It has a Super AMOLED Retina LCD Plasma display...What?

So I'm sure at one point during our phone shopping careers we've seen ads bragging about the type of display it has. Retina (Apple), Super LCD (Sony),or Super AMOLED (Samsung). There are many others, but let's focus on Retina and Super AMOLED for today, as they are best available currently. We'll talk about what these terms mean and why you should even care. I don't plan to discuss the technology behind either one, as there have been plenty of articles written that explain that subject in full detail. This article will concentrate on what ther terms actually mean (with a fun little activity about pixels) and the pros and cons of each. Let's get this started!

First things first: What the heck is a Retina display? Apple was very proud of their new display technology when it debuted on the iPhone 4 in 2010, as they should've been. The display was gorgeous. It had a 960x640 pixel LED display, which could produce very sharp detail.

"Ryan. What in the world does 960x640 mean?" Try not to jump ahead, ok? We'll get to that.

Jump ahead a year or so, and in comes the Samsung Galaxy S2, featuring a Super AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode. Thank Cthulu for acronymns) display, which had a resolution of 800x480. As you can see when comparing that with the iPhone display of 960x640, the S2 has less of a pixel count, which results in a still very sharp picture, but not as "smooth" as the iPhone's. (See experiment below on why pixel count matters). BUT, and this is a big BUT, an AMOLED screen has far better color quality than a standard LED display. The colors tend to pop off the screen. AMOLED displays offer a "richer" color experience.

Then we jump ahead to 2012 and the release of the Samsung Galaxy S3. The S3 has a 1280x720 Super AMOLED PLUS display. The PLUS, means more subpixels, which is basically a pixel within a pixel resulting in an very sharp picture combined with the color quality of a AMOLED display. This. Thing. Is. Gorgeous!


But what does all this technobabble mean?! And how does it make Farmville look better?

Apple claims that the iPhone contains so many pixels per inch(ppi), that they become small enough to where human eyes can't see them individually, creating a "smoother" image. Apple's specs state that there are 326ppi on their iPhone and iPod Touch Retina displays. Note: The iPad and new Macbook Pro's also claim a Retina Display, but they have less ppi than the iPhone with the 3rd Generation iPad having 264ppi and the Macbook Pro with 220ppi, far less than the iPhone. So according to Apple, anything with a ppi higher than 220 could be considered a Retina Display. The Galaxy S3 comes in around 319ppi, meaning it could be considered a Retina Display as well, under Apple's definition, and let's face it, when we're talking a ppi count that high, 7ppi less is a very small difference. So how does having more pixels create a smoother image?

Well I'm glad you asked, anonymous blog reader. Let's do a little experiment that you can easily reproduce at home with some sticky notes. Each sticky note will represent one pixel. Pixels in displays are actually square shaped as well, so this is just like making a little bitty pixel big enough to see closely.

I like to refer back to early video games because it's easy to see the difference adding more pixels make. I'm sure we have all seen the game Pong at some point in our lives. It's been on every gaming platform since its inception. Well do you remember what the ball looked like? It wasn't really a ball at all. It was a square that bounced back and forth. The reason it looked like a square was because the technology at the time could only create so many pixels. So let's say it had 4 pixels to work with to make the ball. If you take 4 sticky notes, try to make a circular shape. And remember, the sticky notes have to be in a grid pattern, so they have to be all lined up.

As you can see, it's hard to make a round shape when using square pixels. And since pixels can't be round, the solution is to make the pixels smaller, allowing you use more pixels in the same amount of space and tricking the human eye into seeing a rounder shape, like so:

In this situation, we just doubled the resolution which gives us 4 times as many pixels to use. So instead of working with a grid that is 2 pixels high by 2 pixels high (or 2x2, its Resolution. This should answer your 980x640 question. See how we came full circle, or full square in this case.), we are now working with a grid that is 4x4, so it has 2 times the resolution of the 2x2. As you can see, you don't have to use every pixel in a grid. Some can be turned off, which is represented by the white sticky notes.

