Blurry Google Nexus One not really WVGA

March 26, 2010 | By Surur

It seems Google, the worlds biggest online advertising network, is in fact engaging is a bit of false advertising itself.

It turns out their Google Nexus One smartphone, which Google specifically mentions has an 800×480 resolution, is in fact much lower resolution than that.

When the pixels are actually counted the 3.7 inch screen only has 392×653 pixels, nearly 50% less than 800×480, resulting an text describes as blurry on closer view and also colour fringing on the edges of coloured objects.

The cause of this issue is Google trying to get away with sub-pixel rendering similar to Cleartype on the AMOLED screen using a rarely used PenTile pixel pattern. As mentioned earlier, while this serves the colours very well, black and white text are particularly poorly served by this sleight of hand.

Very long time Windows Mobile users may remember when HP was forces to recall their first Jornada 548 PDA after selling the 12 bit screen as 16 bit. Particularly troubling is that the Nexus One is only sold online, meaning buyers will now be able to check the device before purchase. One wonders if Google will also be forced to recall their flagship handset due to similarly misleading buyers.

Is Google being dishonest by trying to get away with a cheaper, lower resolution screen? Tell us your opinion below.

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

http://intensedebate.com/people/peterfares peterfares

I just ordered the Nexus One and just heard about this right after. I hope it isn't too bad or else I will have to get rid of it.

Paul

Of course it's so bad that you will have to get rid of it:)

http://intensedebate.com/people/peterfares peterfares

Stop being a blind WM fanboy. Android has everything us WM people love – the ability to do what WE want.
WP7S is taking that away.

HD2

Don't be too sure. Who knows taste may change after WP7 is available? Sometimes is not really good to have such open OS without tight control.

http://intensedebate.com/people/peterfares peterfares

Then why are you using Windows Mobile? That is the only reason to continue using Windows Mobile at this point. It requires the most soft resets of any smartphone OS and you know it.
Jos Dewey

No, I don't know it. Using cleanRAM when I'm low on memory, I rarely reboot my HD2.

I did it last night for the first time in as long as I can remember, and only because the WiFi was giving me issues not connecting, turned out the router needed to be rebooted and not WM.

Android is a piece of crap, and with the Apple legal drama who knows what Android will look like or function like after the issue is settled one way or another.
Jimt

I don't own a HD2, but have owned many WM devices. All the devices have been very stable with very few soft resets. I have to soft reset my iPod touch due to Safari freezes more often than the WM devices which are used for many more tasks.

Paul

But only WM provides decent compatibility with native word & excel docs which is essential for me. And, as I know, Android doesn't have Total Commander app which interface I love.

http://www.afclothing.co.uk/ abercrombie london

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http://www.avianwaves.com Parrotlover77

Wow, that's really deceptive! Google needs to really be smacked for this, considering they are the "do no evil" company. Honestly, 392×653 is not a resolution to be ashamed of! it's near VGA, but with a 'wide' form factor. ClearType subpixel technology can be really good, if implemented well, but lying about it is really ass.

They really could have made this a positive by playing up the new subpixel technology for smoother fonts. Only power users (like us) care about the exact pixel dimensions!

Very disappointing to see Google pull this. But this isn't the first complaint I've read about the Nexus One. If I was doing Android right now I'd probably do a Droid.

http://intensedebate.com/people/peterfares peterfares

The Droid has its share of issues. I bought and received a Telus Milestone (GSM Droid) on Monday and while I like it, it had two pretty big flaws.
1) The noise cancellation is too strong. You have to hold the phone near flat on your face or your voice gets canceled as background noise.
2) I found a speck of dust under the glass but thankfully just to the side of my screen. Since one got there, I'm sure more will find their way in.
There are a lot of people complaining about these two issues. I put my Milestone aside and went back to my Tilt2 until I get the Nexus One. Once I have that I will decide which of the three devices to keep.

