OLED屏能否助三星挽回頹勢

When critics of Samsung see the Korean technology mega-corporation turn out yet another huge, impressively sharp screen for a new phone or tablet computer, it makes them see red.

當韓國三星集團（Samsung）推出一款針對智能手機和平板電腦的全新屏幕時，許多批評人士都覺得這款屏幕有些發紅。

Well, not red, actually—more like a super-saturated, unrealistically bright version of red.

也許用“發紅”來形容並不確切——其實它更接近一種飽和得有些不真實的亮紅色。

Samsung is the near-undisputed king of OLED, or organic light-emitting diode, display technology. It has been using its dominant position in that market as a source of stability as it enters an increasingly untenable situation: eroding sales on both ends of the phone price spectrum. On the low end where profit margins are thin, Samsung has been under attack by local manufacturers such as Xiaomi, which have been willing to sacrifice profit for the sake of market share. On the high end where margins are better, rivals such as Apple’s iPhone have proved to be fiercely competitive. Every company in the business hopes that large sales volumes will make their big bets pay off in the end; the question is what will prompt consumers to buy one glassy device over another.

三星是OLED領域幾乎無可爭辯的王者。OLED的全稱是有機發光二極管。近年來，隨着三星在高端和低端手機市場受到了越來越大的挑戰，該公司開始利用自己在OLED市場的霸權穩固。在利潤較低的低端市場上，願意犧牲利潤換取市場份額的當地廠商，比如小米（Xiaomi），着實給三星造成了不小的衝擊；而在利潤相對較高的高端市場上，以蘋果（Apple）iPhone爲代表的競爭對手又給三星帶來了極大的壓力。每家企業都希望自家的設備銷量好，問題是大家的產品大同小異，是什麼刺激消費者買這一款，不買那一款呢？

Samsung hopes that display technology will be one of those things as its rivals use less flashy but more trusted screen technology.

三星希望它的顯示技術能夠成爲刺激購買慾望的因素之一，因爲它的競爭對手們使用的都是不那麼鮮豔，但更受信賴的屏幕技術。

Apple’s iPhones and iPads and roughly two-thirds of all smartphones have LCD, or liquid-crystal display, screens. LCDs essentially twist and untwist liquid crystals to allow a certain amount of light through each red, green, or blue sub-pixel, the term for the components that make up each individual pixel in a display. The technology is well-known and well-worn, but it comes with a major downside: liquid crystals provide no light of their own. The necessary backlight that accompanies such displays is a substantial draw on battery life; taken together with the crystals and other necessary technology, such displays make the resulting screen thicker and more rigid.

蘋果的iPhone、iPad以及大約三分之二的其他智能手機均使用LCD屏幕，即液晶顯示屏。LCD顯示屏通過扭轉液晶來使一定量的光線穿過每個紅、綠或藍像素。這一技術很知名，也很成熟，但它也有一個比較大的缺點：液晶自己是不發光的，液晶背後的發光板會顯著影響電池壽命。另外算上液晶屏本身和其它必要技術配件的厚度，LCD屏通常要更厚、更硬一些。

Most of Samsung’s modern devices have AMOLED (as in “active-matrix organic light-emitting diode”) displays. The technology involves passing a current through tiny, thin films of organic material (red, green, or blue), which cause them to throw off colored light. AMOLED screens generate their own light, so they do not need a backlight. Even better, when the pixels are not needed, they are actually “off,” saving device power and allowing blacks to be deeper and truer than with LCDs. Manufacturing and material improvements have made AMOLED displays thinner, extremely pixel-dense, occasionally curved, and able to display a huge range of colors.

目前三星的大多數設備採用的是AMOLED屏幕（又叫主動矩陣有機發光二極管）。這種技術使電流通過一些有機材料薄膜（紅綠藍色）來發出有色光。由於AMOLED顯示屏自身可以發光，它不需要背光板。更妙的是，當不需要某些像素髮光時，它們會被“關閉”掉，從而節省電力，而且AMOLED顯示屏上的黑色也要比LCD顯示屏更深、更純。隨着工藝和材料的進步，如今的AMOLED顯示屏已經造得比以往更薄、像素密度極高，有的甚至還能彎曲，而且它的色域也非常廣。

Most importantly, these manufacturing improvements come largely from one single maker: Samsung Display, a division of Samsung Electronics. “There may be a couple of other players, technically, but, really, these displays come from Samsung,” says Vinita Jakhanwal, senior director of analyst firm IHS. “There is no other OLED or AMOLED maker making displays for mobile phones or tablets.”

