The new iPad: Retina Display Analysis
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 19, 2012 5:49 PM ESTQuantifying Display Performance: Big Gamut Gains
Pixel density may have improved, but what about the rest of the display characteristics? We'll start with the usual suspects - brightness, black levels and contrast ratio:
Despite a tremendous increase in pixel count and density, the new iPad delivers roughly the same brightness and contrast ratio as its predecessor. White point remains unchanged as well at ~6700K.
At the introduction of the new iPad, Apple briefly mentioned a 44% increase in color saturation from the new panel. Although the old display definitely looked good, the new one does actually look better. My eyes aren't normally the best judge of gamut, but we have some tools to help quantify exactly what I was seeing:
Color gamut has definitely improved. While the iPad 2 and TF Prime both were able to represent ~40% of the Adobe RGB color gamut, the new iPad jumps by nearly 50% to representing 65% of the Adobe RGB gamut. More impressive are the gains you see if you look at the color gamut of the new panel compared to the sRGB space:
Here the panel is able to deliver nearly full coverage of the sRGB color gamut. Below is the CIE diagram for the new panel with an sRGB reference plotted on the same chart so you can visualize the data another way (the white triangle is the new iPad, the gray outer triangle is the sRGB reference):
Near perfect coverage. The new iPad's display is a huge step forward in both pixel density and being able to represent a wider color gamut. While it's still no where near the quality of high-end PC displays, this is real progress for tablets. The bar has been raised.
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gorash - Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - link
I mean to say "it helps to have a faster CPU".tmuller2 - Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - link
You notice how you tend to justify everything on hardware specs? It may have a slower CPU, yet performance and actual usage is well those devices with faster chips. If having a faster CPU is so important, then why hasn't Apple used them? That would be an easy fix right? Why would Apple want to handicap itself by using such low specs? The answer is because it doesn't need to. Clock speeds are clock speeds and the only thing that matters is the user experience. In my experience, Apple devices by far have the best experience and stability. So what ever numbers listed in tech specifications, are just that. May look great on paper.gorash - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
Are you saying that for example, web sites don't load faster with a faster CPU? With a slow CPU, it's impossible for web pages to load fast no matter how good the OS is.Mystermask - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
"Are you saying that for example, web sites don't load faster with a faster CPU?"Are you saying that you can compare the user experienced speed of the devices with different OSs / apps by comparing the (paper) CPU specs?
Sorry, how stupid is that?!
Those tech specs / cheapest parts prices fetishists are really funny. Unable to learn from a long history of 'paper spec marketing', they think they are cleverer than the rest of the world but are in fact easier to influence than people who are able to choose by defining their needs and comparing those needs to real world experience with a set of given devices.
doobydoo - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
Ever notice that I'm correcting you all the time, and that the corrections happen to be pro-Apple because you're ridiculous Android bias leads you to make ridiculous claims?Both CPU and GPU matter. Overall, taking into account both, the iPad has better performance. This is backed up by all the impartial reviews which note how smooth and fast it feels, in comparison to Android tablets. It also has by far the highest resolution and largest App store.
gorash - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
ICS is already smooth because it supports hardware acceleration, which Android didn't used to have. Most of the reviews are based on Honeycomb. "iOS is smooth blah blah blah" - that's just because iOS has hardware acceleration, just like WP7, which people also say that it is very smooth.doobydoo - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
The same ICS which the Galaxy Tab doesn't support yet?Mystermask - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
Hm. So you need to buy several different tablets to compete with an iPad? LOL. Sounds 'overpriced' to me(Those points are stupid: you will always find one other product that has a better implementation of feature X (price, size, smell, you name it), while laking in other areas. But at the end, you want ONE device. So such comparisons are moot.)
lukarak - Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - link
Why not go deeper? Samsung also buys components from various manufacturers, and puts it together. They don't make the backlight, the frame, the glass cover. You can go so deep to end up with only mining companies on your list, because everything we use comes from the earth (be it metals, oil (for plastic), and so on). Whatever the case, samsung didn't put the product to market, Apple did. Samsung's just going to see what Apple is successful at and copy it. Just like everybody else.medi01 - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
Which of the mentioned stuff is high tech, that you can't get from other suppliers. pretty please? Are you seriously comparing screens and glass covers?