Galaxy S III has PenTile AMOLED because it lasts longer

After the Galaxy S III announcement many people, including us, were wondering why Samsung decided to use a PenTile Super AMOLED screen instead of an Super AMOLED Plus unit.

Well, a Samsung spokesman has explained why. The reason turned out to be plain simple – it’s not because Samsung can’t satisfy the demand – it’s just that the PenTile will last longer.

As it turns out, the RGB AMOLEDs degrade much faster than the PenTile AMOLEDs so the picture quality becomes worse faster. The blue pixels are the ones to blame – they degrade faster than the red and green pixels. The PenTile displays have less blue pixels because of the RGBG subpixel layout and that’s why they have longer life span.

Samsung Galaxy S III comes with a PenTile matrix: screen comparison

The Samsung Galaxy S III is really all about everything - the marriage of design, software features and processing power, but since you’ll look at the screen all of the time it’s mostly about the screen. The Galaxy S III has got a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels. And this alone should already disappoint some of you waiting for a Super AMOLED Plus screen. Let us explain why that’s kind of a letdown.

A Super AMOLED screen is the same as the one on the Galaxy S II Galaxy Nexus and this means that it’s not using the full RGB matrix, but instead goes for the PenTile RGBG pixel arrangement. This means that effectively you get a third less subpixels, hence a slightly worse picture. Samsung obviously relies on the HD resolution of the display and the excellent contrasts of its AMOLED  technology to make up for this, but it’s clearly one area where competitors like LG might take the leading edge and capture geeks hearts.