Screen comparison: G3 vs Xperia Z2 vs Galaxy S5 vs One (M8) vs iPhone 5s

With a new flagship handset out of the gate (we're looking at you, LG G3), it's time for us to sit down, power up the calibrators, get our magnifying glasses, and do a nice and detailed inspection of what we're dealing with when it comes to that gigantic, 5.5” display. Frankly, there's a lot going for the G3's display – it's one of the largest ones amongst other AAA smartphones, plus it comes with the remarkable QHD resolution that's supposed to make things even crisper and clearer than usual. But, as our review has already shown, the G3's display isn't quite the breakthrough affair that we were hoping for. That said, the G3 will now have to face some other handsets, whose screens have proven to be pretty exceptional (in one way or the other), such as the Xperia Z2, the One (M8), the iPhone 5s, and, of course, the Galaxy S5.

We'll be testing the displays in a number of areas, including brightness and visibility, resolution, and color reproduction. Let's see who's boss in the display category at this point!

Brightness and outdoor visibility

The first key area that we're going to focus on is brightness and visibility. This is where we find out how well handset displays perform outdoors, where there's plenty of bright ambient light.

Having a powerful brightness output is of utmost importance for every smartphone. After all, what use a massive screen is if you can't read your email while out and about. Recently, cell phone manufacturers have managed to achieve a decent level in this respect, though we're still far from where we need to be. Most high-end Android handsets stick around the 450-nit mark, which often makes for a readable screen outdoors. Readable, but by no means easy to view when the sun is shining brightly. The LG G3 and Xperia Z2 can reach about 450 nits of maximum brightness, while the HTC One (M8) manages to be a bit brighter with its 490 nits.

However, when viewed outdoors, there's hardly any difference between the M8 and the Z2. The G3, on the other hand, is just a bit dimmer. It also tends to overheat, which causes the phone to automatically lower its brightness level to about 90%, and it doesn't let you crank it back up to the maximum. Needless to say, such behavior isn't observed with any of the other phones. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S5 can outshine these guys, provided that you have the Adapt Display option activated. The GS5's brightness output actually varies depending on the content that's being displayed. On average, this allows the GS5's screen to be about as bright as that of the iPhone 5s, which cranks its brightness up to about 580 nits when facing the sun. Great performance demonstrated here by Apple's and Samsung's flagships, but there's still a lot more to be desired, as you can see from the images below.

Meanwhile, another important factor that we have to consider while on the subject of brightness is... minimum brightness. That's right – a metric which is very important for those of us who often use their phones in bed. Basically, the dimmer a phone's screen can get, the better. Some companies have started to actively deal with this – for example, Samsung has specifically made sure that the Galaxy S5 can lower the brightness to as low as just 2 nits! Measuring the handsets' minimum output when displaying solid white, the GS5 proves to be the best proposition in that category, although the iPhone 5s is a very close runner-up with its 5 nits. The LG G3 takes the honorable 3rd spot with its 9 nits, which means it's a bit brighter than what we'd consider comfortable, but still OK. Finally, the HTC One (M8) and Sony Xperia Z2 share the last spot with their 16 nits of minimum brightness. Obviously, you wouldn't want to spend too much time viewing these in the dark.

Color reproduction

Ah, color reproduction – such a complex area to explore, but also one that's extremely important, as it determines how good-looking and accurate a screen is going to be to a large extent. There are a lot of metrics here to look at, so let's get going!

Color temperature is one of the most important things to consider. It represents the balance between red and blue in the display, and determines if your screen is going to have a colder or a warmer tone to it. Color temperature is measured in Kelvin, and the reference value is 6500. It's typical for smartphones to usually exhibit a slightly colder/bluish look, and neither of the participants in this comparison are exception to the rule. The Xperia Z2 does best here with a color temp of 6900 K, which is quite good. The iPhone 5s and HTC One (M8) follow closely behind with 7150 K, slightly edging the G3's 7300 K. The Galaxy S5 is worst in this respect. In Standard screen mode, it hovers around the 8100 K mark, although you can switch to Professional or Cinema mode in order to bring this down. Still, even though the GS5's temperature can get relatively close to the reference value, it suffers from another problem — too much green color — which prevents it from looking... well, good. Such kind of excessive green isn't present with the rest of the gang.

