The Apple iPad Pro Review
by Ryan Smith, Joshua Ho & Brandon Chester on January 22, 2016 8:10 AM ESTDisplay
With the iPad Pro, one of the main points of interest is its display. Although there are other elements to the iPad Pro like the stylus and the keyboard, the display is really the centerpiece of this tablet, especially when neither the Apple Pencil nor the Smart Keyboard come included with the iPad Pro itself. I think it goes without saying that everyone wants to have a great display on a tablet, but what determines a great display is often in question.
While it’s obvious that less reflectance is better, as is higher contrast and maximum brightness, things like gamma and color reproduction are often subjective as the same color will often look different to different people. In order to try and deal with this issue, we focus on testing all mobile displays to the same color accuracy standards. For now, the industry standard gamut is the sRGB gamut, along with power 2.2 gamma. Although the sRGB gamut is relatively limited compared to something like DCI-P3 or Rec. 2020, it remains an industry standard when compared to what exists on the market today. In order to test how well a display meets these standards in addition to other criteria, we use an i1Pro2 spectrophotometer for accurate color measurements along with an i1Display Pro for accurate contrast measurements. In order to organize this data into a readable format we use SpectraCal’s CalMAN 5 with a custom workflow.
In the case of the iPad Pro, it’s obvious that the architecture of the display is different from what we’ve seen in mobile devices before. Due to the sheer resolution, it seems that Apple is electing to use embedded Display Port (eDP) instead of the more traditional MIPI DSI interface used in smartphones. We’ve seen a number of smartphones and tablets this year ship with an 8 lane MIPI DSI configuration which allows for a theoretical maximum of 2715x1697 for about 4.6MP, but the 2732x2048 resolution of the iPad Pro means about 20% more pixels than what a 2 port MIPI DSI configuration can handle.
Source: design-reuse.com
By comparison, eDP has been able to support 4K at 60 Hz or higher for quite some time. This is self-evident by looking at the number of laptops launched with a 4K display. With the iPad Pro, Apple claims that they’ve implemented their own custom timing controller or TCON. Some digging through the system files seems to corroborate these claims as there are numerous references to an Apple Agile DP Display SAC Controller. That’s a mouthful, but Agile seems to be the internal name for this controller, and DP seems to be a reference to DisplayPort, while SAC is likely a reference to Slow Adaptive Clocking.
Slow Adaptive Clocking is something that there's very limited public information on at this time. My best guess here is that this is actually related to the variable refresh rate technology that Apple is implementing in their custom TCON. On the surface this technology seems to bear a lot of resemblance to G-Sync or FreeSync, but rather than varying refresh rate to fit the GPU’s rendering rate the refresh rate only has two distinct settings at 60 Hz and 30 Hz depending upon whether the content on the display would benefit from the higher refresh rate. It’s likely that at least part of the reason why this is possible is the use of indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) TFTs which don’t leak current in the off state. This means that when there is a longer period of time between display refreshes, the liquid crystal retains its state rather than fading towards its original state of either completely open or closed to the backlight.
Source: semiconportal.com
In addition to this adaptive refresh rate, the TCON supports panel self-refresh which is hardly news, but given that we’ve seen phones and tablets in this year ship without panel self-refresh it’s worth mentioning.
The panel itself also appears to have dual domain pixels and a conventional RGB stripe. Viewing angles as a result are quite good. The cover glass also contains the AR coating first introduced with the iPad Air 2, which cuts reflectance roughly in half relative to a display that doesn’t have such a coating. This effectively doubles outdoor contrast, so it’s great for outdoor use.
In our standard test of brightness and contrast, it’s evident that Apple has moved to a new generation of display for the iPad Pro as the maximum brightness is mildly improved relative to the iPad Air 2. The real change here though is that contrast is dramatically improved over the iPad Air 2.
This is likely due to the use of photoalignment for the liquid crystals, which helps the liquid crystal to have a more consistent orientation. For those that aren’t really familiar with the particulars of how light polarization and polarizers work, part of the problem is that when a voltage is applied to change the structure of the liquid crystals parts of the liquid crystals won’t necessarily change in structure appropriately. In order to assist with this process a film is applied which gains a particular orientation when exposed to UV light in a specific way. This helps to get the liquid crystals to all align in the same direction, which improves contrast as a result. Of course, contrast isn’t the dark, inky blacks that you'll get with AMOLED but it'll still be quite impressive for normal use.
Source: eetimes.com
Moving on to our grayscale test, the iPad Pro does impressively well overall with well-controlled gamma but tending slightly towards a colder color balance. I’m not sure whether this is because of backlight efficiency concerns due to the use of blue LED with yellow phosphor in the backlight or because people seem to prefer colder white balances in general, but it’s there nonetheless. The cold color balance might affect some particularly color critical work but even for medical use I suspect it shouldn’t be a serious problem.
