IPS is a screen technology used for LCD.
The technology was developed by Hitachi in the mid-1990s to overcome the limitations of twisted nomadic field effect (TN) active matrix LCD screens. IPS displays offer larger viewing angles, higher image quality and better colour reproduction. The response time of IPS displays ranging from 6ms to 16ms, which is only slightly slower than TN panels. Although this does not have significance in normal viewing, gaming applications may need to double check for games with higher frame rate.IPS displays improve the view angle of TN screens using two transistors for each pixel and requires brighter back-lights for better light transmission.
This comes with a price in the form of higher power consumption compared to TN displays. Although, this fact may go against using IPS displays on battery-operated devices with large screens such as laptops, multimedia devices will benefit from the wide-angle display.IPS technology has been in the forefront of development and comes to market in a variety of names such as Super IPS (S-IPS), Advanced Super IPS (AS-IPS), IPS Projects (IPS-Pro), Horizontal IPS (H-IPS), Enhanced IPS (E-IPS), Professional IPS (P-IPS) and Advanced High Performance IPS (AHP-IPS). In the above list, the first three are from Hitachi and the rest are technologies developed by LG. Each name reflects a technological improvement over the previous version of the technology. These include improved pixel refresh timing, contrast ratio, wider colour gamut. The LG technologies concentrated primarily on improving colour rendering and reducing the power consumption with better light transmission technologies.
However, the price of devices increases due to the production cost involved with IPS displays. This has prompted other display device manufacturers to research on alternatives to IPS while maintaining or improving the image quality and wide-angle viewing. Samsung replaced their long standing AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diodes) panels to Super PLS (Plane to Line Switching) displays that can achieve full HD rendering. This technology offers tough competition to the LG IPS displays by improving the brightness and reducing power consumption. Most strikingly, S-PLS panels are flexible.
The larger television industry still has a larger market share on IPS displays while smaller mobile devices are slowly adopting S-PLS displays. The price of these devices is still at higher end and companies are still researching on developing more market friendly technologies based on the merits of IPS.