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…"

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Retina iPad Mini Display is a 'Disappointment', Significantly Outperformed By Competitors

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kindleon - November 30, 2013 at 2:33am

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.

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MMguy - November 27, 2013 at 11:35pm

I have iPad mini 1 and I compared it with the iPadd mini 2. The displays looked the same,if not,the iPad mini 2 display was worse.

MMguy - November 21, 2013 at 10:34pm

I'ts retina display sucks.

MMguy - November 21, 2013 at 12:25pm

iPad mini 2 sucks

gamerscul9870 - November 21, 2013 at 9:00pm

In WHAT exactly?

Armin 01 - November 18, 2013 at 11:37pm

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!!

HaSa - November 18, 2013 at 9:20pm

Bullshit, ipad mini 2 is wonderful!

Camfella - November 18, 2013 at 9:50pm

Are you saying the measurements are wrong?

are you kidding me - November 18, 2013 at 10:44pm

delusional fanboy

zetaprime - November 18, 2013 at 11:23pm

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.

HaSa - November 19, 2013 at 1:21am

No, I'm saying I don't trust such measurements, I have an ipad mini2 and I'm not noticing anything of the abovementioned.

Raj - November 18, 2013 at 7:48pm

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!

zetaprime - November 18, 2013 at 10:00pm

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.

Raj - November 18, 2013 at 10:52pm

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

zetaprime - November 18, 2013 at 11:15pm

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.

Raj - November 19, 2013 at 1:14am

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!

zetaprime - November 19, 2013 at 2:32pm

Where is the 'top left right' of the screen? That makes no sense at all. At any rate the first one that I got was just fine. Sorry you had problems.

Kornehl - November 18, 2013 at 7:41pm

Maybe if they showed us a picture that illustrated the supposed problem this article would mean something. Right now, it is just technobabble.

zetaprime - November 18, 2013 at 9:09pm

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.

THui - November 18, 2013 at 9:46pm

Thank god u have some sense into analyzing things instead of just bashing people with no sense.

THui - November 18, 2013 at 7:33pm

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.

zetaprime - November 18, 2013 at 7:15pm

If you guys hate Apple so much then why are you reading a blog clearly intended for Apple users?

Camfella - November 18, 2013 at 9:47pm

I could have sworn this article talked about the Nexus tablet and Amazon tablet!

Lucian - November 18, 2013 at 6:39pm

And yet they raised the price for iPad mini. What the hell

THui - November 18, 2013 at 8:27pm

It is more expensive cause of the new chip another M chip, and it being a Retina Display.

Neutral - November 18, 2013 at 6:00pm

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.....

gamerscul9870 - November 18, 2013 at 5:07pm

Doesn't matter. IPad air is where it's at!

Camfella - November 18, 2013 at 4:52pm

I guess using cheaper parts is one of the ways they make all that profit