The iPad Air Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 29, 2013 9:00 PM ESTDisplay
In building the iPad Air Apple shrunk all elements of the tablet’s design, including the thickness of the display. We’re still dealing with a 9.7-inch 4:3 2048 x 1536 IPS LCD panel with true RGB stripe rather than some weird subpixel structure. Viewing angles are still great, and overall the display remains the best you can get at this size.
The iPad Air continues Apple’s recent history of shipping color calibrated displays. Color accuracy on my iPad Air review sample is better than on any previous iPad I’ve ever tested, in fact it’s more accurate than any other tablet I’ve ever tested. The numbers are easily backed up by images that show a vibrant and, more importantly, accurate display.
The iPad Air gets pretty bright at 426 nits, although black levels aren’t all that impressive at 0.44 nits. Overall contrast ratio is in line with what we’ve seen from previous iPads. My only complaint on the display front is I would like to see Apple laminate the cover glass to the LCD display. Reducing reflections would go a long way towards improving the usability of the device, not to mention the impact that would have on improving display quality in dark movie scenes.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
444 Comments
View All Comments
ssiu - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
Still, when Apple claims "up to 2x GPU of iPad 4", usually you will find some aspect of GPU performance that reaches the 2x claim. "40% to 70% better" seem below expectation compared to the claim.MadMan007 - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
Apple marketing slides vague, misleading, or contrived? NO WAI!FwFred - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
With CPU power going up (eating into turbo/thermal headroom), I wonder where Apple is going to get their next 2x? TSMC/Samsung aren't moving fast enough for them. They have gone from toy CPUs to soon bumping against the limitations of physics.takeship - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
My bet is on them shifting to Intel as a fab on their 16nm, but doing so prior to the A9 (2015) may be a stretch.tipoo - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
How much does the GPU throttle? I was somewhat under the assumption that iPhones didn't have to throttle their CPUs as they never chased insane clocks like others (the infamous Nexus 4 throttling problem, also dialing back to 1GHz like here, not that the core performances are the same).errorr - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
They still throttle it just takes longer. The other big advantage is just the pure SIZE of the chip which is what allows the lower clocks.Egg - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
Can someone explain the extremely cold display? Is it not true that "closer to 6504k is better" anymore?Psyside - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
Yes. Some people prefer over-saturated colors, 6500K is as closes to perfect as one can imagine, what he like or prefer is another story.For me 6500 sRGB displays are the only that matter, i can't stand 4500-5000K aka ARGB garbage.
cheinonen - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
6504K is the reference standard, which is devised from the color temperature of daylight at a certain time (and latitude). Really, it's what colors will look like if you have them outside during a sunny day. During sunrise or sunset, or under clouds, the light spectrum is different, so you see things differently then.Getting a display to do 6504K is just that: making what you see on screen be what it looked like when it was shot or designed. If you want it to be warmer (for example, incandescent light bulbs are around 2700K which is a warmer reddish light) or cooler is a personal preference, but if its closer to D65 (the actual white point) it will be more neutral and accurate.
wiz329 - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
What are your thoughts on the naming scheme @Anand?iPad Air is a pretty dumb name unless they're planning on releasing a Pro product.