Apple Says iPad Pro's XDR Display Designed to Minimize Blooming, but Some Users Still Notice the Effect

[W2u7Yw4HaD]

I don't know why Apple just didn't use OLED in the first place for the iPads..

Yeah, is screen burn-in such an issue? It isn't for my iPhone x and LG tv after all these years... I doubt we will see anything better than OLED for the foreseeable future.. Unless they can place a led light behind each pixel, I don't see how they can improve upon OLED, to be honest...

I'm sure there must be some reason they didn't do oled.. cost? unsure really...

 

[jclardy]

I don't know why Apple just didn't use OLED in the first place for the iPads..

On an iPhone you use an app for say 10-15 seconds on average. Jump in, scroll around, put it back in your pocket. On an iPad you likely have split screen apps, say mail on the left side that just stays open for minutes, maybe even hours per day. The icons are going to burn in.

That is why we will never see an OLED Mac - you have a permanent menubar that is on screen for hours per day.

Mini-LED is the holdover until micro-led, which is basically OLED without the burn-in issues.

That said, I do hope the dimming can be controlled via software, and Apple is able to add a toggle to disable the dimming zones so you can have the best of both worlds.

 

[sdz]

But good enough for literally hundreds of millions of their phones for 4 years now?

The person you quoted is in complete denial.

 

[Serban55]

Yeah, is screen burn-in such an issue? It isn't for my iPhone x and LG tv after all these years... I doubt we will see anything better than OLED for the foreseeable future.. Unless they can place a led light behind each pixel, I don't see how they can improve upon OLED, to be honest...

I'm sure there must be some reason they didn't do oled.. cost? unsure really...

if you have a monitor or tv that uses OLED....after some heavy usage, just buy another new monitor oled and see the blue pixels difference between the new one and the old one

 

[mazz0]

more blooming on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro's Liquid Retina XDR mini-LED display than expected

Why were you expecting less blooming? We new how big the local dimming zones were.

 

[EugW]

I'm not surprised. This was expected behaviour. Those who said otherwise were just in denial.

HOWEVER:

1) The intended target of the iPad Pro is more for content creators. Blooming as shown in the images is most noticeable in rooms with very low ambient light. This is not an ideal lighting for content creators. Ideally, content creators would have proper room lightning and in this context the iPad Pro would usually be superior with much higher peak brightness, and sometimes more accurate colour production.

2) The intended target for the non-Pro iPads is more for content consumers. Blooming for those customers can be a real annoyance, since a lot of them like watching videos in the dark. In that context, lower peak brightness is not as much of an issue, and usually the colour balance is good enough as long as it's close.

Put me firmly in the category 2. I am not much of a content creator. Occasionally I do create content on my iPad, but it's not often, and it's not to make money. I make birthday videos and such, but watch Netflix on it much more. OTOH, if you're a YouTuber editing in LumaFusion a few hours a day, then you're much better off buying the iPad Pro.

I'm looking forward to an OLED iPad Air in 2022, sold alongside a mini-LED iPad Pro 11" in 2022.

As for the iPhone, people don't generally do critical work-related content creation on an iPhone, nor do they do it for long, long periods of time on an iPhone.

 

[Realityck]

Apple’s MO is always to make things as cheaply as possibly while selling them for as much as possible, any other benefits are secondary.

Why use more expensive OLED (that has its own downsides like burn in for example) when a cheaper mini led display is cheaper?

Has nothing to do with making things cheaply argument, at this time it is technology limited. What is the alternatives? Certainly not microLED at this time. Maybe some variation of QLED might offer less blooming, but then we have the same QLED vs OLED vs microLED TV argument again with OLED yielding best image quality but not practical in direct sunlight situations.

 

[MrGimper]

Yeah, is screen burn-in such an issue? It isn't for my iPhone x and LG tv after all these years... I doubt we will see anything better than OLED for the foreseeable future.. Unless they can place a led light behind each pixel, I don't see how they can improve upon OLED, to be honest...

I'm sure there must be some reason they didn't do oled.. cost? unsure really...

My LG OLED 55c7v is now on its third panel replacement after several bad bouts of burn-in, so yes.

 

[cbns]

Reason why iPad has MiniLED because the screen is expected to have lots of static elements, and OLED would make burn in a lot more noticeable.

Then why does the iPhone have it?

 

[smorrissey]

It hurts! it hurts! my eyes!

 

[blackcrayon]

"A small number of users are affected" I'm sure right Apple?

Mentally, at least, by reading some of the comments on here...

 

[mazz0]

I mean all these excuses like "da burn in tho!" How freaking long does a static image sit on your phone or tablet with screen timeout? This isnt a deskptop or laptop.

iPads aren’t just used in bursts, they can stay on (showing the same UI elements) for hours at a time, for example when reading, browsing the web or working. It’s not an iPhone or an Apple Watch..

 

[jk1221]

iPads aren’t just used in bursts, they can stay on (showing the same UI elements) for hours at a time, for example when reading, browsing the web or working. It’s not an iPhone or an Apple Watch..

That still isnt static. Not like a monitor where you leave it on the desktop and walk away for hours. THAT is the big the burn-in risk; even on newer gen OLED.

And even then some mitigate that with shifting the pixels 1 pixel back and forth.

I mean unless mentally slow and take hours to read 1 page or article.... then I guess?


