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iPad mini iPad mini 7 display quality

Radeon85 said:
If other companies can do higher refresh OLED panels on cheaper devices, then Apple has no excuse other than being cheap and lazy. The Steam Deck OLED only goes up to 90Hz, and even that I’d be happy with on the mini.

For the prices that Apple charge I expect much better from them.
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In fairness, Steam Deck hardware doesn't make much profit. Their main source of revenue is their 30% cut from game sales.

Apple gets huge revenue from software/digital media but thus far, they haven't made it their business model to sell hardware at a loss or for very little profit to drive software revenue.

Both Lenovo Legion Go and Asus ROG Ally which don't have app stores to generate revenue from still feature LCD screens (albeit very, very nice ones).

Already have a Deck and Ally. Might get the Legion Go to see how it fares as both handheld gaming machine and small tablet.
 
Radeon85 said:
If other companies can do higher refresh OLED panels on cheaper devices, then Apple has no excuse other than being cheap and lazy. The Steam Deck OLED only goes up to 90Hz but still does 1000 nits with HDR, and even that I’d be happy with on the mini.

For the prices that Apple charge I expect much better from them.
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Apple was never about “not skimping “. Back in the day they didn’t have bluetooth file share when symbian nokias could play multiplayer games over bluetooth.

So being apple user just means living with those limitations.
 
I swear my first mini 7 though it had improved jelly scroll from 6 is not as good as my current 7 is at mitigating the issue

Shrug
 
Ok, just saw them in store at Apple.

Blue color is so-so in person, while purple is good, starlight is very neutral and space gray has some professional tint.

It is the biggest no brainer especially with apple pencil. Display is good and only gripe it was not “bright enough” under 1000lumen apple store lights.
But i mean who cares.

It is really hard to tell something bad about it - overall the device is so great to use and feels more productive than iPhone.
 
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There is a LCD panel lottery with iPad mini 7. The apple stores I’ve been to, only 1 out of 6/7 display model iPad mini 7th gen have a good display. The bad lcds have lower contrast and lower brightness and slight yellow tinge to the whites with True Tone off. small text is also blurry and hard to read. I purchased two space grey with bad displays and one lavender with a much better display.
 
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I have played with the Mini 7 in the store, and at least to my eyes, it is somewhat better than the Mini 6, which was the worst Apple LCD screen I have ever seen (instant headaches). However, neither of the last 2 iPad Minis have screens as sharp or as bright and clear as the older Mini 4 or Mini 5, why is that? Is Apple just cutting corners on some of the displays to keep their precious margins high and please their shareholders? An iPad is all about the screen. If the screen is not easy to view, it is not usable, no matter what its other spec's and qualities are.

I have only held onto my aging Mini 5 this long because of the quality of the screen. The only thing that would ever drive me to ever buy a newer Mini is if there is a future Mini 8 with an OLED screen that actually looks good to my eyes. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the rumors are true and that the iPad Mini will eventually go OLED.
 
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RoadWarrior56 said:
Is Apple just cutting corners on some of the displays to keep their precious margins high and please their shareholders? An iPad is all about the screen. If the screen is not easy to view, it is not usable, no matter what its other spec's and qualities are.
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Apple is definitely cutting corners, or at least the lcd panel suppliers. Theres a huge difference between good and bad lcd panels, and it's not related to calibration. There is something wrong the physical lcd subpixels.

theres an oled lottery when it comes to iphones, ipad pros, TVs and monitors, even the nintendo switch. Lcd lottery is less discussed. I guess it's also why professional lcd monitors like EIZO costs $3000 usd without any "extras" like high refresh.
 
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im happy to report on my 4th ipad mini 7th gen I finally got a good screen. out of the box this unit was running 18.2 released in december 2024.

#1 release day - bad
#2 May apple store purchase - bad (ios unknown)
#3 May apple store purchase #2 - acceptable (ios 18.0)
#4 May apple store purchase #3 - excellent (ios 18.2)

good displays do exist but chances of getting one is low, unsure if this is related to release day issues and was rectified later.

Ive owned more than five ipad mini gen 6, I can confirm this last screen is as good or better than the best gen 6 screen Ive had.
 
