Google Pixel 2 XL Smartphone Review

[Redaktion]

First impression. The Pixel 2 XL is visually a high-end smartphone of the year 2017 and has a POLED display in the 2:1 format. Visually, the relation to the LG V30 cannot be denied, but it took a different path in terms of the camera. In addition, there is quite a lot of battery power.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Google-Pixel-2-XL-Smartphone-Review.257588.0.html

[Ednumero]

Do we know if the display is PenTile or true full-matrix 2880x1440? The Pixel phone models last year used PenTile displays, which don't produce the full detail of their denoted resolutions. I saw this as a disappointment because the Pixel product line has historically been in a sort of position as a forefront and shining beacon of hope in a market saddled with so many display-related compromises, and found it a bit ironic considering the product name "Pixel".

To clarify:
- AMOLED and PenTile are separate. You can have full-matrix AMOLED, and there are variations of PenTile used in non-AMOLED displays.
- The sharpness is lower, and for the lower sharpness I would say PenTile does not solve anything that "lower-resolution" full-matrix don't solve better. Manufacturing cost and power consumption might be lower, but the same can be said for "lower-resolution" full-matrix displays. I see PenTile more as a lower-cost way for companies to gain the ability to list higher resolution specs in product specifications, and would rather see true 1080p before not-true-1440p.
- I think claims that PenTile addresses screen burn-in are dubious. Full-matrix AMOLED displays such as what's used in the Alienware 13 use larger green and even larger blue dots so that they don't have to be as energized per unit area, in order to counter the tendency of these higher-energy colors to wear out faster. I don't see how PenTile addresses this.

[puremind]

It is a pentile, like on the V30, iPhone X and Samsung devices. It is produced by LG.

At least the Pixel 2 XL gives 1440p theoretical (1120p effective) whereas the iPhone X only gives 1125p theoretical (919p effective).

Apple were stupid to go with such a low resolution display on a pentile OLED display, gash, now their flagship phone will be even less sharp than the iPhone 8 Plus, which is already not so sharp.

We will have to wait for the 4K OLED smartphones to see a marked difference vs. the full matrix RGB displays of the past. And no OLED display will equal the 4K display of the Sony smartphones for a very long time (801ppi effective, almost reaching the magical 900ppi barrier above which human vision cannot perceive incremental sharpness at the typical viewing distance for smartphones).

[Ednumero]

An interesting fact is that Sony's 4K-model Xperia phone uses a similarly-disingenuous matrix. A Web search for "Xperia Herringbone 4K" should pull up the gsmarena.com article.

The article doesn't do a very good job at describing this, but you can see it in the included photo. The RGB components in the staggered rows are 3/2 as wide as they should be. This leaves only two components per denoted square pixel, which compares to PenTile.

Its effective sharpness is higher than 2560x1440, but I was able to discern the artifacts on the unit I saw. I recall that my LG G4's RGB 2560x1440 display looked better still.

[puremind]

Thanks, this is good to know. HP had pentile LCD in the past on their laptops but now they use full matrix RGB LCD.