So what happens if we add even more pixels? "Now you're just getting crazy, Ryan." Let's double the resolution again so that we are working with a 8x8 grid:

And with more pixels available, we can start to put designs within the ball:

As you can see, everytime we double the resolution, the ball appears to be more rounded and gets "smoother" around the edges.

Now in the experiment with the sticky notes, we kept the pixels the same size due to me being lazy and not wanting to cut a bunch of little squares. On a phone display, the amount of space you'd be working with would stay the same, but the pixels would just get smaller.'

So what's the Best Display available?

We've discussed Apple's Retina display and all of its pixels per inch, and we've also discussed the Color Rich Super AMOLED Plus display from Samsung. Which one is better?

Well if you've ever shopped for a TV, you'll know that resolution and display type don't mean diddly if it doesn't look good to your own two eyes. I'm a huge fan of Plasma TV's and I can argue all day with an LED lover, but in the end, it's just personal preference.

The Retina display on the iPhone is gorgeous display, but its one downfall is that it's only available on a 3.5" display and compared to current smartphones, it's just way too small. Of course that's my personal preference and you may like the smaller display. I own an iPod Touch and when I compare it to phones with bigger displays, it just looks dwarfed.

The Samsung Super AMOLED Plus display is just as, if not more, gorgeous than the iPhone display. Colors seem to jump off of the large 4.9" screen. And by Apple's standards, the Galaxy S3 can also be considered a Retina Display.

Hopefully this cleared up some of the vagueness that surrounds advertising and offers a little insight as to why the display type matters.

The pixelated ball is in your court now.

Nike FuelBand

I had been looking for some sort of motivation when it comes to working out, so when I read about the Nike FuelBand on Gizmodo back in January, I was immediately intrigued. I immediately pre-ordered one and have been using it for a little over three months.

For those not familiar with the FuelBand, it's a bracelet similar in style to those rubber bands you may see people wearing (i.e. yellow Livestrong bracelets) that tracks your activity throughout the day. (See picture below)


As you can see, it's almost 5:30pm and I've barely made a dent in my Fuel goal. Eek.



Along with measuring your calories burned and steps, it also measures in what Nike calls Fuel. How Nike Fuel is actually calculated I have no idea, but that's not really important. When you first set up your Fuelband, you create a Nike account on Nike.com, enter in some specific info about yourself, and then pick a daily Nike Fuel goal. It gives you a goal example to get you started by asking if you about your typical day. (Are you an athlete, do you have a desk job, etc.) which you can stick with or input your own custom goal. And that's pretty much it to the setup. Slap it on your wrist and go.

Hardware

As you can see from the photo, it's a fairly small device unlike other activity monitors like the MotoACTV by Motorola. It's very light and the only time I really notice that it's there is when typing because I rest my wrists on the table. It's obviously thicker than rubber bracelets, but it's not thick by any means. It has a rubbery feel to it on the outside, but smooth plastic on the inside, so it doesn't pull your arm hairs. It's rated as being water-resistant to handle sweat and light splashes, but I wouldn't recommend wearing it into the shower or pool.

Also included in the box are two extra pieces for adjusting the size. Unlike a watch with adjustable holes, the FuelBand needs to be customized a little, and Nike provides incremental adjustment pieces to get it just right.

Battery life seems to be great, as I consistently get 4 to 5 days between recharges and charge time is fairly quick at about an hour. When it's time for a recharge, it plugs into a standard USB port and also comes with the cable and wall charger if your not around your computer. I prefer to charge it via computer because it also uploads all of your data (Nike Fuel earned per day, days in a row hitting goal, etc.) to your Nike account, which you can then post to Facebook if you would like your friends to give you some encouragement.

It has just one button on it and the interface is very simple. With a touch of the button the all black face lights up to tell you the time, calories burned, steps, and of course your Nike Fuel. (The steps and calories burned can also be turned off via the desktop software, but the time and Fuel will always remain) It also has red, orange, and green lights underneath the display that give you a quick glimpse at how far you are from your daily goal. So even if you are looking at the time, (which is usually my default setting) you have a quick progress bar to look at, as well, which is very important when it comes to motivation.