最重要的是，這些工藝進步很大程度上來自同一個製造商，即三星電子集團旗下的三星顯示公司（Samsung Display）。IHS公司高級總監維尼塔o賈克漢瓦表示：“可能還有其他幾家公司涉及這項技術領域，但這些顯示屏實際上都來自三星，除此以外，市場上再沒有其他廠家爲手機或平板電腦生產OLED或AMOLED顯示屏了。”

Samsung certainly wants to talk about its display technology. In a video promotion for its Galaxy Tab S tablet this summer, women purchase salad bowls, dresses, and shoes online, only to sigh in deep exasperation when a different shade of blue-green, yellow, or shale comes out of the box. The Galaxy Tab S, the voice-over claims, displays the “professional RGB standard” and each pixel is a “living pixel, capable of producing a variety of color combinations.” The message: Samsung’s screens are organic, different, and simply better at colors.

三星當然樂於談談它的顯示技術。在今年夏天發佈的一段Galaxy Tab S平板電腦推廣視頻中，一位女士在網上購買了沙拉碗、裙子和高跟鞋，等快遞到了，卻發現實物的顏色跟網站上的圖片顏色偏差很大，不由得唉聲嘆氣。這時旁白說道，三星Galaxy Tab S平板電腦可以展示“專業的RGB標準”，每個像素“都是一個活的像素，能夠創造一系列色彩組合。”潛臺詞就是說，三星的屏幕是有機的，是不一樣的，在色彩顯示上做得更好。

In reality, this is the opposite of what many industry pundits claim. The colors displayed on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S, according to Dieter Bohn, an editor for the tech-lifestyle website The Verge, “still tend to look over-saturated to my eyes,” though he added that “Samsung has toned things down considerably from years past.” In an otherwise positive review of a newer Galaxy S5 smartphone model, Anandtech, a computer hardware site, made note of “minor issues with excessive green in the color balance.” In essence, people seem to agree that the colors of AMOLED displays are more vivid. Whether or not those colors are natural or accurate based on what the eye would see in real life is another matter entirely.

然而在現實中，許多行業權威反饋的情況卻恰恰相反。科技生活網站The Verge的編輯迪特爾o波恩表示，Galaxy Tab S的顯示屏顏色“在我看來仍然有過於飽和的傾向”，不過他補充道：“但和前幾年相比，三星還是顯著改善了失真的情況。”硬件網站Anandtech在一篇對Galaxy S5總體還算比較正面的評測中指出，這部手機在“色彩平衡上還存在稍微偏綠的小問題”。實際上，用戶似乎也認同AMOLED顯示屏的顏色要更加生動。至於這些顏色在實際生活中怎麼樣，是否還像顯示屏裏那樣自然或飽滿，那就是另一回事了。

Samsung may be sensitive to accusations of color problems because one of its main rivals is on record about it. Apple CEO Tim Cook told a Goldman Sachs investors’ conference in February 2013 that “the color saturation is awful” on OLED displays. He added: “If you ever buy anything online and you want to really know what the color is . . . you should really think twice before you depend on the color of the OLED display.”

三星可能對色彩飽和度問題很敏感，因爲一位主要競爭對手曾經公開抨擊過這個問題。蘋果公司CEO蒂姆o庫克曾於2013年2月在高盛（Goldman Sachs）投資人大會上指出，OLED屏幕的“顏色飽和度太糟糕了”。他還稱：“如果你想在網上買東西，而且你想知道它是什麼顏色……在你根據OLED屏幕上的顏色做決定前，最好再慎重考慮一遍。”

Part of the issue has to do with a seeming strength of AMOLED technology. It can create a wider range of colors than other display technologies. While the colors of most images are limited to fit inside the 18-year-old sRGB color gamut, AMOLED screens can technically reach far beyond that range, and Samsung often lets them. Some Samsung devices offer a display-correcting “mode”— “Professional Photo” is one—but for the most part, Samsung allows colors to run bolder and more saturated, especially in the red part of the visible spectrum.