When you ask a premium and increased price for a product versus the old model, you must offer something better. To me mini LED is a lateral move; different compromises is all. Some may agree or disagree with those.

And likely temporary move anyway until they do go to OLED or microLED. MiniLED is far from Apple's end goals Im sure.

Its the same as the lightning vs USB-C argument really.

 

[adamlbiscuit]

I wanted to jump in on one of the new M1 iPads, but I love the form factor of the 11-inch model and figured I’d wait until the miniLED technology came to that model in the next generation or so.

I wasn’t expecting OLED style blacks because it’s just not the same technology, but after seeing a lot of the images shared by users, it does feel like there’s a lot of compromises being made. If the price for larger OLED screens reduces in the next couple of years I’d expect that to eventually make it’s way to the iPad, but for now we have this as a sort of ‘half way house’ I guess.

With the above in mind though I don’t think I’ll be waiting around for a mini-LED 11-inch iPad Pro (if there ever is one). I’d rather the uniformity of a traditional LED display. Fair enough, you forego true blacks in some parts of the screen, but at least it’s consistent.

 

[StupidOpinion]

Are you people sure this isn't BS from android fanboys and girls? The tiny backlights are very tiny. To bleed like these pictures show into the blackness is strange.

only an apple fanboy/fangirl would make up such a conspiracy

 

[cp1160]

Mines going back, this tech is not great

You have your 12.9" and find this effect so horrible you are returning it? You have used it in your real life usage cases and it is disruptive? Or are you trying to get attention since you have provided no explanation to the comment?

 

[Mc0]

They are marketing them as a laptop replacement and they have been putting more and more apps that have static UI elements. More risks for burn in there. As someone who care so much about color accuracy, how are we gonna deal with an image if the colors are off after just a year of usage because of burn in. OLED is good when it is still new. But give it a year, then you’ll start seeing degradation with the colors.

 

[Aiii83]

Ah, that two week post-release period where everything's a "gate" and then we move on.

At least now we get to say it's a "blooming gate, mate" and pretend we're British.

 

[MrGimper]

That still isnt static. Not like a monitor where you leave it on the desktop and walk away for hours. THAT is the big the burn-in risk; even on newer gen OLED.

And even then some mitigate that with shifting the pixels 1 pixel back and forth.

I mean unless mentally slow and take hours to read 1 page or article.... then I guess?

Pixel-shifting is pointless unless you look at content which is 1 pixel lines of colour. How does shifting 1 pixel help mitigate burn-in on blocks of colour? Oh look, I’ve shifted that line of red pixels to where that other line of red pixels was

 

[jk1221]

They are marketing them as a laptop replacement and they have been putting more and more apps that have static UI elements. More risks for burn in there. As someone who care so much about color accuracy, how are we gonna deal with an image if the colors are off after just a year of usage because of burn in. OLED is good when it is still new. But give it a year, then you’ll start seeing degradation with the colors.

Pixel-shifting is pointless unless you look at content which is 1 pixel lines of colour. How does shifting 1 pixel help mitigate burn-in on blocks of colour? Oh look, I’ve shifted that line of red pixels to where that other line of red pixels was

But again, who is using a device on battery without a screen timeout exactly? And letting it sit for hours with the display on the same static view before the battery dies? Numerous hours every day to cause burn-in.

Making up left field scenarios does not make them real life.

 

[EugW]

Pixel-shifting is pointless unless you look at content which is 1 pixel lines of colour. How does shifting 1 pixel help mitigate burn-in on blocks of colour? Oh look, I’ve shifted that line of red pixels to where that other line of red pixels was

Pixel shifting is effective. Pretty much all OLED TVs include it, because it works. It's not perfect, but it is one tool out of several to help prevent burn-in. Will it solve all burn-in problems? No, of course not, but it is far from "pointless".

 

[arobert3434]

I really don't know why people were expecting anything different. 2500 dimming zones is a 50 x 50 display, each zone being around 20 x 27 logical pixels (40 x 52 retina). It's not going to work miracles. This technology has been in LCD TVs for years and has not been that impressive there, as can be seen when watching screen credits.

 

[MrGimper]

Ah, that two week post-release period where everything's a "gate" and then we move on.

At least now we get to say it's a "blooming gate, mate" and pretend we're British.

I’m British, and this comment reminds me when I stayed in the States about 10 years ago when Wimbledon was on. The US TV coverage always started with video of Buckingham Palace, Beefeaters, and marching Queens Guards. So stereotypical, and I was embarrassed for you.

 

[hammie14]

It is WORSE than these photos show. Multiple times I’ve attempted to capture what I’m seeing on camera but my iphone can’t effectively capture it due to the dimness of the scene. It looks HORRIBLE compared to a standard LCD since the bloom is so pronounced. On top of that, when watching Netflix at night the blooming goes into the dark bars above and below the film are constantly changing causing a huge distraction.

This may be the first iPad I return, having owned every single generation since release.

Are you watching at night (pitch black) with brightness turned all the way down? I bet with brightness up you are so blinded you can’t see it.

Yes watching in pitch black room with the brightness on the lowest setting. And with the backlight keys on my magic keyboard switched off

 

[WaffleBoi_15]

Oh for gods sake. It’s way less than pronounced in person than on camera, and it’s only noticeable when you’re in a dimly lit room and you have the screen brightness close to full, which in general you shouldn’t.