DisplayMate Tests the Apple Watch's OLED Retina Display

DisplayMate has published its analysis of the Apple Watch's flexible OLED display.

The key element for a great smart watch is its display… and Apple has done a great job with the OLED display on the Apple Watch. It provides very nice, pleasing and accurate colors and picture quality, and is a very good side-by-side match to the iPhone 6. It is very nicely implemented and an Excellent Smart Watch Display! Even the challenging DisplayMate Test Patterns were accurately reproduced and artifact free with excellent calibration and rescaling to the Apple Watch’s native 390x312 resolution. All of the images appeared very sharp on the relatively high pixels-per-inch (ppi) screen. Well done!

However, there were a couple issues with the display. First, in order to conserve battery life, Apple has implemented an aggressive display Brightness and display power management strategy. An Automatic Brightness Ambient Light Sensor significantly restrains the display’s Brightness reducing Contrast Ratio and Color Gamut as ambient light increases. In addition, the display turns off after 6 - 17 seconds which may be frustrating to users.


Second, DisplayMate notes that Apple's display will actually perform better on the Apple Watch Sport. Instead of sapphire crystal, the sport model uses Ion-X glass. Sapphire crystal reflects nearly double the ambient light which washes out image contrast and color. Interestingly, Apple may have a solution for future models called Enhanced Sapphire. The specially treated sapphire glass offers both high scratch resistance and low Reflectance, and will be available soon.

Hit the link to see DisplayMate's full test results...

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