed to be more power efficient than TFT and that b) the brighter the colours, the more power is actually consumed. But I hadn't realised the scale of the problem until now, with hard evidence from a semi-official Nokia source. Read on for links and quotes. Summary? On a OLED-screened smartphone, a pure white theme uses 14x as much power as a pure black one!
Read on in the full article.
I've actually known most of the info for a while now. I use a dark colour on my phone as it is.
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/Pimping_the_Nokia_N82.php
(Screen Brightness section and below)
Now what, Steve? 😉
On the OLED screen, I can understand why having a darker screen (primarily black) would reduce power usage - the screen only lights up those pixels in use.
However I'm at a loss to explain the effect on the traditional LCD. The backlight is on permanently, and the LCD just filters/allows through differing amounts of light at each pixel - one of the reasons why LCD TVs don't tend to be capable of doing totally black blacks - they're normally just a very dark grey.
Interesting though!
One point is missing from the article: If your phone is white it looks much better with a white theme 😊
As always it is a story of compromise: beauty VS battery life :P
Would have been interesting to see the power usage of actual home screens, since presumably nobody has a theme with white text on a white background (or black on black). The difference would obviously be smaller in the real world, but would be interesting to see how much.
You know, I always noticed that I had worse battery life on my OLED screens than I did with regular LCD (N85, N86, etc), but just figured it was something stupid I was doing, cause *everyone* knows that OLED is more power efficient than LCD. Thanks for pointing out some great research, Steve! I don't recall what theme I used on either of those phones, but I typically prefer the lighter theme, so that's likely a huge factor.
Hmm, maybe this is one of the reasons why the original iPhone theme is black? Good insight Steve
clonmult wrote:On the OLED screen, I can understand why having a darker screen (primarily black) would reduce power usage - the screen only lights up those pixels in use.However I'm at a loss to explain the effect on the traditional LCD. The backlight is on permanently, and the LCD just filters/allows through differing amounts of light at each pixel - one of the reasons why LCD TVs don't tend to be capable of doing totally black blacks - they're normally just a very dark grey.
Interesting though!
Possibly the crystals in LCD are opaque (black) in their default state, and it requires power to turn them to allow colours through.
As for the OLED "discovery" NO SHIT SHERLOCK. Has nobody else ever played with the power monitor app and noticed this already? And not been particularly surprised. It's already a well known situation in the backlit LCD vs plasma tv power consumption world too.
My N86 has earth by PiZero as its theme which has lots of black. It also looks good!
Unregistered wrote:As for the OLED "discovery" NO SHIT SHERLOCK. Has nobody else ever played with the power monitor app and noticed this already? And not been particularly surprised. It's already a well known situation in the backlit LCD vs plasma tv power consumption world too.
Jesus, who rattled your cage?
As someone who does not have a phone with an OLED screen it's an interesting article, as a factor of 14 difference in power consumption IS interesting to hear about, even if you clearly don't think so.
buster wrote:Jesus, who rattled your cage?.
You guessed my name! Well done!
Now, if you didn't know before that an object generating a lot of light uses more energy than the same object generating none, then clearly you need to know.
Perhaps you could try leaving your all your house lights and electrical appliances on for one billing period and compare the cost to a period when they have all be been left off. You'll be amazed to find that they are more expensive when they are on!!
Imagine that !
rafiii wrote:One point is missing from the article: If your phone is white it looks much better with a white theme 😊
As always it is a story of compromise: beauty VS battery life :P
Do you spend a lot of time admiring the beauty of your phone? I always thought of my phone as a useful item, not a girlfriend.
@ clonmult . The older LCD's are using CCFL type of lights . Normally with a constant light beam . With LED , backlight and edge , it is possible to dim the light on dark sides of the page . However not all LED screens are provided with this tech . The advantage is clear : darker spots , where the actual color is black or dark colored . This could explain also some energy saving . The scheme in Steve's article just shows two different screens . This is limiting drawing a general conclusions about screens , but for sure interesting .
😊 Regards jApi NL
Unregistered wrote:You guessed my name! Well done!Now, if you didn't know before that an object generating a lot of light uses more energy than the same object generating none, then clearly you need to know.
