Live From The Lab: 110 Notebook, Smartphone, Tablet Screens Tested

We've now established a set of common test criteria for laptop, tablet and smartphone screens. In fact, these are general criteria for testing and evaluating the quality of a display in any portable device. The criteria cover:

• contrast ratio in real-life conditions,
• colour fidelity,
• maximum brightness,
• screen gloss and reflections,
• viewing angles,
• colour temperature,
• pixel ghosting time.

110 product screens have already been put to the test with this new and improved procedure.

The results were in line with our predictions, but they're still quite diverse, as there are huge difference in quality from one type of product to another.



We found that average contrast in the notebooks we tested (and these were recent models) was about half that of tablet screens (467:1 compared with 972:1), and almost four times lower than smartphone screens (1709:1, with OLED screens capped at 5000:1 for the sake of our calculations).

But the most positive thing to come from our findings is that things seem to be moving in the right direction. Screen quality finally seems to be getting better. In fact, the top products in each category are all recent releases:

Most Screen-Savvy Manufacturer: Apple

There is, however, one manufacturer that stands out from the crowd: Apple. Its products clock up an average contrast of 751:1. Even though the firm's devices all still use good-old LCD screens, Apple is the only tech manufacturer to ensure relatively consistent levels of screen quality in the majority of its products.

Quality is much more of a mixed bag with other manufacturers. All of them seem capable of producing both excellent and terrible-quality displays. And you don't need to look far to find examples of this. Take Samsung's new Series 9 ultrabooks.

• The 13-inch model has the best laptop screen we've seen yet, with an excellent score of 4/5.

• The 15-inch model uses TN rather than PLS technology, with contrast at 154:1 (compared with 800:1 for the 13" model), half the maximum brightness (230 cd/m²) and colour fidelity that's almost halved too. Overall score: 1.2/5! And that's for two products with very similar names!

Most Promising Manufacturer: Samsung

That said, Samsung has got to be the most promising manufacturer in the field of mobile device displays, as the firm has been working hard on improving screen quality. Its OLED screens started off with gaudy colours but have now been toned down, becoming noticeably more neutral. Plus, its custom PLS LCD technology (a Samsung version of LG's IPS) that's increasingly found in Samsung notebooks and tablets has been seen to give very good results.

We can't wait to get our hands on Samsung's upcoming flexible and unbreakable OLED screens.

Our Reviews

As we've now finished working out our common test criteria, a new "screen score" will soon start appearing in our mobile device reviews.

We also plan to introduce new set of filters so you can eliminate products with poor quality screens on our review cover pages.

In our laptop reviews, a low-quality screen will be heavily sanctioned. In fact, no matter how powerful a given notebook may be, a bad screen will automatically limit it to a three star review! Manufacturers take note!