Screen Test: iPhone 3GS vs Nexus One

Boffins at DisplayMate will be publishing a series of scientific articles comparing the two superphones, and the benchmarks are currently in favour of the iPhone 3GS. The site has plenty of insights on how a display gets mated with software on a phone and all the entities involved in getting it done. The results are surprising, considering that the Nexus One has an AMOLED screen that is of higher resolution. The Nexus One’s 800x480 pixel resolution PenTile display uses two thirds the number of sub-pixels as compared to an LCD.

AMOLED screens consume lower power since they don't need backlighting, and even lower power when they are showing white text on a black background, which fits perfectly with the Android UI. Gizmodo adds some perspective to this debate. "HTC and Google likely made a conscious decision to sacrifice color fidelity, outdoor viewability, and maybe even touch accuracy for a screen that, experientially speaking, blows everything else out of the water. And depending on how anal you are, this is probably fine."