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iPad mini I didn't realize that 60hz on the iPad mini was this bad

iDave said:
I don’t get it. I’ve never been able to tell a difference between 60hz and 120hz.
Click to expand...
As I'm a known authority here in Hz (cites in >35 papers) -- you have to track your eyes while you scroll a screen. It varies on the situation and screen, but a good test is TestUFO Panning Map Readability Test, or the TestUFO Ghosting test. Stationary gaze is not as noticeable.

What I notice is LCD GtG throttles differences between Hz badly. The M1, while wickedly fast, is famously whispered hushly as one of the slower 120Hz LCDs, in terms of GtG speeds.

The approximate real-world differences in motionblur perceived by human eyes, for eye-tracking a smooth scroll/pan:

- Macbook Pro M1 ... about 1.1x motionblur difference between 60Hz and 120Hz on same display
- Macbook Pro M5 ... about 1.5x motionblur difference between 60Hz and 120Hz on same display
- OLED iPad Pro ... about 2.0x motionblur difference between 60Hz and 120Hz on same display

When you zero out GtG, the latter has the same amount of motionblur as 1/60sec shutter vs 1/120sec shutter, during eye-tracking a pan/scroll/etc. That's assuming eye-tracked pan having equivalent motionblur to a sports-panned photograph for the same motionspeed; as a reference scroll motionblur equality. Bigger screens (e.g. OLED iPad Pro) shows this more easily than small screens (e.g. iPhone) or slow screens (e.g. Macbook Pro M1)

GtG is pixel fading from one color to the next. It is like a slow moving camera shutter before/after refreshtime. You don't want a 10ms shutter movement before/after a 8.33ms shutter full-open time. Exhorbitantly slow GtG throttles Hz differences, even if GtG is slightly under a Hz. You need fast GtG (like an instant shutter) to eliminate GtG-derived blurring, and keep it pure MPRT blurring (eye tracked motionblur cannot be less than refreshtime on sample-and-hold, at GtG=0.0000).

Also, for those upgrading to future Hz, geometrics helps too (60Hz vs 240Hz at 0ms GtG is way more noticeable than 60Hz vs 120Hz at non-zero GtG -- you can have as much as almost 6-7x motionblur differential based on the combined Hz differential and the GtG being zeroed out). If any of you attend nuts and bolt supplier conventions like SID DisplayWeek, there is persistent rumors in the display panel manufacturing industry that Apple is moving to 240Hz OLEDs in a "Pro" model by year ~2028 for the even-further-improved scroll ergonomics.

Obviously, not everyone instantly notices, but GtG speeds and bigger Hz differentials, does amplify differences. The 480p-vs-8K effect, rather than 720p-vs-1080p, behaves very similarly in the temporal dimension during continuous medium-speed scrolls on big screens. Some people flick scroll with a fixed eye gaze rather than eye-tracking the scroll, and this makes the Hz differences less noticeable. Screens look different with stationary gaze vs moving gaze (there's a demo on TestUFO -> Green Menu -> Eye Tracking).

P.S. TestUFO 3.0 has launched. Display-P3 support has been added, and TestUFO is finally iPhone/iPad friendly too.
 
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ProMotion is far from perfect but its absence is painful. It keeps me from the iPad mini. Perhaps next year’s refresh will have the hallowed and rumoured ProMotion OLED…
 
Mity said:
I didn't compare it to my other devices right when I got it. I compared it to them after I noticed that something was definitely wrong. And like @klasma said, it's likely not the 60hz that is the issue and I think that's true.
Click to expand...
Correct, it’s not (primarily/simply) refresh rate. @Blur Busters might be onto something with the gray-to-gray (GtG) mention. I haven’t thought about, considered GtG for a while as LCDs rarely broke the 1ms GtG barrier.