Nexus One Advantages: Navigation Ball, Snapdragon, HTC Sense
Disadvantages: No keyboard, screen issue

Milestone Advantages: Keyboard, better processor than Tilt2
Disadvantages: Keyboard is not as good as Tilt2, dust and voice issues

Tilt2 Advantages: Very nice keyboard
Disadvantages: Ancient processor, WM which is getting stale and is a dead-end.

cirrob

the nexus one does not have sense on it but you can put it on ala xda. i have had all three devices and i am going back to the nexus one. i started out with the tp2 then when the n1 was released i ordered one to test it out. not having to reset the phone all the time was nice. having everything just work was nice and being able to customize everything was nice. but what was really nice wa all the activity in the community. 30k apps is huge when you consider it was only 20k when i got the damn thing. granted a lot of those apps are crap, but devs are scrambeling over to that platform. anyway i ended up returning to the tp2 for a reason most people leave wm: active sync. i use several apps that need AS to talk to their desktop counterparts. Then my wife was given a droid for her work cellphone and after thinking about the direction of the new windows phone os and seeing the smoothness of android again, i decided to go back. the keyboard is a non issue to me. when i did have the n1 it took me about an hour to master the vkeyboard and i was actually typing faster on that than with the slideout keyboard of the tp2 or droid.

but as they have said, one ms releases wm7 i will peek back in, but based on what i am seeing and reading, i dont think wm7 will be an os for my tasste. their overall phylosphy for this new os just seems backwards.

if my options where still wm bb or iphone i would have stuck with wm. but this new option changed the playing field for me.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=5401995 Christopher Hippolyte

I smell conspiracy. It could be an inside HTC job, they tend to enjoy effing up their competitors phones when they are hired as the OEM. Take a look at their history when producing phones that compete with their own.

HTC produced Xperia X1? Suffered from hardware shortages and users report random cracks that has never happened on any HTC model
HTC produced Palm Treo Pro? Also suffered from random cracks in the plastic and suffered from random instances of Flight mode being turned on during calls
HTC produced Nexus One? Suffers from screen issues, and now a jipped resolution.

Do any of the competing HTC products have said issues? No…
Makes you wonder why did MS not choose HTC to manufacture the Zune…

Karmatose

My HTC Touch case suffers from random cracks in the casing. Not trying to be an HTC hater, but it's the truth. They're not perfect.

Buzz Man

You dont have to have droid to have Sense. WM 6.5 wins because of the ability of XDA to develop it.
Lewis Oaten

Simply put, this article is wrong in many ways.

To get the facts straight:
– The nexus one DOES have 800×480 pixels, however, it has a third fewer sub-pixels, as such the resolution is not affected.
– This PenTile layout is rarely used because there is an additional cost involved due to the patent. The reason Google pay this price is because the screen lasts longer and it is one of few phones with such a high PPI. If you used traditional sub-pixel layouts at this PPI, using current technology, the pixels would be dropping like flies within months.
– You are correct that white, although can be a true white, cannot be served at a brightness which may be seen by lower resolution OLED screens, due to the small green sub-pixel (I personally have not had an issue with brightness, even outside in direct sunlight).
– I am surprised you made the naive assumption that black is also affected by a PenTile OLED screen. OLED pixels can be turned off, thus no matter what the sub-pixel layout is, blacks will always be true black.

The final thing to mention is that this sub-pixel layout has no relation to how "blurry" text is at such a fine resolution. I would, however, get your camera fixed if that's the best focus it can achieve.

Rico

The image looks intentionally blurred. Notice how the hard buttons appear sharper than the text. Even the android icons and status bar appear to besharper. All of these objects are on the same plane and should be much sharper than they are.

Also note that this the only site claiming the Nexus One is blurry. All other sites are linking back here. Had this been some widespread problem we would've heard about it on all the major tech blogs, not on a blog catering to a competing platform.

Display Geek

Has anyone noticed that people only complain about the PenTile panel on the Google phone? PenTile OLED is on something like 30 different products. No one complains about those? Why is that?

This confusion of "counting dots" as a way of figuring out the resolution is bogus. With the sophisticated subpixel rendering algorithms used in the PenTile panel, one only needs two thirds of the subpixels to get the same resolution. This is a good thing, since more dots mean more places to have a failure, so manufacturing yeilds go up. More dots mean more black space between dots, so the display is dimmer. More dots mean that if you push the brightness back up, the current, and thus the current density goes up, so the dots fade out sooner. Finally, more dots mean finer manufacturing tooling… which at this resolution means no deal… seriously, the manufacturers can't get to this high resolution without using PenTile,
Display Geek

That's how you can spot a cell phone with a PenTile OLED: If it has VGA or WVGA OLED resolution, you can bet that it will be a PenTile panel.

Blurry text? How about focussing the camera better? Or maybe that is just the font? Could be it "whole pixel" anti-aliased before it gets to the PenTile rendering chip? It must be one or the other, because PenTile panels are very sharp when displaying black and white text.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1595042544 Wojciech Dziedzic

Here you can find source of this article : http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/03/secre…
Peter

I'm going to have to call BS on WM being stable. Never had one, and I have had plenty.