The rapid changes in the smartphone market recently also show themselves in the screen, and different screen technologies are being introduced. Roughly speaking, there are two main types of displays used in smartphones: LCD and LED. These two basic technologies are named as IPS LCD and AMOLED as follows. 

AMOLED Screen

The LED part of AMOLED stands for Light Emitting Diode. This is a technology that shows that the power is on with a small red light and is found in many household appliances. An LED display takes this concept, shrinks it and arranges LEDs in clusters of red, green, and blue to form a single pixel. O in AMOLED stands for organic. It refers to a series of thin films of organic matter placed between two conductors in each LED. Finally, the AMOLED part stands for passive matrix technology rather than Active Matrix. A passive matrix is quite slow and may not be precise. Active Matrix systems connect a thin film transistor (TFT) and capacitor to each subpixel (red, green or blue) LED. The result is when a row and column is activated, the capacitor in the pixel maintains its charge between refresh cycles, providing faster and more precise control.

LCD Screen

LCD displays work with a glowing backlight with some polarizing filters, a crystal matrix, and some color filters. Liquid crystals bend when an electrical charge is applied to them, which affects the frequency of light that can pass through them. Because crystals can bend to varying degrees depending on the voltage used, a screen can be created when used with polarized panels. A grid of integrated circuits is then used to control each pixel by sending a payload to a particular row or column. Colors are created using red, green, and blue filters known as subpixels, which are blended to varying degrees to produce different colors.

Differences between AMOLED and LCD

Power consumption - IPS needs a good backlight to produce a suitable polarized light. This gives us a brighter white and good visibility in sunlight. It also provides good screen clarity. The power consumption of IPS LCD is almost 5% more than AMOLED. AMOLED gives good blacks because it doesn't require an external backlight. In addition, the LED emits light without generating heat, as a result of which energy loss due to heat is minimized.

Color Reproduction - AMOLED produces a good amount of black which gives high contrast to the images produced. The image looks bright and vibrant, but can sometimes make the color look a little oversaturated. AMOLEDs emit less harmful light to the human eye than IPS LCD. On the other hand, IPS LCD has great color reproduction. Whites are much better than AMOLED, which looks a bit yellowish. It adds natural color to other parts as well. 

Lifetime - AMOLED uses organic compounds for electroluminescence. These organic compounds tend to fade after prolonged use. On the other hand, liquid crystals in IPS LCD screens help the screen to be long-lasting.

Cost - Undoubtedly, the cost of AMOLEDs is very high among display technologies. The materials needed to create the screen are very expensive. Mostly Samsung's high-end devices have AMOLED displays. IPS LCD has a higher cost to develop than TFT LCD. But it is not as expensive as that of AMOLED. IPS LCDs are also used by some of the famous phone manufacturers such as Apple (previous iPhone 8, 7 and similar versions) and HTC.

The comparison between IPS LCD and AMOLED is somewhat trivial. Because both screens have their own good points. Of course, we do not choose such screens, it depends on the manufacturer. However, to make a brief comment, AMOLED screens increase the experience of reading and watching videos under the sun, while IPS LCD screens generally last longer.