An anecdote: my previous displays were the Samsung CF390 and Acer Nitro ED320QR. They were okay — my low budget trials of curved LCDs — though (text) scrolling was especially horrendous. Ghosting is probably the closest term I can think of to describe it. When scrolling at any speed, faster was worse indeed, and any display refresh rate, the text would have this stuttering semi-transparency. Basically, text was impossible to read until there was no motion. By the way, those two monitors are VA-type LCD panels, for what it's worth. When I switched to the MSI MAG321UP, a 0.03ms QD-OLED, the motion/text clarity experience is night vs. day difference. And yes, the improvement is at any refresh setting. During my purchase research, I did notice the GtG spec but didn’t put a lot of weight on it until this discussion.

So, perhaps, this is another case of Apple’s (far) more selective details publishing being a problem. For most customers, I think, less nerdy is more/better. However, not disclosing certain elements has, at least occasionally, been a surfacing problem. For example, the infamous iPhone throttling debacle — it made/makes sense but lack of documentation didn’t go well.
 
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Sheepish-Lord said:
As a Mini iPad/iPhone lover you may not want to hear this but the iPad Mini 6/7 are just bad panels regardless of advertised PPI or color specs. The last great iPad Mini display was the 5, you could tell the 5 display was sharper, less ghosting, and the colors were richer. Apple **** the bed with the new gens.
Click to expand...

The 6/7’s display is still decent even for a iPad like it

yeah the 5’s display was neat. Not a huge difference to the Mini 4’s display but the Mini 4’s display is the best Display in terms of technological quality ( and it was slimmer as well).
 
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Blur Busters said:
As I'm a known authority here in Hz (cites in >35 papers) -- you have to track your eyes while you scroll a screen. It varies on the situation and screen, but a good test is TestUFO Panning Map Readability Test, or the TestUFO Ghosting test. Stationary gaze is not as noticeable.

What I notice is LCD GtG throttles differences between Hz badly. The M1, while wickedly fast, is famously whispered hushly as one of the slower 120Hz LCDs, in terms of GtG speeds.

The approximate real-world differences in motionblur perceived by human eyes, for eye-tracking a smooth scroll/pan:

- Macbook Pro M1 ... about 1.1x motionblur difference between 60Hz and 120Hz on same display
- Macbook Pro M5 ... about 1.5x motionblur difference between 60Hz and 120Hz on same display
- OLED iPad Pro ... about 2.0x motionblur difference between 60Hz and 120Hz on same display

When you zero out GtG, the latter has the same amount of motionblur as 1/60sec shutter vs 1/120sec shutter, during eye-tracking a pan/scroll/etc. That's assuming eye-tracked pan having equivalent motionblur to a sports-panned photograph for the same motionspeed; as a reference scroll motionblur equality. Bigger screens (e.g. OLED iPad Pro) shows this more easily than small screens (e.g. iPhone) or slow screens (e.g. Macbook Pro M1)

GtG is pixel fading from one color to the next. It is like a slow moving camera shutter before/after refreshtime. You don't want a 10ms shutter movement before/after a 8.33ms shutter full-open time. Exhorbitantly slow GtG throttles Hz differences, even if GtG is slightly under a Hz. You need fast GtG (like an instant shutter) to eliminate GtG-derived blurring, and keep it pure MPRT blurring (eye tracked motionblur cannot be less than refreshtime on sample-and-hold, at GtG=0.0000).

Also, for those upgrading to future Hz, geometrics helps too (60Hz vs 240Hz at 0ms GtG is way more noticeable than 60Hz vs 120Hz at non-zero GtG -- you can have as much as almost 6-7x motionblur differential based on the combined Hz differential and the GtG being zeroed out). If any of you attend nuts and bolt supplier conventions like SID DisplayWeek, there is persistent rumors in the display panel manufacturing industry that Apple is moving to 240Hz OLEDs in a "Pro" model by year ~2028 for the even-further-improved scroll ergonomics.

