Flat-panel, 120Hz and AMOLED emerge as the more popular smartphone display specs in a new consumer survey

Smartphone OEMs put a lot of emphasis on the display upgrades, advantages or both for each new device released, for obvious reasons. However, according to a new survey conducted by GSMArena through June 6-12, 2022, some companies shouldn't have bothered in some cases. The poll appears to reveal some distinct preferences among consumers (who cast between 5,328 and 12,933 votes per question) as far as their mobile device screens go.

AMOLED (perhaps inevitably) scored a major win over LCD, as just over 87% of the votes cast in the 'material' section of the poll went to the former, with only about 7% for the latter, just beating a third "don't care" option by 2%.

It seems a new OLED panel would be best served being 120Hz, scoring nearly 50% of these votes compared to ~8% for 144Hz and ~26% for 90Hz. The preferences for resolution were less clear-cut: FHD+ (~41%) was followed more closely by QHD+ at ~37% and 4K at ~15%. Then again, "HD+" couldn't even beat "don't care" at less than 3%.

However, when it came to display type - "flat" or "curved", the former scored a decisive victory at 71%, compared to 20% for the latter. Finally, there was a section for some modern-day features OEMs tend to like to hype when selling phones: HDR; 10-bit color; DC dimming, and an always-on display.

Of these, the former scored a very narrow victory at ~26% - however, it was neck-and-neck with another: "toughened glass". Therefore, it seems the respondents prioritized durability as highly as screen brightness and legibility, caring less about cutting-edge image-quality and UX buzzwords.

Then again, this survey might not be taken as truly representative of the market and its demographics; in addition, GSMArena only mentioned actual participant numbers for 1 section: "features", at 4,933 respondents, which also got the largest and most disproportionate amount of votes.

However, the poll just might also be a decent reflection of general customer sentiment concerning new phones in 2022.