I’ve been using mobile phones since the era of the upright devices (the legendary 3310, which is the subject of many urban legends).
Aside from the incredible advancements in performance, the evolution of phone screens has always impressed me.
Higher resolutions, refresh rates, peak brightness, HDR, improved backlighting technologies…these are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to mobile screen technologies.
Compared to computer monitors, designing and manufacturing mobile screens is much more complex. Limited by space, mobile screens are typically right up against heat-generating components, so they need to have good heat resistance. Ideally, mobile screens also need to be energy efficient, since unlike computers, they can’t stay plugged into an outlet forever—the battery capacity is limited. Balancing performance with power consumption is the key challenge in mobile component design.
↪︎When you open the ROG Phone 8 official product website, you'll see a headline that reads "165 Hz AMOLED LTPO display."
AMOLED is likely familiar to most of you, but what is LTPO? Simply put, it’s a technology that helps save power on mobile screens.
What is LTPO?
LTPO stands for Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Oxide.
More accurately, it is a manufacturing technology that combines two types of thin-film transistors (TFT): low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) and oxide semiconductors (like IGZO).
If you understand that sentence, you probably have an in-depth knowledge of display technology, but to be honest, I barely understand it myself.
So, let’s summarize what this technology brings to mobile phones.
Energy Efficiency
In the past, a screen could only have one brightness level across its entire surface. With an LTPO screen, brightness control can be as granular as individual pixels.
Since pixel brightness can be precisely controlled, only small specific areas of the screen can be illuminated, such as when displaying the time or notifications in standby mode.
This precise brightness control also brings energy-saving benefits, as not all information displayed on the screen needs to be shown at the same brightness. For example, the background color of a discussion forum, compared to the text, is an area where brightness can be reduced.
For phones with high refresh rate screens (such as the ROG Phone), the energy-saving effects of LTPO are even more noticeable.
Improved Display Detail
Another benefit of individual pixel brightness control is more precise color rendering, helping to increase contrast.
The intensity of light directly affects color saturation—richer, more saturated colors generally require stronger light. In simple terms, an LTPO screen can reduce the brightness of dark colors and increase the brightness of lighter colors in the same image, using brightness contrast to create more vivid images.
Dynamic Refresh Rate Adjustment
Screens using LTPO technology can also dynamically and instantly adjust the refresh rate.
For example, when playing games, a higher refresh rate is obviously better. But when browsing static, non-video content like web pages, high refresh rates are unnecessary, and lowering them helps save power.
In summary, LTPO is a great technology that achieves the perfect balance between performance and energy efficiency!
