So we put up the review on the AT&T HTC Titan and received a few comments asking for more thoughts on comparing the screen quality between the Titan and the Samsung Focus S. Something more than just a comparison of the Start Screen. We'll keep the auto-brightness issue on the Focus S and the graphics lag on the Titan out of the conversation because they are secondary issues to screen quality.
Two issues were mentioned dealing with the Titan's screen; pixelation (or is it pixilation?) and jaggedness with fonts when viewing web pages or documents. Neither Dan nor I have experienced any issues of the sort with the Titan. So we took a look at both screens running a music video, still images, web pages, documents and the game Lets Golf 2. Both screens performed well but we'll stick with our initial thought that the Titan's screen has an edge over the Focus S screen.
More after the break.
Let me say from the get-go that both the Samsung Focus S and HTC Titan have respectable screens. If screen quality is your sole measure between these two phones, neither is a bad choice. The Super AMOLED Plus does have blacker blacks but we're also seeing a slight blue tint when the screen is predominantly white. With the Titan, I think it has equal or better contrast and the brightness is more evenly distributed. Both phones perform equally as nice outdoors.
As far as pixelation is concerned on the Titan, we just don't see it. It wasn't present when viewing pictures, videos, games, web pages or documents. It's just not there. There is some thought that pixelation is inevitable due to "stretching" a 480x800 screen to 4.7". The screen may have fewer pixels per inch but you also have larger pixels from the start.
The Titan has 198.5 Pixels Per Inch and a Dot Pitch of .128mm. The Samsung Focus S has a PPI of 216.97 and a Dot Pitch of .1171mm. Just for comparison sakes, the 3.7" screen of the Samsung Focus Flash has a PPI of 252.15 and a Dot Pitch of .1007mm. There's no stretching involved on the Titan. It's just larger pixels and the lower PPI with larger dot pitch doesn't affect the user experience at all.
All in all, we just don't see any clear cut advantage to the Samsung's Super AMOLED Plus screen when compared to the Titan's. While the Focus S has a respectable screen in its own right, taking everything into consideration, we feel the Titan's screen quality wins out by a nose. The great thing about it all is that if your eye sees things different, you still have a nice screen in front of you.
