Display analyst sheds light on complaints about Pixel 2 XL's display

There's no shortage of blogs and YouTubers to follow these days when it comes content about the mobile tech industry, and for a number of people, one of the go-to personalities on YouTube for tech-related videos is MKBHD. Marques Brownlee that runs the channel recently published his review for the Google Pixel 2, and in part of it, talks about the Pixel 2 XL's display.

François "Supercurio" Simond (a relatively popular app developer and display analyst) quickly reached out following this to indicate a number of errors throughout the video when Marques is talking about why the Pixel 2 XL's display looks and works the way that it does. After being told that Marques didn't have time for a phone call, François shared an email that he sent to Marques on Google+ in which he outlines the biggest errors in the video.

One of the biggest complaints we've seen for the Pixel 2 XL is that its display isn't quite as bright or vibrant when compared to the likes of a Galaxy S8 or Note 8. This is due to Google's decision to calibrate the Pixel 2 XL to an sRGB profile, and in the video, Marques says "For whatever reason Google decided on Oreo on the Pixel 2 XL they would show just sRGB."

However, François points out that this was done because the colors that most Android phones are currently showing are arbitrary and make it more difficult for content creators to work with them.

Later on, Marques claims "most phones are now showing that wider range of colors, they all have P3 displays." Although it's true that phones with AMOLED displays have the capability to show a wide color gamut by default, not all phones are actually P3. François also reminds us that IPS panels using the sRGB profile choose to show the more narrow array of colors because it's power-efficient and more accurate to what our retina are sensitive to.

"All phones with AMOLED panels have a native wide gamut capability...They're wide-gamut by not really P3"

Near the end of Marques' explanation, he talks about editing a photo on the Pixel 2 XL to look more colorful to his eyes, "and boom, this super saturated photo shows up on everyone else's device because they're all showing more colors." Once again, François comes to the rescue to say that while AMOLED displays and IPS panels with a wide color gamut will showcase the wrong colors, all of Apple's devices (iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, and iMacs) will show the colors as they're supposed to look.

You can check out François' full post here for even more detail, and we suggest doing so as there's a lot of valuable information to be found – especially for owners of a Pixel 2 XL that want to know more about why their display looks the way it does.