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AMOLED Plus Phone Screens: How They Work
AMOLED Plus is a Samsung display variant introduced in 2011 that addressed one of the most persistent visual criticisms of early AMOLED panels: the use of a PenTile sub-pixel arrangement. AMOLED Plus replaced PenTile with a full RGB stripe matrix, restoring a conventional sub-pixel layout to Samsung's OLED technology.
The PenTile Sub-Pixel Issue
Standard AMOLED panels use a PenTile RGBG matrix. In this layout, each pixel comprises a red, a green, and a blue sub-pixel, but the sub-pixels are not equal in number across the panel — green sub-pixels outnumber red and blue by a ratio of two to one. This is justified by the greater sensitivity of human vision to green light, which means the eye can tolerate lower green resolution before noticing pixelation.
The practical effect is that at lower pixel densities — below about 300 PPI — diagonal lines and fine text show a characteristic softness or colour fringing. At the display sizes and resolutions of 2010-era phones, this was visible enough to generate user complaints.
What RGB Stripe Provides
AMOLED Plus panels use a full RGB stripe layout, in which each pixel contains one red, one green, and one blue sub-pixel of equal size arranged in vertical stripes — the same geometry used in LCD displays. This arrangement renders fine text, sharp edges, and diagonal lines with greater precision because every pixel has its full complement of colour information without relying on neighbouring pixels to complete the sub-pixel mosaic.
Trade-offs for the Change
The RGB stripe layout requires more organic emitter material per unit area than PenTile for the same pixel count. Blue organic emitters, which are the most fragile of the three, must cover a larger panel area, which can accelerate localised brightness degradation over time. Manufacturing yield is also more challenging with RGB stripe at high resolutions.
Samsung used AMOLED Plus in the Galaxy S II and related devices before returning to PenTile at higher resolutions where the density made the sub-pixel arrangement invisible to the eye.
