J.K. Shin, President Mobile Communications Business, of Samsung Electronics on March 23 at CTIA Wireless 2010 announced their latest Android operating system smart phone incorporating a 4.0 inch (800×480 pixel WVGA) Super AMOLED Display. The "Super" designation refers to an active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) display with an on-cell integrated touch screen which Samsung claims is 20% brighter, 80% less sunlight reflective and yields 20% longer smart phone battery life. Samsung also noted that the very thin display enables the 9.9 mm thickness of the Galaxy S smart phone. During the hands-on session with the new Galaxy S smart phone immediately following the Samsung Unpacked event, the Super AMOLED displayed bright, highly saturated colors.

Compared to the 12.3 mm thick Apple iPhone, the Galaxy S (9.9 mm thick) seemed very sleek and had a responsive touch screen. The phone’s industrial design and features make it clear that Samsung’s market target is the Apple iPhone. The Galaxy S sports the latest 2.1 version of the Android operating system and a 1 GHz application processor that provides graphics performance of 90 million triangles per second that Samsung claims is 3 times the performance of other smart phones without identifying which ones.

The Galaxy S also includes inter-device connectivity using the DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) framework enabling wireless connection to a DNLA compliant television display for example. For more information about DLNA see this whitepaper (.pdf file). The ability to display and share portable device video content using wireless networking on large screen televisions through DLNA is a trend that we expect to see accelerate based on new set introductions we saw at CES 2010 in January.

The Galaxy S included all the features that we have come to expect in a high end smart phone and more. Samsung is clearly working hard to create an ecosystem of advanced smart phone features and software applications while leveraging the Android development community in order to compete successfully with Apple in the smart phone market.

Mr. Shin based his CTIA Wireless 2010 keynote presentation on the three key premises of Screen, Speed and Content. In Insight Media’s April Mobile Display Report, we will cover more of our findings from CTIA Wireless 2010. For today’s Display Daily we will concentrate on Mr. Shin’s Screen. The 4.0 inch "Super" AMOLED display was the touchstone to which Mr. Shin and other Samsung personnel at the show returned to time and again when describing the Galaxy S. The photo below provides Samsung’s view of the enabling features of the supper AMOLED display. The primary benefits of the on-cell integrated capacitive touch screen are the reduction in display thickness, the increase in display transmittance from 80% to 97%, and the reduction in display reflectance from 20% to only 4%.

Many smart phone industry observers have speculated that Apple will at some point adopt AMOLED display technology for use in the iPhone. It was rumored that even the soon-to-be-released iPad tablet would have an AMOLED display. While the economics of a 10 inch AMOLED tablet display are not currently favorable, the smart phone form factor is currently a clear target space for AMOLED displays.

Looking ahead we see two questions looming. Will Apple want to include an AMOLED display in an upcoming iPhone release? And will Apple be able to secure a supply of these high performance displays? In the battle for smart phone market share, it will be interesting to see if what Samsung claims is a superior "Screen" display technology can be combined with the "Speed and Content" and other additional key elements of a smart phone ecosystem to be a successful iPhone challenger.