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LotsOfBees said:
There is a LCD panel lottery with iPad mini 7. The apple stores I’ve been to, only 1 out of 6/7 display model iPad mini 7th gen have a good display. The bad lcds have lower contrast and lower brightness and slight yellow tinge to the whites with True Tone off. small text is also blurry and hard to read. I purchased two space grey with bad displays and one lavender with a much better display.
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LotsOfBees said:
im happy to report on my 4th ipad mini 7th gen I finally got a good screen. out of the box this unit was running 18.2 released in december 2024.

#1 release day - bad
#2 May apple store purchase - bad (ios unknown)
#3 May apple store purchase #2 - acceptable (ios 18.0)
#4 May apple store purchase #3 - excellent (ios 18.2)

good displays do exist but chances of getting one is low, unsure if this is related to release day issues and was rectified later.

Ive owned more than five ipad mini gen 6, I can confirm this last screen is as good or better than the best gen 6 screen Ive had.
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can we see some bad displays and good ones?

I think my first one was mid and my 2nd one was excellent (for mini 7 specs). Jelly scroll seemed still pretty there on my first unit, and smooth on my second. I dont notice it. Text is crisp and white point is a little warm (resulting in good colors) but not jaundice-y.
 
thadoggfather said:
can we see some bad displays and good ones?

I think my first one was mid and my 2nd one was excellent (for mini 7 specs). Jelly scroll seemed still pretty there on my first unit, and smooth on my second. I dont notice it. Text is crisp and white point is a little warm (resulting in good colors) but not jaundice-y.
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I think this would be bad in my book. But I may not have gotten as far as running display tests apps (color fill on whole display) to observe it in a dark space.

After seeing these comments and pics i might actually. The point is it may be hard to nitpick while using regularly cause i know the below doesn’t show up easily in a day to day use.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ipadmini/comments/1gefnsl/new_mini_7_advices_on_screen_quality
https://imgur.com/p76Y2hg
 
RoadWarrior56 said:
I have played with the Mini 7 in the store, and at least to my eyes, it is somewhat better than the Mini 6, which was the worst Apple LCD screen I have ever seen (instant headaches). However, neither of the last 2 iPad Minis have screens as sharp or as bright and clear as the older Mini 4 or Mini 5, why is that? Is Apple just cutting corners on some of the displays to keep their precious margins high and please their shareholders? An iPad is all about the screen. If the screen is not easy to view, it is not usable, no matter what its other spec's and qualities are.

I have only held onto my aging Mini 5 this long because of the quality of the screen. The only thing that would ever drive me to ever buy a newer Mini is if there is a future Mini 8 with an OLED screen that actually looks good to my eyes. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the rumors are true and that the iPad Mini will eventually go OLED.
Click to expand...

Exactly how I feel.

It's amazing how good my Mini 5 screen is.

Corners have absolutely been cut for the Mini 6 & 7 displays.
 
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thadoggfather said:
can we see some bad displays and good ones?

I think my first one was mid and my 2nd one was excellent (for mini 7 specs). Jelly scroll seemed still pretty there on my first unit, and smooth on my second. I dont notice it. Text is crisp and white point is a little warm (resulting in good colors) but not jaundice-y.
Click to expand...

its hard to show by photos, but a tell tale sign is a low quality LCD has poor geometry. Im not sure if thats due to high precision subpixel alignment needed for 3x scaling at 326ppi. What I mean by geometry is -- on a good lcd -- lines and shapes look very straight and well defined. You can check using a high resolution photo 50MP+ while zooming in and out, or apple maps satellite images.
 
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I had to return a A16 iPad that had display issues out the box (white dot on screen, and the usual lcd bleed)

Ended up exchanging for a Mini 7 and I’m happy with the display. No defects and I can’t notice jelly scrolling like I did with the Mini 6 which I immediately returned for that reason. I made sure at store in Best Buy that the display units also felt good in terms of jelly scrolling.

My last favorite and issue-free iPad was the 2018 Pro 12.9 and while il always miss 120hz i just end up liking the size of the Mini 7 more.

With that said if for whatever reason you’re unhappy with the Mini 7 just return it… Apple needs to step up in terms of iPad QC, I was surprised a bit that the before mentioned base iPad had such noticeable display issues.
 
