What do we expect "Pure display" to be?

madbilly

Hi all,

So HMD are registering a trademark called "PureDisplay" according to what's can be found in the EU trademark database (or so Nokiamob (I think) reported, I haven't checked myself).

In the past, Nokia used ClearBlack and PureMotion for some Lumia phone displays (OLED and LCD I think). HMD haven't tried to acquire these trademarks, unlike the PureView name, but have created a new trademark.

I assume that the new trademark will be for a phone display, but what should we expect the display to be like? Will it be OLED or LCD specific, or both? Certain resolution? Or something radical like a dual OLED and e-ink display?!

Share your thoughts and wishes.

Cheers

singhnsk

 And I am unfortunately, not very optimistic about it. Seeing what HMD has done so far in terms of research and development, I do not think HMD Global has the cash flow or the skills to develop a new display technology or improve on an existing technology. They are better off using existing tech available in the market.

I feel it will be more in the lines of similar type of marketing used by other companies. E.g:

• Samsung: Infinity display (a less bezel display)
• Vivo: FullView display (a full front display with a small notch)
• LG: FullVision display (again a marketing label for their notch display design)

So, while I'm not sure which underlying display technology they will use i.e. IPS/Amoled/OLED. But I have serious doubts on "PureDisplay" being anything beyond a marketing term. I mean I am not expecting some breakthrough or exclusive setup as we saw at the time of Lumia with PureMotion and ClearBlack. Those terms had a reason and technology behind them. I doubt it will exist anymore in 2018 when Chinese are innovating faster than HMD Global and FIH Mobile makes better (theoretically) phones under their in-house "Sharp" brand than what Nokia makes.

"PureDisplay: Another name for a full-screen display with a small notch in the mid"

madbilly

I dear you may be right. However, I remain optimistic

madbilly

The new Nokia 7.1 has the Pure Display. From the launch video Pure Display seems to mean exceptionally high dynamic contrast ratio, a million:one - which I presume is good! I'm no expert

MobileCR

PureDisplay is not Nokia mobile (HMD) exclusive....in contrast to PureMotion+ and ClearBlack display tech on former REAL Nokia Phones.  PureDisplay is just a name to mask tech from another manufacturer

madbilly

@mobilecr you are back! Thanks for joining in.

Yes I agree, PureDisplay is just a brand name for what they're using, either an off the shelf solution or (giving them more credit) and integration of parts from different suppliers.

madbilly

So we actually learnt this last year but I didn't notice! PureDisplay is normally the inclusion of a Pixelworks processor, more info here: https://www.pixelworks.com/en/mobile

However the 8.1 apparently has a PureDisplay screen but without the PixelWorks chip. Is this because the SnapDragon 710 does everything the PixelWorks chip does?

I also learnt recentlty that the Mediatek based Nokia 5 series of phones have something called MiraVision which claims to do much of the same thing as PixelWorks does: https://www.pixelworks.com/en/mobile

But I don't remember anyone saying "wow the Nokia 5s display is great!".

Cheers

singhnsk

@madbilly Nokia 8.1 and Nokia 9 do not do what the PureDisplay as originally advertised in Nokia 7.1 and now in the 7.2 and 6.2 does.

On 8.1 and 9, it was only a HDR10 display, no fancy things involved. On the 6.2 and 7.2 it once again uses the PixelWorks chip to do the SDR to HDR conversion. 8.1 and 9 do not do that, they just play HDR content wherever available. Luckily, even Nokia Care Chat is misinformed on this. I had to ask PixelWorks PR directly to get an answer that Nokia 7.1 is (then) the only Nokia device which uses their resources to do the real-time conversion. And Nokia does not use sameor similar tech in the 8.1.

madbilly

Hi @singhnsk great research! And thanks for the clarification

I actually hadn't thought about the 9PV with PureDisplay, because it's OLED I had probably thought it didn't need it but of course the display tech is not what's relevant, it's the SDR->HDR conversion, and the other stuff you mention.

Cheers

f82

As other said I imagine the display research and developments are probably so expensive and difficult at modern levels that only few third party companies (the manufacturers of the panels themself) could do something to improve them. I don't know how Clearback layers and the AMOLED screens combination of the Nokia 808 was born and how and who developed it but it remained until few years ago at the top of the benchmark review in terms of sunlight contrast ratio. And we are talking of many years later. Probably the simpler single core cpu itself and the not-big screen helped to save battery and increasing the oleds power. Also even if I've never seen  values about the Nokia 603 I'd imagine that it wasn't bad too with similar scores. 
Displays must be a very complex world to improve and maybe most companies don't have many choices they can do to be competitive, just like already thought for the processors themself where custom cpus would just be impossible for most companies beside the biggest one. 
Nowdays batteries are much bigger than in the past and this helps probably having brighter displays but they all seems to go for the screen resolution race while I've never really cared about 1080p, 4K, 8K. 
Beside smartphones they should move some of the modern innovation also in the lower sized screens of the feature phones that seems stopped to very old technology with the usual never ending transmissive led backlighted with low contrast, bad sunlight readability etc. At this point I'd consider a "new" thing having back the old monochrome full reflective panels.