It's overall looks usually grab someones attention on a daily basis. I usually get 3 to 4 people a week that will ask what it is or they will see me check the time on it and become immediately drawn to it when they see black band come to life. Nerds like myself will enjoy the attention it gets, as we all like to talk about our gadgets.

It has a built in pedometer and accelerometer for measuring movement, but does not contain any type of GPS, so there's no way to track your run distance. Having a limited way of measuring activity does have its drawbacks, which I'll get into in a little bit.

Nike Fuel

So this is the the big draw to the Nike FuelBand. Fuel is what's going to get you motivated to that little extra workout during the day or when you get home in the evening. Every little thing you do during the day earns Nike Fuel bringing you closer to your set goal for the day.

I use my FuelBand as my main watch for the day, so the Fuel meter is always in my face. I can tell it's been a particularly inactive day when I look down at noon and my meter is still in the red. This is where the motivation comes in. When your Fuel is that low, you immediately start to find ways to get it to fill up faster, whether it's taking the stairs instead of the escalator, going for a walk at lunch, or getting in a run or a workout before you plop down on the couch for the night.

There are some drawbacks to the way the FuelBand measure Fuel though. As I mentioned before, it only uses the pedometer and accelerometer to measure activity. I've found that when doing workouts at home (currently on week 2 of P90X) it doesn't measure push-ups, pull-ups, or some weight lifting very well. It also calculates running uphill the same as if you were running on a level surface. And the couple of times I've worn it while biking, it barely adds to my Fuel score since my wrists are generally not moving much.

I also noticed that when riding my motorcycle, the vibration caused the FuelBand to think I was running, I guess, and it would make me hit my goal very quickly. I look like a stud when you look at my daily graphs.

iOS App (Android Coming Soon)

If you happen to own an iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) you can download the Free Nike Fuel app. (Nike claims the Android app is coming soon, but that's been the case for about 3 months now) The Fuelband can then communicate with the app via bluetooth and you can upload your data on the go. I use my iPod Touch and the overall app looks very nice, but my biggest complaint is when uploading data. If you go a few days between uploads, it takes FOOOORRREEEEVVVVEEEERRRR. I'm not sure where the hold up is exactly, as bluetooth should be able to transfer fairly quickly, and I'm using my home wifi connection, which is well over 20Mbps. I mean we're talking 20 to 30 minutes to transfer about 3 or 4 days worth of data which may not seem like too much time, but it can drain the battery on your phone or iPod fairly rapidly. That's why I prefer to upload it via computer. Nike may release an update that rectifies this, though.

Outside of the slow transfer speed, the app is well built. You can view graphs of your past Fuel scores by day. You also get a strange little character that will celebrate with you when you hit certain achievements such as 3 day goal streaks, earning 100k Nike Fuel, etc. which you can then post to Facebook.

In the Box

The box is pretty fancy, as you can see in the pictures below, but there is not a whole lot in it, and there doesn't really need to be. You'll get a charging cable which is basically a USB extension cord, a little black stand that holds the band upgright while charging so you can easily see the battery indicator, two different extensions for adjusting the size of the band for the perfect fit, and of course the FuelBand and instruction booklet.








Verdict

The Nike FuelBand has it's pros and cons. In my opinion, the FuelBand looks cool and does just what I need it for. It gives me that extra kick of motivation throughout the day. Since it is a sleek device that doubles as a watch, it's always in your face and provides your progress for the day everytime you check the time.

If your someone who wants to know all the data about your last run (Distance, time, elevation, etc.) then you would be better off getting the FitBit or the MotoACTV, or use the FuelBand in conjunction with a smartphone app that will track that other data. Nike does have plans to release more Nike+ products that will work together with the FuelBand though, so we may not be that far off from seeing more features added to it.

Summary

+Sleek design
+Good battery life (about 4 to 5 days)
+Great motivator
+Nike.com and the Nike Fuel app are well designed
+Compatible with future Nike+ devices
-No GPS for tracking distance
-High price tag (about $150)
-Not always accurate as car and motorcycle rides can falsely add Fuel points