Retina iPad Mini Display is a 'Disappointment', Significantly Outperformed By Competitors
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Posted November 18, 2013 at 4:38pm by iClarified
DisplayMate has posted an in-depth mini tablet display shoot-out comparing the new Retina Display iPad Mini with the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 and the Google Nexus 7.
The tablets were compared on lab measurements of: Screen Reflections, Brightness and Contrast, Colors and Intensities, Viewing Angles, Display White Spectrum, Display Power Consumption, and Running Time on Battery.
Dr. Raymond M. Soneira, President of DisplayMate, found that the Kindle Fire HDX 7 and Nexus 7 offer 'very impressive' displays but the iPad mini is a 'disappointment'.
The iPad mini with Retina Display unfortunately comes in with a distant 3rd place finish behind the innovative displays on the Kindle Fire HDX 7 and new Nexus 7 because it still has the same small 63 percent Color Gamut as the original iPad mini and even older iPad 2. That is inexcusable for a current generation premium Tablet. The big differences in Color Gamut between the Kindle Fire HDX 7 and Nexus 7 and the much smaller 63 percent Gamut in the iPad mini Retina Display were quite obvious and easy to see in the side-by-side Viewing Tests. See Figure 1 to compare the widely disparate Color Gamuts and Figure 2 to see the very large Color Errors that result. This all appears to be due to incredibly poor planning. Instead of moving up to the higher performance (and cost) Low Temperature Poly Silicon LCDs, Apple chose to continue gambling on IGZO, which has resulted in both production shortages and inferior products.
Besides issues with Color Gamut, some Retina Display iPad mini panels are suffering from burn-in leading to a shortage in supplies.
Thankfully, the iPad Air's Retina display is said to perform much better, although it too was bested by the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9.
DisplayMate concludes that being outperformed by Amazon and Google should be a wakeup call.
"Two innovative Tablet manufacturers, Amazon and Google, have significantly leapfrogged Apple by introducing Tablet displays using LTPS (in the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 and the new Nexus 7), and they are significantly outperforming the IGZO and a-Si displays in the current iPads. Apple was once the leader in mobile displays, unfortunately it has fallen way behind in both Tablets and Smartphones. This should be a wakeup call…"
A comprehensive test carried out by Dr. Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate has said that the display on the iPad mini is outperformed by both the Nexus and Amazon Kindle Fire HD. The test was carried out across a number of parameters including resolution and sharpness, screen reflectance, colour gamut and a number of viewing tests that included measuring the tablet against a calibrated professional studio monitor.
The biggest reason I go for apple products is the quality. If you hold the ipad mini 2 and the nexus 7 in your hands, you can feel the difference right away. there is a huge difference in the quality, the finish and feel and ipad feels way more solid!!
The measurements are most likely accurate. The issue is whether a normal eye, as opposed to a sensitive scientific instrument, can actually perceive the difference.
That is why i returned my retina ipad mini it had a black shadow on the status bar and along the left right side screen i swapped about 4 different ones all present same problem. I returned my last swap to apple store for refund! People say oh its just a screen, but no the whole product is displayed on the screen. The screen is the most important part. And we pay good money for it. No Excuse Apple No Bullshit Products Im glad I made them waste like 4 boxes at the store and they felt like shit!
Raj, you could have examined the display in the store and asked for another one if it wasn't up to snuff. I looked mine over thoroughly in the store before taking it home. That's one of the nice things about the Apple store. They don't rush you.
Hey i did the swaps at store they all turned out shadow tint on top part screen. And to the comment before this. Buddy i have all apple products simce 2005 all my other devices have top notch screens. I prefer quality from apple its how steve jobs inspired it. I loved the retina of the mini but the screen issue has to be addressed
I examined the status bar on my iPad and iPhone. If you mean the subtle shading immediately above the time and other text. .thats not the display. It's the way OS 7 does the status bar. Same on phone and iPad. Also it goes with the status bar when you rotate the device, definitely the software.
No man its not the blur effect of ios7 it was a ½ inch shadow on top left right side of screen. It was very noticeable apple swapped it 2 times infrint of me n even the store manager agreed n the sales rep. All 3 ipads were fuked up my original one only had the shade of black on th top side of the screen. Im not saying all ipads r effected. But when ur doing work at night the sides look very bad especially in white background. Anyways i got a full refund and i will be buying again when they bring a new batch samsung screens!
The stuff a lot of those tech people talk about is usually not something regular folks with non-bionic eyes can see. I have both the Nexus 7 (2013) and the new Retina Mini and I can't see any real difference in the quaiity of the displays, except that the Mini is is larger. Each has its strong points that make it preferable for certain tasks. The iPad, however because of Apple's software does have a more polished feel to it and has a more responsive touch screen. Android is open and without even rooting it you can do stuff that would require a jailbreak on iOS, which is of course not an option for the newer devices. And that openness means you can sideload Flash, which along with Firefox makes it my first choice for web browsing. Since I use Firefox on my Macbook everything stays fully synced with the Android tablet. iCab on the iPad can sync from desktop Forefox, but not the other way around except for bookmarks, which can be copied manually. I know Chrome, Opera and Safari can sync between iPad and desktop, but I prefer Firefox to other browsers because of its extensions, many of which have no equivalent on any other browser.
I don't care if the display is not as good as Kindle Fire or Nexus 7 cause I still prefer the iOS software and it was tested that the chip is faster than both of those devices. The display is still great in its own right.
Tony - just a question....who is brining innovation to the table then? I don't see anyone really changing the game at present so why are the Apple boys getting such a hammering from people such as yourself?
Apple do still seem to lead the way most of the time, when they add a product or feature others tend to follow suit fairly quickly. Even a design tweak such as the Gold iPhone 5s......samsung within a couple of weeks announced a Gold S4 is on the way.....