What is an Amoled Background?

An Amoled Background is a background which is mostly black in colour. However, not every background which is black can be classified as an amoled background. The black pixels in the picture have to be "True Black". Seems a little confusing, doesn't it? Well, here's an explanation on how all this works:

True Black: Every phone / computer has a different six-digit ID for every colour. It recognizes and displays a colour using that particular ID. The six digit colour code follows the pattern of R-G-B.

The first 2 digits are used to identify the amount of red any colour contains.
The next 2 digits are used to identify the amount of blue any colour contains.
The last 2 digits are used to identify the amount of green any colour contains.

Note that every colour is made using a combination of red, blue and green.

Some Examples:

The ID for the colour red is: #ff0000. (Full red - No blue - No green).
The ID for the colour blue is: #00ff00 (No red - Full blue - No green).
The ID for the colour green is: #0000ff (No red - No blue - Full green).

Therefore, the ID for the colour white (or true white) is #ffffff (Mix of R-G-B) and the ID for the colour black (or true black) is #000000 (Literally Void, full of emptiness, as I'd like to explain it).

But How Does All This Relate To Amoled Screens?

If a background you use on your phone consists of mostly true black pixels, it can reduce power usage on phones with AMOLED displays, as they actually switch off pixels that are meant to display black, thereby saving power. It also looks good and it's easier on the eyes in lower-lit environments.

The reason these Amoled Backgrounds are gaining popularity is that almost all the new flagship smartphones nowadays come with O-led (Amoled) displays. Here are a few examples:

• The Apple iPhone X.
• All the OnePlus flagship phones beginning from the OnePlus 3.
• Google Pixel phones.
• Samsung Phones like the Galaxy Note 8 etc.
• LG V30 and so on...

And that's not even 50% of all the phones that have Amoled displays. The trend of using amoled displays is growing day by day. Therefore, Amoled background are gaining more and more popularity.

An "Illustrative" Example:

Alright, now we will compare 3 blocks of the colour black:

All these blocks seem exactly the same, don't they. However, they're not.

Comparision

The First Block is 100% true black. All the pixels in the first block have the colour ID #000000. Therefore, it is the ideal background for amoled screens.

The Second Block is exactly 0% true black. All the pixels in it have the colour ID #030303.

Therefore, it sucks and you're better off just using a picture of a flower you clicked this morning.

The Third Block is approximately 50% true black. Half of the pixels in it have the colour ID #000000 and the rest have the colour ID #030303. Therefore, it's quite good and can be used as an amoled background.

Conclusion:

It is always better to use Amoled backgrounds on your latest smartphones. 

But fret not, not every background needs to be a boring blob of the colour #000000 to help you save that precious battery life of yours. Just like every other background, you can add stuff to your black canvas to make it interesting. Here, I'll just show you my lock screen wallpaper and my home screen wallpaper:

Lock Screen:

                                                                              Vegito From Dragon Ball Z / Super.

Home Screen:

Starman.

And this is exactly what I do when I'm on Reddit. I go over to r/AmoledBackgrounds and edit things for the visitors of the subreddit. After doing it for about ~6 months, I got the flair of "Recognized Amoledditor", which is given to only a few people on that subreddit. These are just 2 of the many backgrounds I have posted on that sub. Whenever I'll make a background, I'll post it on this blog.

Thank you for reading and have a great day ahead!

-Ritin Malhotra.