Apple’s smaller sized iPhones and iPads have usually played second fiddle to its larger size ones, but in one crucial aspect the new 9.7” iPad Pro beats its larger 12.9” sibling by a fair bit: the display. The new iPad Pro reportedly comes with the best LCD display ever seen in a mobile device, as proven by the testers at DisplayMate.
Although, the smaller tablet does come with an additional feature True Tone, which automatically warms the display under yellowish lighting, the display is essentially the same with the same pixel density. But obviously, the tests went deeper than that.
For starters, the tablet supports two kinds of color gamuts. The one is the conventional sRGB/Rec.709 which is used in the consumer content shot for TV, internet and computers. The second is the newer DCI-P3 Wide Color Gamut, which is used in 4K UHD TVs and Digital Cinema. This results in a color accuracy which is “visually indistinguishable from perfect.”
The display has the lowest reflectance of any mobile device out there, so working in high ambience lighting won’t likely affect you too much. Furthermore, the display is actually 20 percent brighter than all other iPads, at 511 nits, and the brightest full-sized tablet ever.
It scored well in terms of contrast with a ratio of 1,022, which lags the larger iPad Pro’s 1,631. It did come back to score higher in contrast ratio under high ambient light at 301, higher than the other model’s 166.
It has Night Shift, which automatically lowers blue light in low-light scenarios. Lastly, it boasted “excellent viewing angle performance” while having the same overall power efficiency of iPads of past.
It concludes that although the larger iPad doesn’t have a bad display per se, the new iPad Pro essentially rules the roost at anything other than contrast ratio. DisplayMate expects Apple to add the same anti-reflective coating and Wide Color Gamut in the upcoming iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.
With Samsung and others moving to newer, higher res. OLED panels, it is impressive to see Apple doing just fine with the good ol’ LCD.
