Android 2.1 now blamed for some of Nexus One (and now Droid) screen 'issues'
See that picture up there? That's the surface of Mars. And apparently it doesn't look very good on the Nexus One. And now on the Motorola Droid. And quite possibly any device running Android 2.1. Why? Let's discuss, after the break.
See, the thing is, it's cool to hate on the Nexus One. We get it. So when DisplayMate first issued its report that showed the above photo not looking so sweet on the Nexus One when compared to the Motorola Droid, everybody ate it up.
Only, it turns out maybe the Nexus One itself isn't to blame. Look, the N1 has an AMOLED screen, and one of the first in mass production on a smartphone. And images look a little different on it than on other phones. That's just gonna happen. But now that the Motorola Droid has Android 2.1, people are seeing the same image quality "issues" that previously damned the Nexus One. Turns out it's because of a software change. Here's how DisplayMate describes it:
And Google apparently has acknowledged the change, telling Gearlog:
We know the thunder's coming in the comments. That's cool. (And personally, I'm looking forward to Super AMOLED.) But let's place blame where blame's due: Apparently on Android 2.1. That said, we look at plenty of pictures on the Nexus One and Droid and don't have a problem with either one. While we want the best for our money (and we shelled out a lot of jing for these phones), we're just not going to get that anal over whether it's 24-bit or 16-bit scaling or whatever. That said, we do want it to look the best it can. So if we need to see a fix for this, then, darn it, let's get one.
Want to try it for yourself? Here's the NASA Mars picture, available for download. Give it a shot.
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