Wednesday, 10 February 2016

LG G5 revealed to have an always-on screen

The LG G5 is literally going to work overtime to impress you, and we know that now because it’s been confirmed to have an screen that never sleeps.

The forthcoming Android phone has an always-on display that keeps time, date and up to five notification icons visible, even when the screen is off, judging from LG’s Facebook GIF.

It appears to be able to display this glanceable information without actually lighting up the rest of the screen or, likely, without wasting a ton of battery life.

Accomplishing this is often done by using OLED displays, which don’t require nearly as much power to light up black backgrounds, as pixels are essentials switched off.

This would signal a major shift in LG’s long use of IPS LCDs in mobile phones, joining Samsung and many other Android competitors with bright OLEDs.

We’ve seen this trick before

The LG G5 always-on display isn’t anything new - not even for LG. The company included a thin always-on second display at the top of the LG V10 to show the time, date and app shortcuts.

LG G4, the previous flagship, didn’t use an always-on display, but it did show the firm’s interest in making the time and date readily accessible.

Glance View was an easy-to-pull down menu that shined these information essentials even when the screen was completely off. There’s history here for LG.

There’s also competition trying similar tricks. Motorola’s popular Moto Display technology lights up the Moto X Pure and Moto X Play, for example, whenever it senses your presence.

While not technically “always on,” Motorola lets you peek at notification details by pressing the vague icons down, then shortcutting to or dismissing them via dragging the icons up or down.

Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P and the Motorola-made Nexus 6 aren’t as gesture friendly when you hover above them. Instead, their Ambient Display mode lights the screen up in grayscale whenever they’re picked up.

LG G5, by comparison, goes “all in” on always-on, and it’s going to be interesting to see how the Samsung Galaxy S7 rivals this technology.