Just How Good is the Apple iPad Screen?

We keep reading that the iPad screen is 'amazing', 'impressive', 'fantastic' and even 'almost perfect'. So six months after its launch, we think it's about time we had a closer look at this supposedly amazing display to find out just how good it really is!

Vincent Alzieu
Translator: Catherine Barraclough
Updated: October 20, 2010

Very Good Viewing Angles

Apple iPad
[tab_prix2(Apple,iPad Tablet 32GB,1,28698,id_shopping,96601,0,0)]

You can tell it's an IPS panel straight away. The viewing angles are really very wide from all sides. Only OLED could do any better.

We were keen to test the quality of the Apple tablet's display, as for many users, the iPad has now replaced a home laptop for playing games, watching videos, looking at photos and surfing the web. We therefore thought it was only fair to put it through its paces in the same tests we use on laptop screens. Above all, we wanted to find out if the iPad screen really is as 'amazing' as everyone seems to say it is.

We'll have to rely on good factory settings though, as there are no menus for adjusting the screen settings manually. Let's hope Apple did a good job then!

Contrast: good!

The first thing we measured was the contrast ratio, at 760:1. It's a good score, and it explains the cries of amazement often heard when people first see the screen. The picture is highly contrasted with bright, rich colours. It's certainly better than the average laptop too. Have a look at some of the results we got in our latest laptop tests:

This list is a stark reminder that the screen is all too often the poor relation of laptop computers. It's very tempting for manufacturers to save money on this part of the product as the tech specs very, very rarely give any indication of the quality of the display.

There are, obviously, exceptions to the rule, such as the Sony Vaio VPC Z11 (509:1) and the Apple MacBook Pro 15'' (749:1), as well as some mind-blowing miracles, such as the Asus Eee PC 1015pe, which in spite of its budget price tag has a monster price contrast ratio of 1032:1!

That said, although 760:1 is a good contrast ratio, it's still 30% to 60% lower than the kind of results we usually see in computer monitors and televisions, so there is still room for improvement in future generations of the product.

Such improvements almost certainly won't involve pushing up the brightness, as it's already at a maximum of 190 cd/m², which seems very good to us. Instead, we can probably hope to see a deeper black. Here, we measured a black at 0.25 cd/m². On a monitor or a TV this depth of black would usually look washed-out, but on a portable device of this size it's actually already pretty good.

Colours: room for improvement

Our sensor allows us to measure the difference between the colours 'requested' by the file or program and those actually displayed. For our test, we defined a selection of grey shades, bright colours, pastel hues and a couple of skin tones. An ideal score would be an overall difference of less than 1, but anything under 3 is still pretty good. Here, the average difference was 5.2, which is quite high, and which means that several colours have been changed quite a bit. In other words, the films you watch won't be displayed with the exact colours chosen by its producers. It's the same story for photos too.

If we look at the differences more closely, there's a big variation in the results obtained for each colour tested. Photos in black and white are displayed almost perfectly and the iPad handles greys pretty much flawlessly. That's good news too, as it means that images will be well-balanced and neutral-looking rather than having a red, blue or green tinge. The differences actually appear in certain specific colours, with green (watch out for grass), dark blue (certain sky scenes) and bright yellow the main culprits. Flesh tones are, however, well reproduced.

To go into a bit more detail, the colour temperature measured is stable, and comes in at around 7000 Kelvins. This will make the image just a touch more blue-looking than on a regular screen. However, colour shading is reproduced accurately, with a gamma that's also stable at 2.3 (instead of 2.2).

While some of these results are excellent, others are a little too inaccurate for our liking. That said, in light of what we've seen it's quite likely that these settings have actually been programmed by Apple to 'enhance' the image and to bring it in line with what manufacturers consider to be 'pleasing to the general public'. We, however, prefer accurate colours! Otherwise, what's the point of going to the trouble of editing photos or carefully adjusting your camera's settings; what's the point of film producers calibrating the colours in their films; and what's the point of webmasters sticking to visual style guides?

Responsiveness: a little disappointing

Given that the image has a mild lag, the responsiveness of the pixels in the iPad screen is closer to that typically seen in 5 ms TN displays than the fastest models on the market.

Although the device isn't designed for advanced gaming, its responsiveness could still be better. In films, for example, a better responsiveness could help reduce blurring in scenes of fast movement, such as chase scenes etc.

Conclusion

The iPad screen is definitely something special. It's much better than the displays commonly found in high-end laptops and netbooks, for example.

However, in an ideal world, it'd be nice to see Apple include the kind of menus typically found in TVs for switching between several pre-programmed modes (Cinema, Games etc.). The iPod factory settings would certainly be a useable option, but there could perhaps be an additional 'Artist' mode, in which the colour reproduction would be more accurate.

> Review: Apple iPad Wi-Fi (32 GB)

Send to a friend