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Google Nexus Prime coming in October with Super AMOLED HD screen

The next generation of Android is set to arrive in October, with the Google Nexus Prime sporting an eye-popping HD screen built by Samsung.

Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor
Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.
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Richard Trenholm
2 min read

The next generation of Android is set to arrive in October, sporting an eye-popping high definition screen. The Google Nexus Prime is being built by Samsung and will scorch retinas with a Super AMOLED HD screen.

The Nexus Prime will sport a Samsung Super AMOLED HD screen with Pentile technology, OLED-Display.net reports. The 4.5-inch screen has a resolution of 720x1,280 pixels, giving 326 pixels per inch.

Pentile is a Samsung technology that arranges coloured pixels on the screen to get the maximum brightness. Because our eyes are most sensitive to green, there are green pixels lined up in between alternating red and blue pixels. It's similar to the way camera sensors are laid out in order to efficiently collect light coming in through the lens and a bit like our picture above. Stare hard enough and you should be able to see a sailboat.*

The Pentile layout has been used in older AMOLED screens like the Google Nexus One, and the Super AMOLED screen on the Samsung Galaxy S.

When upgrading to a new display with smaller pixels, Samsung uses the RGB Stripe technique, which lays out the red and green and blue pixels in tightly packed vertical lines. Pentile has been ditched on the Samsung Galaxy S2, for example. But it's likely to be back on the rumoured Samsung Galaxy S2 Celox or S2 Plus.

Samsung is reportedly near to releasing a Super Amoled HD Plus display. It's running out of superlatives, though: what's next, the Super AMOLED HD Plus Ultra Brill Remix display?

The Google Nexus Prime is the first phone to run Android Ice Cream Sandwich software. Ice Cream Sandwich is the next update to Google's Android software, uniting the phone-friendly Gingerbread version and tablet-focused Honeycomb version.

The Prime is rumoured to do away with buttons, instead letting you control everything by poking and tapping on the touchscreen, like the Nokia N9.

*There is no sailboat. Stop staring. Seriously, stop staring, you'll make your eyes go wonky.