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Gandektempacc said:
I had to return a A16 iPad that had display issues out the box (white dot on screen, and the usual lcd bleed)

Ended up exchanging for a Mini 7 and I’m happy with the display. No defects and I can’t notice jelly scrolling like I did with the Mini 6 which I immediately returned for that reason. I made sure at store in Best Buy that the display units also felt good in terms of jelly scrolling.

My last favorite and issue-free iPad was the 2018 Pro 12.9 and while il always miss 120hz i just end up liking the size of the Mini 7 more.

With that said if for whatever reason you’re unhappy with the Mini 7 just return it… Apple needs to step up in terms of iPad QC, I was surprised a bit that the before mentioned base iPad had such noticeable display issues.
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I tried the A16 too, didn't like it all, lucky got it on sale and sold it for what i paid.
Have a mini 7 coming with folio, hopefully a better experience.
 
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Am I the only one who just doesn’t care? I go from my OLED iPhone 16 Plus to the laminated LCD in the Air 5 to the non-laminated 11th-gen iPad and it’s all the same to me. There is a difference especially with the non-laminated display… but I’ve used the 9.7-inch iPad Pro side-by-side with the 6th-gen iPad and I don’t care about the difference, I can use either of them and I’m equally happy.
 
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FeliApple said:
Am I the only one who just doesn’t care? I go from my OLED iPhone 16 Plus to the laminated LCD in the Air 5 to the non-laminated 11th-gen iPad and it’s all the same to me. There is a difference especially with the non-laminated display… but I’ve used the 9.7-inch iPad Pro side-by-side with the 6th-gen iPad and I don’t care about the difference, I can use either of them and I’m equally happy.
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I would prefer OLED, but I'm also in the camp that doesn't care. I'm not going to wait for it, mini 7 is fine for my uses I've been really happy with it.

If an OLED comes along, I will evaluate then. It could command a deterring price and probably will knowing Apple.
 
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thadoggfather said:
I would prefer OLED, but I'm also in the camp that doesn't care. I'm not going to wait for it, mini 7 is fine for my uses I've been really happy with it.

If an OLED comes along, I will evaluate then. It could command a deterring price and probably will knowing Apple.
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Yeah, perhaps it’d be more expensive.

In people’s defence against my not-caring argument, though, I will say that I don’t care about much. I want good compatibility without updating, but I otherwise don’t mind having older devices or devices with fewer features.

I’ve pretty much only cared about two features: full-screen devices when they were released (3rd-gen iPad Pro, 10th-gen iPad, iPad Air 4, and iPhone X), and the camera features that were released with the iPhone 11.

Everything else just doesn’t make much of a difference for me.

I have an 11th-gen iPad as an upgrade from my 9.7-inch iPad Pro (and as a complement to my Air 5 on iPadOS 15, I wanted a newer iOS version before the Air started to suffer), and I have a 16 Plus as an upgrade from my now too incompatible iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12. I upgraded to the Air 5 solely for the full screen. I chose the Air immediately because the regular 9th-gen iPad wasn’t a full screen device.
 
the problem with oled is it has poor pixel level detail due to the subpixel arrangement. a good PC display should be concerned with rendering text and images clearly with high level of detail. Oled in the current state is more suited for entertainment or casual use where you're not scrutinizing the display upclose.

theres the usual problems with lcd -- slow pixel response, low contrast, uniformity issues, etc etc, but those are not as important as rendering and geometry imo.
 
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I purchased a 256gb mini, OOTB it was running 18.0. Subjectively the display ( text rendering and glyphs) looks better than the five 128gb minis. So maybe they are binning the displays? In my experience there is at least 3 different types of lcds being used based on how text and glyphs are rendered after seeing over 30 ipad minis. (iphone 11 also had 3 lcd suppliers Sharp LG Toshiba.) Theres not enough repairs done on ipads to know for sure.

I completely agree with the earlier post that said bad screen makes the device completely unusable.
 
LotsOfBees said:
the problem with oled is it has poor pixel level detail due to the subpixel arrangement.
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There have been improvements. On the iPad, at least the structure isn't diagonal anymore:

1748610342361.png


One drawback compared to LCD is the unevenness ("graininess") and temporal dithering of OLED pixels.

But for me, contrast is the crucial benefit of OLED.
 
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