Gamma is also an important metric, as it will indicate if the phone would assign the correct brightness level to various items in the content. The reference is 2.2, but some manufacturers opt for a higher gamma as it typically suggests more contrasty visuals. In this category, the iPhone 5s is king, with its average gamma of 2.21. The Galaxy S5 isn't far behind with 2.25, while the Z2 is remarkably off with 2.59. The G3 has a gamma of 2.32 – pretty decent, though just a bit more contrasty than needed. Finally, the One (M8) has a slightly low gamma of 2.11, suggesting that certain areas will be a bit brighter than necessary.

Delta E is a metric used to indicate the average color inaccuracy of a display. We measure it in two different ways: once by using a greyscale, and once by measuring primary and secondary colors. In addition, by analyzing the CIE charts containing the measurements of the screens, we can see just where the faults happen to be. In this department, it is the iPhone 5s that gets closest to the reference values with its Delta E greyscale of 2.66 and Delta E color (or rgbcmy) of 3.36. Bear in mind that values of up to 3 are considered in the 'great zone'; values between 3 and 5 are OK, but going over 5 means that there are significant color inaccuracies exhibited by the display in questions. But back to our ranking – the G3 actually follows pretty closely with Delta E greyscale of 3.82 and Delta E rgbcmy of 3.78. All the other phones stay in the safe zone of up to 5, with the exception of the Galaxy S5, which has a Delta E greyscale of 5.08 and Delta E rgbcmy of 7.38, which is rather high. That is if we examine the phone's Standard display mode. We won't go into detail about the characteristics of the rest of its screen modes, because none of them manages to push it into the 'acceptably accurate' domain. Still, if you're interested about those other screen modes – you can find that info here.

Resolution

In mobile, we've long gone past the point where we're no longer suffering from pixelization or other viewing issues caused by lack of resolution. After hitting milestones like the iPhone 4 with its Retina Display of 326 ppi, the 1080p HTC DROID DNA, and the QHD LG G3, we're already in a position where we might even be experiencing excessive screen resolution. The move from 720p to 1080p brought little, but still discernible difference with regards to clarity. However, now that LG has initiated the push for QHD (1440 x 2560 pixels), we start to wonder if there's really need for anything higher than 1080p on a screen with a size of about 5, or even 5.5 inches. As we said in our LG G3 review, the differences between QHD and 1080p in terms of viewing experience are more than negligible, so if you expect the QHD resolution of the G3 to noticeably improve things and make them seem crisper and more detailed, you're in for a disappointment.

Besides the G3, the rest of the participants in this comparison, except for the iPhone 5s, are hovering around the 5” display diagonal mark. This results in a pixel density of well over 400 ppi – a very high number that guarantees an extremely clean and easy to read image. It's difficult to really rank all the handsets in this category, as most of them exhibit more or less the same level of detail. The iPhone 5s and its Retina Display are also very good in terms of viewing experience, but with a pixel density of 326 ppi, there's just a smidgen of visible pixelization with it, in case you look carefully. Still, it isn't anything significant enough to make you look away from it.

Overall

The LG G3 is a remarkable smartphone in many ways, and the screen is definitely one of its more notable features. The massive, 5.5” piece of glass does not only have an imposing size, but also a staggering resolution, which is sure to attract a lot of attention from tech-savvy people. This is why a detailed display comparison featuring the G3 and its biggest rivals made a lot of sense.

Now that we've carefully examined all the displays, we've come to the conclusion that all are pretty much neck and neck right now, with some small exceptions.

The screens of the LG G3 and Galaxy S5 are the ones that remain slightly behind those of their opponents. The main problem for the G3 is the slightly worse outdoor visibility, while the Galaxy S5 suffers from inaccurate color balance. While the other three contestants, the iPhone 5s, One (M8), and Xperia Z2, aren't that much better, they manage to gain a bit of a lead due to being a notch better overall. The iPhone 5s achieves this by sporting a more accurate color balance, as well as an excellent brightness output, while the M8 and Z2 remain on an equal footing with Apple's finest by making up for the slight inaccuracies and missing nits with some extra resolution.

At the end of the day, if we have to make a conclusion for the newcomer in this comparison, the LG G3, we'd say that LG has done a pretty good job overall. Its display is far from perfect, and in most cases – it cannot surpass what others have already accomplished, but it sure is a tempting proposition for fans of larger-than-life displays.