Obviously, not everyone instantly notices, but GtG speeds and bigger Hz differentials, does amplify differences. The 480p-vs-8K effect, rather than 720p-vs-1080p, behaves very similarly in the temporal dimension during continuous medium-speed scrolls on big screens. Some people flick scroll with a fixed eye gaze rather than eye-tracking the scroll, and this makes the Hz differences less noticeable. Screens look different with stationary gaze vs moving gaze (there's a demo on TestUFO -> Green Menu -> Eye Tracking).

P.S. TestUFO 3.0 has launched. Display-P3 support has been added, and TestUFO is finally iPhone/iPad friendly too.
Click to expand...

I'm using the LG 32UN880 Ultrafine monitors. Here are the picture quality specs:

1764338482168.png


I notice that LG states 5ms "GtG at Faster". Does this mean that GtG is less than 5ms? I'm trying to research what my monitor and high-end ones have, is it closer to 1ms? I wanted to compare the mini7's response times but they are not disclosed by Apple but Notebookcheck tested GtG at ~40ms:

1764338885951.png


And thanks a lot for explaining this. I only know of response times in general which is that 5ms is enough for productivity use and even lower is better mostly for gaming but it was great to understand why this is happening when eye-track scrolling.
 
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There is something else going on with the iPad mini's screen in my opinion. My Studio Display is 60hz and it's fine, my mother's iPhone is 60hz and I never have issues when helping her with tech support. However, on the iPad mini (both 6th and 7th generation) I use the "Reduce Motion" accessibility option. The 7th generation is fast enough where I don't notice long pauses, but motion on the panel they use for the mini just isn't as smooth to me.

It's pretty annoying. The iPad mini may be "budget" from Apple's viewpoint, but in absolute terms it is not a cheap device and yet the screen just doesn't feel nice. Also, on paper it has excellent specs, but it just seems dull compared to the other Apple LCD displays.
 
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I tested the v1 iPad air against the Mini and bought the Air because of the Mini's less good display. Then years later I tested the Mini 6 for weeks and again decided the display just was not good enough (I did not try to quantify why the Mini's display was not good enough). Briefly observing in-store I found that the Mini 7's display also was not good enough to justify the purchase cost.

It is too bad because I find the Min's size and weight ideal. I have been whining for a "Pro" quality Mini for years and look forward to the rumored iPad Mini 8. Most of my display tech day is spent looking at above average quality displays (iPhone Pros, Macbook Pros, Viewsonic Pro displays) so that may impact my opinion.
 
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That's a great thing to talk and think about. Assuming you are indeed merely commenting on the difference in your reaction to seeing 60 frames per second versus 120: it sounds like 60 hertz is as great as it ever was, but you value the niceness of 120 hertz so much that it becomes a "can't go back" kind of thing, like noticing the pixellation of earlier Macs and iPads so much more after Retina displays made their way to them.

So the difference between how people feel about it becomes more about their personality or attitude or preference. On the iPad, where there are also a lot of smoother OS-related animations, it's hard not to notice that subtle but existent difference in smoothness on some level regardless.
 
Starfia said:
That's a great thing to talk and think about. Assuming you are indeed merely commenting on the difference in your reaction to seeing 60 frames per second versus 120: it sounds like 60 hertz is as great as it ever was, but you value the niceness of 120 hertz so much that it becomes a "can't go back" kind of thing, like noticing the pixellation of earlier Macs and iPads so much more after Retina displays made their way to them.

So the difference between how people feel about it becomes more about their personality or attitude or preference. On the iPad, where there are also a lot of smoother OS-related animations, it's hard not to notice that subtle but existent difference in smoothness on some level regardless.
Click to expand...
• I very specifically do not suggest that "it becomes more about their personality or attitude." In fact I will specifically say that it is not about personality or attitude.

• I do say that our eyes/brain do learn, and that therefore routinely using better displays will make one less tolerant of less-good displays.

• I very specifically am not "merely commenting on the difference in reaction to seeing 60 frames per second versus 120."
 
