This year, Samsung released its second Tizen phone with the Samsung Z3. The phone packs an HD Super AMOLED display at a low price point, so it will be interesting to see how it performs. The Z3 gets the same screen modes as Samsung's Android devices, including Adaptive, Cinema, Photo and Basic modes.
There's a new screen mode called Grayscale as well (this mode is present as an accessibility feature on Galaxy smartphones instead of as a display mode.) We will discuss the mode it comes out of the box with, the best mode, and also the Grayscale mode. If you want to know what all the graphs in this measurement represent, please refer to this post.
Let us start with the basics. The Samsung Z3 packs a 5-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 720×1280 pixels and a pixel density of around 294 PPI. It features a new type of pixel layout that you can see in the picture below (if you know the name of this layout, do tell us in the comments below.)
First I measured the brightness. This phone doesn't have an automatic brightness feature so you will have to do with the Outdoor mode for the times you are out and have a lot of sun. In the normal mode the screen can go up to 391 cd/m2 (nits) and as low as around 5 cd/m2. When you enable Outdoor mode, the screen gets boosted up to around 553 cd/m2.
What this means it that you really need to use the outdoor mode for reading your screen comfortably in sunny conditions, because that 391 cd/m2 isn't going to make it.
Now on to the graphs.
Adaptive Mode
Let's start by looking at the color gamut of Adaptive mode. Here we see in the sRGB colorspace that most colors are most oversaturated and we see a deviation of the primary and secondary colors with a Delta E error of 5.8, which is less than that of Samsung's Android devices in Adaptive mode. We can conclude that at 100 percent white everything is too blue. When we look at the Grayscale color error in terms of color temperature, we see a Delta E value of 4.5.
The whites are blueish here as well and that is something manufacturers do to make the whites look more white, especially on AMOLED displays. The contrast ratio, however, is unmeasurable so that is extremely good. Blacks are really black, yet when you get to the lighter colors we see that blueish tint popping out. This is something you can see at the color temperature as well, with a temperature of 7,341 being too cold (with 6509 being the sweetspot)
Basic mode
When we look at its basic mode, we see that this isn't calibrated as good as Android devices. It isn't bad at all, yet when we look at the Galaxy A8's screen analysis, comparing these basic modes you will see the A8 scores 1.5 in the color gamut chart and 1.5 in the grayscale chart. The Z3 scores a Delta E color error of 2.5 in the primary and secondary color range. Which is still very good, by the way. In the sRGB colorspace the colors are a little oversaturated, especially in the greens and blues.
These errors can't be seen with the human eye, with a Delta E error of 1.8 in the Grayscale color error. Basic mode is very good, with contrast ratio being unmeasurable here as well. Its color temperature is almost perfect with 6422 and 6509 being the sweet spot.
Grayscale
Now, let's talk about the Grayscale mode, which isn't offered as a display mode on Android devices. It's funny to see that Samsung has opted for almost the same settings in Grayscale mode as the Adaptive display setting. It has almost the same measurements. Only color temperature is higher, so you get a slightly cooler look than Adaptive mode. The blues are boosted just a tad to make the whites look a little more white, which is not unexpected considering Grayscale mode is all about the whites, grays and blacks.
Conclusion
All in all this is a very nice screen with great contrast, and the colors are almost perfect in Basic mode. Adaptive mode is way oversaturated, however, and the other two display modes aren't that great either. Grayscale mode isn't calibrated correctly and it is way too cool.
Yet, for the first mid-range Tizen phone this is a great screen. Read our full review of the Samsung Z3 to know about other aspects of the device.