In saturations, the iPad Pro is basically perfect. There is some mild undersaturation of red, but I basically see no reason to try and find some method of personally calibrating the display.
In the Gretag MacBeth ColorChecker test, color error is once again basically nonexistent. Anything with red appears to be mildly undersaturated but the error is going to be almost impossible to notice.
Overall, the iPad Pro display is probably one of the best available on the market today. The Galaxy Tab S2 display is comparable in overall accuracy and has superior contrast, but the iPad Pro has noticeably higher brightness for all content above 50% APL and in any scenario with a lot of ambient background light the AR coating will help a lot with improving effective contrast and general readability. Although pixel density is equivalent to the iPad Air 2, the sheer size of the display means that the viewing distance is increased and therefore the perceived resolution. The display looks great in person, and unless your single point of consideration for display performance is contrast I think it’ll be hard to be disappointed with the iPad Pro display.
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FunBunny2 - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
-- It's by now become a quasi-religious belief system for some that "mobile devices cannot ever be used for any professional purposes whatsoever!".despite what some think, Apple didn't invent the tablet. warehouses and manufacturers (when the US had them, of course) have used tablets with 802.11, and earlier protocols, for decades. all Apple did was create a consumer version.
Constructor - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
A "version" which "consumers" (apparently intended as a belittling epithet by you) can use, but the whole point is that it's not limited to that.akdj - Monday, January 25, 2016 - link
"You will still never be able to fit Photoshop's whole interface and abundance of options and menus into the tablet in a way that the user is easily able to reach them, without scrolling through pages of big buttons."Huh. Wonder why folks. The professional ones, for years have been buying Wacom tab companions to their 'workstation' specifically FOR PS, And EXACTLY for the reasons you outline, the ability to have precision touch and capacitance/tactile feel and response of real pencil or pen to paper. Some of these Wacom Photoshop controllers cost several times the price of the iPP for YEARS, & the iPP has its computer built in! No need to add a 'workstation'
You must've been hiding under a rock the last ½ decade. You've CERTAINLY not visited the App Store in some time. Adobe, Autoideskk Microsoft and the BIGGEST makers of "Content Creation" software are currently devoting MORE resources to mobile programming and development than their 'workstation' counterparts.
The 'big brow box' filled with diseases,; viruses - malware, adware, & the ilk's days are numbered. They're already on their way out of MANY folks' homes and offices being replaced by ultra books, passively cooled and ultra low voltage with ultra high efficiency is all the rage today. Battery life > 5 extra FPS, usability and funtionality > pure power, lotsa RAM, and expensive CPU and GPUs. Portability and the ability for 'instant on' access to their tab or phone > waiting til home, turning the power on, waiting for the boot. Opening PS (a slowly dying program with a phenomenal amount of alternatives on an iPad and iPhone and iDevice -- been that way for years, now with Adobe on board, their CreativeCloud suite offers a plethora of companion apps capable of ALL CS6's abilities as it's designed to aggregate and integrate with 'your' CC assets allowing for MOST editing ANYone will ever need on the iPad ...especially now with the display's ability to work with such an excellent active stylus and it's near direct comparison to Wacom's line of ...apparently unnessasary PS instruments and tools over the last decade or two those 'productive individuals' have made many millions of dollars in publishing? Now an AIO system with its OWN computer built in - a massive community of developers, independent to Adobe, friend next door or Autodesk themselves --- any software company interested in future survival in the industry is devoting more resources than ANY point in history to mobile dev. It's why MS, Adobe and AD were all there at the iPP unveiling. ALL demonstrating some phenomenal --- and yes, PROfessional use-case applications and software. I'm not a doctor but downloaded the examples shown at its unveiling of the Human Body atlas and AutoCAD --- its mind blowing how easily and flue to the iPad is able to manipulate such extensive detail and graphic overlays (nervous, muscular, skeletal, circulatory system overlays --- in any combination and with the ability to manipulate the direction you're looking at at a consistent 60fps) are MUCH better teaching aids - and learning that ANY static text book
Whether you ARE creating, flying a jet filled with passengers, entertaining a couple thousand folks at a concert, controlling inventory or filing your flight plan a personal pilot --- and probably 100,000 other occupations have been made significantly easier to accomplish, with less weight, more time away from the charger and 110v. That's what people need, want and are looking for. Unfortunately for Apple, they're making their iPad 'too well' --- as I've got the original, and an iPad 2 that both work, hold a charge and last as long as the Day I bought them six and five years ago respectively this year.
