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There may be a 3rd iPhone model next year with a better screen

A report from Japanese news site Nikkei claims that Apple will unveil a third iPhone model with a 5.5-inch organic light-emitting diode display with curved side edges.

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It was first reported by Reuters in January that Apple could adopt OLED displays for iPhones in 2018, but if this latest rumor is true, then we could see this new OLED iPhone as soon as next year.

curved iphone concept
kedarkulkarni95/YouTube

The third iPhone model will apparently be released alongside the regular 4.7- and 5.5-inch iPhones with LCD displays.

OLED displays are superior to the LCD technology found in iPhones. For one, they have much better contrast where darks are darker and brights are brighter, which helps make anything on the screen "pop." OLED displays also reproduce deeper colors than an LCD could.

They can even be more power-efficient than LCD displays, as they can turn off specific parts of the screen for anything that's colored black. An LCD display, on the other hand, is always on, even when displaying the color black.

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Below is a comparison between the iPhone 6S Plus' LCD display against the OLED display on the Galaxy Note 5. Both have the same picture of the color black, but it's clear that the iPhone's LCD screen looks more gray than it does black.

The same image on the Note 5's OLED display is clearly showing a more accurate black color. In fact, the majority of the Note 5's screen is off because OLED displays actually turn off to display the color black.

iphone screen vs samsung screen lcd vs oled
Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider

If you want an idea of a smartphone with curved OLED displays, then you can check out the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge (below) and Note 7.

New Samsung S7 (R) and S7 edge smartphones are displayed after their unveiling ceremony at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 21, 2016. REUTERS/Albert Gea
New Samsung S7 and S7 Edge smartphones after their unveiling ceremony at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year. Thomson Reuters
Apple
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