AMOLED VS OLED: What's the difference

The main difference between the AMOLED and OLED comes down to the Technology, Working and Display quality. The AMOLED display quality is much better than the OLEDs as it contains an additional layer of TFTs and follows backplane technologies. The AMOLED displays are much flexible as compared to the OLED display. Hence, they are much better and costly than the OLED display.

Over the years, smartphones have gone from being a sort of luxury to a necessity in life.

Initially, they were only used for calling and messaging but now you are able to perform multiple operations, just with a few touches of your fingertips.

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As such, when buying a new phone a lot of things go down in your bucket list.

The RAM, ROM, processor, battery, display size and resolution and of course how can we forget the display type or technology.

You can try but you will fail to convince me that you have seen and stared blankly into the OLED or AMOLED wrote there in the description of these fancy smartphones or compared against each other and never wondered what these abbreviations mean and what’s in it for you, the buyer.

But why should you care about this stuff? Because if there exists a technology in our world more suited for your needs, would you not feel at a loss if you let it go and suffered just because you didn’t know about it.

However, it is also completely natural for you to feel overwhelmed and confused by such big words being thrown at you out of nowhere. That too about something that you didn’t even know that you needed to know about, to function in this world.

Well, you shall be confused no more because this article is here to help you, to not only feed the curiosity that lays within you but also to serve as a useful reference the next time you got out to buy a new device of any sort that contains a screen of one of the two preceding types.

Let discuss what are the main differences between the OLED and AMOLED.

OLEDOLED AdvantagesOLED Disadvantages

OLED is an abbreviation for an Organic Light Emitting Diode. As obvious from the name, it consists of thin layers of organic material that emit light on the passage of current, thus giving us vibrant color, flexibility and also less power consumption compared to our traditional LED displays. Wonderful! Isn’t it? They are widely used in mobiles, monitors and bendable and transparent lighting because of their inherent abilities.

Cost-effective
Higher display quality
Increased brightness
Extensive backlight not required
Faster response time than LEDs and LCDs

Shorter life spans than LCDs, LEDs.
There is a variation in color balancing.
No inherent water resistance. It can easily be damaged by water without protective films.

AMOLEDAMOLED AdvantagesAMOLED Disadvantages

AMOLED displays, on the other hand, abbreviated from Active Matrix Light Emitting Diode, consist of a thin film transistor (TFT) over the OLED displays giving it better use in larger displays. They can be considered, in a sense, a sub-type of OLED displays along with PMOLED (passive matrix light-emitting diodes) which are short living OLED displays that are cheap and used for smaller displays (up to 3 inches only).

Didn’t you satisfy your hunger? Well, there is more to come. They generally have two TFT layers, one for starting and stopping the charging of the capacitors and the other for facilitating the process. These displays give a magnificent performance in televisions and laptop screens too. Come to think of it, AMOLED has become a fan favorite for the majority of Samsung® devices. Hasn’t it?

Faster screen refresh rates. That’s something for the gamers with an unending desire of FPS!
Variety in display sizes. (Perhaps make a 10-inch smartphone? Oh wait those are called tablets)
Much better viewing angles compared to IPS LCDs (a whopping 170°)

The degradation of the screen with time is one of the key disadvantages of this double-edged sword.
These displays might be subject to screen burn-in.
Very costly compared to other displays. A big hit on your budget.

Key differences between OLED VS AMOLED

ComponentsDisplay sizesContrast ratioDisplayWorking

Your average OLED consists of things layers of organic material emitting light on the passage of current. This allows for each pixel to emit its own light. How cool is that! right? AMOLED displays contain additions of TFT layers and storage capacitors to control the pixel states.

While OLEDs provide a thin film-like and yet more efficient and brighter display, they also provide a larger display size than the standard LEDs. AMOLED on the other hand completely removes the restriction of a display size from their working range.

OLEDs offer higher control over which individual pixels are turned off and hence provide us with a higher contrast ratio and less power consumption as compared to AMOLED displays but AMOLED displays provide a faster refreshing speed and an artificial contrast ratio at the cost of higher power consumption.

Owing to its individual control over pixels, OLEDs can offer us a deeper Black color. Meanwhile, the AMOLED following backplane technology and having an additional TFT layer under the screen, give us a better display quality but cannot be seen under direct sunlight.

If flexibility seems to be an issue in the performance of the device, we should always focus on the AMOLED displays with higher flexibility that comes at a cost increase.

Want a more in-depth analysis of their working? Well, here it is. OLEDs are simple devices that work in the solid-state consisting of a thin layer of organic compound paired with an electroluminescent layer forming the electricity. The AMOLED, on the other hand, is protected by layers of plastic or glass and consists of active matrices of pixels supported by TFTs that control the current flow.