AMOLED之所以會被揪住這根辮子，部分原因恰恰和它一個看似優勢的因素有關。AMOLED技術的色域比其它顯示技術更寬。目前大多圖像的顏色還限制在已經有18年曆史的RGB標準裏，但是AMOLED在技術上可以遠遠超越這個色域，而且三星也經常允許它“超綱發揮”。三星的有些設備提供了顏色校正模式。但大多數情況下，三星允許顯示屏的顏色更加醒目和飽滿，尤其是在可見光譜的紅色部分。

“The colors look really off to me, but it’s up to you whether you like this effect or not,” says Erica Griffin, an in-depth video device reviewer, in her take on Samsung’s Galaxy S5. “I know Samsung is heading for an effect that’s eye-catching, to get people’s attention . . . For some people, that looks pretty, and for others it’s just an eyesore.”

在評測完Galaxy S5手機後，視頻設備評測師埃裏卡o格里芬表示：“這些顏色在我看來很不舒服，但是你喜不喜歡這種效果則取決於你自己。我明白三星在追求一種吸引眼球的效果，以吸引人們的注意力……對於有些人，它看起來是挺漂亮的，但在另一些人看來卻覺得很難受。”

It’s also a look that may change as you use your device. The organic materials used to make blues in OLED displays wear out far more quickly than the reds or greens. As they start to wear out, the overall balance of color shifts. Samsung and other device makers often try to correct for this—for example, by making blue sub-pixels twice as large—but it remains an unsolved issue.

此外，在你使用設備的過程中，這種色彩的感覺可能還會有所變化。OLED顯示屏用來發藍色光的有機材料衰減得很快，遠遠超過紅色或綠色。一旦它開始衰減，總體的顏色平衡就會產生變化。三星和其它設備廠商也想了一些辦法解決這個問題，比如把藍色像素的尺寸增加一倍，但目前這個問題仍然沒有徹底解決。

A Samsung spokesperson pointed to the company’s latest displays, dubbed Quad-HD Super AMOLED, as having “an immersive viewing experience with a high contrast ratio and a wider color range” than the competition. The Galaxy Tab S featured in the aforementioned ad has a dedicated chip in it that can stabilize colors. At its most basic setting, tech site Anandtech says it mostly has the desired effect.

一位三星發言人表示，三星最新推出的Quad-HD Super AMOLED屏幕具有“沉浸式觀賞體驗、很高的對比度，而且有比競爭對手更廣的色域”。前文提到的Galaxy Tab S平板電腦內置了一塊用於穩定顏色的專用芯片。科技網站Anandtech表示，在最基本的設置上，它基本達到了預期效果。

Colors are important on mobile devices for one overarching reason: managed expectations. Knowing that Twitter uses a sky blue color for its logo, it can be jarring for users and marketers alike to see a version with a tinge of green. LCD display technology certainly is not standing still—displays are becoming thinner, brighter, and even more high-definition. But IHS’s Jakhanwal notes that it is more than just colors, battery life, or thinness that gets a device into buyers’ hands.

顯示屏的顏色顯示對於移動設備是非常重要的，尤其是它必須要滿足用戶的預期。我們都知道Twitter的Logo是天藍色的，如果用戶和營銷人員發現自己手上的設備顯示的Logo帶點綠色，非抓狂不可。LCD顯示屏當然也並非毫無進步，如今的LCD屏幕也變得更薄、更明亮，分辨率也變得更高。不過IHS公司的賈克漢瓦指出，消費者選擇一款移動設備時，看重的並不只是色彩、電池壽命或厚度。

“The winners are going to be the device that has not just superior display technology, but superior overall performance,” she says. “Nobody is really going to feel good that, ‘Now I have the brightest tablet,’ or ‘Now my colors are more real.’ It’s a combination of features that make the display and the device.” Which may be good reason for Samsung and its market-moving AMOLED research teams more time to move its displays out of the red.

她表示：“這個行業的勝者不僅要有很好的顯示技術，還要有很好的總體性能。沒有人真的會因爲‘我用的是最亮的平板電腦’或者‘我的顏色更真實’而感覺良好。最終造就一款顯示屏和設備的，是一系列功能的組合。”這可能解釋了爲什麼三星及其AMOLED研究團隊還需要更多時間來解決屏幕發紅問題。