Perhaps you could try leaving your all your house lights and electrical appliances on for one billing period and compare the cost to a period when they have all be been left off. You'll be amazed to find that they are more expensive when they are on!!
Imagine that !
I presume that you're unaware of the expression "sarcasm is the lowest form of wit" (or is irony lost on you as well?).
Anyone who feels the need to interject "NO SHIT SHERLOCK" in a thread such as this is essentially a pedantic dickhead.
jApi NL wrote:@ clonmult . The older LCD's are using CCFL type of lights . Normally with a constant light beam . With LED , backlight and edge , it is possible to dim the light on dark sides of the page . However not all LED screens are provided with this tech . The advantage is clear : darker spots , where the actual color is black or dark colored . This could explain also some energy saving . The scheme in Steve's article just shows two different screens . This is limiting drawing a general conclusions about screens , but for sure interesting .😊 Regards jApi NL
You haven't actually answered my question though, and have got OLEDs confused with "LED" TVs.
LED TVs do have a different backlighting technology to traditional LCD screens, but OLEDs don't have a backlight - its individual pixels that are turned on and off, and have their "own" individual lighting.
Totally explains why an OLED set to a black screen uses less juice (it also explains why the clock screensaver on the N85 looked so damn good).
Still doesn't explain why an older LCD, with constant backlight, would use less juice when set to a black screen, as the CCFL would be pumping out the same amount of light continually, just being filtered out as completely as the LCD shutters will allow.
Its just interesting 😃
Does it mean that OLED screens are actually less efficient for internet browsing since web pages very often have white background (e.g. AAS)? It�s quite an issue in my opinion since I spend much more time reading web pages than staring at the homescreen.
@clonmult .
Yes , of course (AM)OLED screens don't use backlights . The screen itself is the light-emitter . So black is black one could say , and also uses almost NO energy , when black .
LED screens are backlit , but have different features . Some do have the lights always ON on maximum , or can be dimmed by the user .
The more advanced backlit LED screens are dimming automatically on dark spots of the open page . This explains less energy used with a dark theme . I think the example used in the article is such a screen .
@chip-mk . The theme of AAS can be set on the bottum left :
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/forum//forum/thread/92316/
😊 Regards jApi NL
jApi NL wrote:@clonmult .
Yes , of course (AM)OLED screens don't use backlights . The screen itself is the light-emitter . So black is black one could say , and also uses almost NO energy , when black .
LED screens are backlit , but have different features . Some do have the lights always ON on maximum , or can be dimmed by the user .
The more advanced backlit LED screens are dimming automatically on dark spots of the open page . This explains less energy used with a dark theme . I think the example used in the article is such a screen .@chip-mk . The theme of AAS can be set on the bottum left :
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/forum//forum/thread/92316/😊 Regards jApi NL
What we're talking about here though is in a constant hardware state, the only change being the background, that on a traditional (not advanced, LCD backlit) LCD display thats definitely not advanced, battery life is improved with a darker backdrop.
Its still not explained in the slightest. i see where you're coming from, but you're describing features that just aren't there on cheapo Nokia smartphones.
Ah well, time to swap from the i8910 theme (nice and bright) to something more sombre 😃
pity this page is mostly white
chip_mk wrote:Does it mean that OLED screens are actually less efficient for internet browsing since web pages very often have white background (e.g. AAS)? It�s quite an issue in my opinion since I spend much more time reading web pages than staring at the homescreen.
+1, this is just great news, pretty much makes OLED useless on phones then, hard to see in daylight and uses more power!
That's a bit harsh. The only time the OLED screen overtakes the TFT is when displaying an almost uniformly blank screen; in most cases it consumes less. Also, it's not entirely clear how the brightness level affects the consumption; it's all very well comparing two different screen technologies when both are run at full brightness, but if the average brightness needed in real use is much lower for one technology than the other, this also affects the battery life one can expect to see...
Regarding OLED screens and sunlight; these new Super-OLED screens (or however they're called) do seem to be a bit better in this respect...
How darker images can use less power with LCDs
http://www.ecnmag.com/Articles/2010/04/Content-Adaptive-LCD-backlight-control/
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