I also own the Air 2 and iPP and both have significantl impacts on my business I've run for nearly thirty years, successfully and exponentially dropping 'weight' every decade or so with something as capable as the always on, always connected and never a concern with battery life --- as the iPad is, easily replaces hundreds of dozens of crates of vinyl records! All while weighing about as much as a single - double record LP.
So, to summarize at the end of the day if you're a Photoshop user, you just got an incredible tool to augment your worlflow, make your photographic post production easier, organization and metadata handling, batch alteration or editing and aggregation of your library, metadata in tact and ready for post when you get home. No more off loading memory cards, organizing memory cards, redundantly dumping them for redundant/backup purposes and all the other BS that goes into using a dinosaur of a program FEW truly NEED for their projects.
Today, Adobe offers a ½ dozen "Photoshop" apps on iOS. Along with drawing, marking PDFs, even Premier and AE capture and integration (w/motion) - the options are becoming more extensive everyday, Adobe's just rewrote their entire app library and replaced each app for even better continuity for those still needing PS's tools or Acrobat's abilities beyond the $3, $5, $10 alternatives ...some, like Pixelmator, cross platform with ANY & EVERY PS tool the average layman could dream of --- available - @ the cost of a single month rental of PS/Lightroom 'rental'. And not just for hobbyists. Spend some time at DPreview.com to see the PS competition OR see Adobe's subscription tactics to maintain revenues.
It's not just a super powerful tablet. It's that and so much more thanks to an extensive and larger library of accessible software already matured to the point the App Store is - all in one place and all reasonably priced. Best prices and selection of software in history is currently more convenient and organized than ever and it's in the App Store
As devs have only had single GB of RAM, slower SoCs and smaller displays to program to over the last six years, even the Air 2 & 6s line of iPhones seems HUGE right now with double the RAM, graphics and compute. Double it again and you've got tether iPP. I'm already seeing apps available for Air 1/Mini 2 - 5s or A7/64bit iPads and newer to run the app.
As a daily user of the iPP for two months --- so many of your goofy statements make no sense, shout ignorance and beg to be straightened out --- but there's always a few schills around these parts beating an incredible product down while the masses of us are enjoying it!
Silly Murloc. What is it that makes YOU a Pro, and why is it YOUR job wouldn't be made easier or convenient with a tablet?
jlabelle - Thursday, January 28, 2016 - link
" now with Adobe on board, their CreativeCloud suite offers a plethora of companion apps capable of ALL CS6's abilities as it's designed to aggregate and integrate with 'your' CC assets allowing for MOST editing ANYone will ever need on the iPad"a very big big rant that just fall flat because of false premises. The claim above is a good example : simple case that most photographers need : Can I develop my RAW files on an iPad ?
When I mean developing, it is the normal basic reasons why you are shooting RAW in the 1st place : 1/ work in 16 bits mode so that you can push shadows / pull highlights and work on color without posterization ; 2/ apply automatically the lens correction (distorsion, CA, vignetting, ...) and 3/ have a color managed workflow (take into account the color space of the RAW file, have a calibrated display...)
The answer is ... drums rolling : you can NOT.
And you do not need a CS subscription to do that on a Surface, you can just purchase once Capture One Pro, DXO Optics... what you want. So what you can do with a Windows tablet, you simply cannot on an iPad Pro.
This is just one example but the same is true for a list so long that it makes no sense to try argue against that.
Gastec - Monday, January 25, 2016 - link
A gamer you would know what Pro moniker means.It goes like this: "I'm a Pro, gamer or whatever" meaning "I'm a big shot, a slick, better and cooler that you". And that's what iPad means when it says it's "Pro" :)
KPOM - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
What do we need all the ports for? Most people, even in offices, can get by with wireless networks and printing these days.xerandin - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
Quadro*rabastens23 - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
"Performance is better than a high end workstation from 10 years ago, a system which was capable of running professional tasks which are still nowhere to be found on mobile platforms."That's sort of an odd claim - what are those tasks, exactly? And if it's not a performance issue, why do you need an iPad Pro to do them?
ddriver - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
Design, engineering, content creation. Basically every scenario that involves making something professionally rather than consuming something.Nobody needs a ipad pro to do this, point is the device is powerful enough for such tasks, and it would be nice if there was the software for it, in order to make that device truly PRO as in useful to professionals and not "pro" as in an empty marketing BS.
lilmoe - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
DUDE. Software is NOT the only thing the iPad "Pro" is missing for it to be a Pro tablet. Get this through your head.The hardware is lacking even if it were much more powerful. The OS is also lacking.