HTC was the first company that I’m aware of to ship a smartphone with a 5 inch 1080p screen. That device was called the Butterfly. The thing about the Butterfly is that it used LCD technology. If you value accurate color reproduction, then LCD is great, but Samsung sings a different tune. Their AMOLD technology, which is known for screwing with color saturation levels in order to make images “pop”, is preferred by millions of people.
This brings us to the Galaxy S4, the first phone with a 5 inch 1080p panel that uses said AMOLED technology. If you’re one of Samsung’s competitors and want to make your own 5 inch 1080p phone with an AMOLED screen, do you honestly think Samsung is going to sell you their components?
No, they want to keep as many as they can to themselves so they can maximize GS4 shipments.
Well, this may not be a problem anymore thanks to AU Optronics, better known as AUO. They just published a press release saying they’re going to show off a series of smartphone displays at the China Information Technology Expo, with one of them being, you guessed it, a 5 inch 1080p AMOLED panel.
How much does AUO’s display cost compared to Samsung’s display? How many units can AUO produce? I wish I knew the answers to those questions, sadly I don’t, however I do know AUO says they’ll also be showing off a 5 inch 1080p “Hyper LCD”. Said panel is special because it has 1 mm bezels. Maybe HTC will use that in the Butterfly sequel?
Let’s see.