Starfia said:
That's a great thing to talk and think about. Assuming you are indeed merely commenting on the difference in your reaction to seeing 60 frames per second versus 120: it sounds like 60 hertz is as great as it ever was, but you value the niceness of 120 hertz so much that it becomes a "can't go back" kind of thing, like noticing the pixellation of earlier Macs and iPads so much more after Retina displays made their way to them.

So the difference between how people feel about it becomes more about their personality or attitude or preference. On the iPad, where there are also a lot of smoother OS-related animations, it's hard not to notice that subtle but existent difference in smoothness on some level regardless.
Click to expand...
I would mostly agree with this. I had an iPad Air M2 before going to a Pro, and the screen on that never felt slow or laggy to me. But now when I use my wife’s iPad Air M3, it looks so terrible. I have definitely gotten spoiled by better displays
 
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Sheepish-Lord said:
While you might not notice jelly scroll, the problem you are noticing most likely lies with the underlying cause of it. On the Mini 7, in portrait mode, jelly scroll creates the issue where both halves of the screen refresh at different rates due to the display controller orientation. This cause 60hz to look even worse IMO.

You can try using it in landscape mode to see if it helps as this removes the refresh issue but yeah Apple didn’t do any favors switching the display controller around from the previous gen and keeping it 60hz. Btw, all displays do this cause that’s how tech works but with OLED response times and high refresh rates sometimes you can’t even tell.
Click to expand...
Yeah. It’s not the 60Hz as much as jelly scrolling. For some reason, Apple doesn’t care about mini buyers. At a higher cost than standard iPad buyers.
 
i basically use my ipad mini on the go mainly for media. using 60hz is painful for me and just feels so slow compared to what i'm used to.
 
I've never noticed an issue with the screen despite reading a lot about it. I have had mine for just over a year and use it at home instead of my phone for ereading, games (basic stuff like cards, pinball, golf, occasional racers), Reddit, etc. I wonder if some people's eyes work slightly differently that causes this to be "horrible" vs "not an issue".

-bdd
 
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Traverse said:
The iPad mini may be "budget" from Apple's viewpoint, but in absolute terms it is not a cheap device and yet the screen just doesn't feel nice. Also, on paper it has excellent specs, but it just seems dull compared to the other Apple LCD displays.
Click to expand...
I tend to agree here. It's not that the Mini 7's display is unbearable (I did have enough issues with the Mini 6 to not buy it), but at the same time, it doesn't feel particularly great.
It already felt like a step down compared to the display of my old iPad Pro 2020, but now that I'm switching between an iPad Pro M5 and the Mini 7, it becomes hard to ignore how much better the M5's display is, especially in low-light conditions. So I really hope we'll see a step up in display quality with the next iteration, even if it means a further price increase to an already not that cheap device.
 
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iDave said:
I don’t get it. I’ve never been able to tell a difference between 60hz and 120hz.
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I can see the difference when I first switch but within a few minutes of using 60Hz, it just becomes “normal”. Doesn’t really bother me.
 
honestly - I bought a mini 6 for may daughter one Christmas, she hasn't noticed any screen issues, then again she uses it to read papers, and articles so we may have a usage bias in our reporting.
 
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The iPad Mini has a long history of screen issues and compromises:

  • Mini 1 - non-retina
  • Mini 2 - retina, but washed out colors
  • Mini 3 - same as 2
  • Mini 4 - finally decent
  • Mini 5 - finally good, for a 60hz display
  • Mini 6 - jelly scroll, reduced quality compared to 5
  • Mini 7 - slightly less jelly scroll, still reduced compared to 5
Outside of the 4/5 era, they have never really gotten the display quite right. It’s so frustrating for those that love the form factor, as we all see the low-hanging fruit and potential. Especially since we have never been given the option to spend more for a better display in this size.
 
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If no one likes the 60HZ then sell it or send it back, and buy the much rumoured OLED Mini next year, it’ll probably have 120HZ as well.
 
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