Kuo: Mini-LED Displays to Debut in Apple's Next iPad Pro

[OldCorpse]

Personally if a refresh of the iPP comes in March 2021 I don’t think it will be a direct replacement of the current 11” and 12.9” I think it would likely run alongside... with the new version named iPad Pro (miniLED) 12.9” which has an extra $200-$300 on the price for a better screen and the A14X/U1 chips inside.

This has happened before with the MacBook line when retina first came about, standard screen MacBooks and retina MacBooks got sold side by side initially with the retina’s costing an additional $200-$300.

From my point of view, I'm ok with the option of an extra $200-$300 for the mini-LED screen. Because I doubt I'm the only one who is pretty satisfied with the current screens in f.ex. my iPad Air 3. I don't do heavy video/photo editing or draw art and graphic work. For my needs, I honestly am happy - and I don't even have pro-motion in Air 3 which everyone says is critical. I might just be a peasant who lacks the appreaciation for the finer points of screen technology, but there are more such as me, and that's also part of the market - I might look at the mini-LED and just not see what the big fuss is. I completely understand those who find it super important - because f.ex. I find a good stereo on which to play music super important, while others don't care and play any old mp3 gizmo. So I get it. All I'm saying is that any company selling such understands that there are those unsophisticates like me in the market, and they might be totally OK with passing on the mini-LED and passing on the extra $300 hike. YMMV.

 

[jamesrick80]

2021 iPad pros should just go to OLED if there is a steep price increase......screen issue solved. I’m tired of them sticking with these same ips LCD displays. They can even go cheaper than mini LED which is a LCD display and just do Samsung’s QLED which is also a LCD display to solve the pricing issue yet get close enough to OLED technology for a cheaper price. If I’m gonna pay $200 or $300 more, it needs to be OLED. The Galaxy tab S7+ has a amazing AMOLED display and it’s superior to the iPad pros display in every regard.

 

[eulslix]

2021 iPad pros should just go to OLED if there is a steep price increase......screen issue solved. I’m tired of them sticking with these same ips LCD displays. They can even go cheaper than mini LED which is a LCD display and just do Samsung’s QLED which is also a LCD display to solve the pricing issue yet get close enough to OLED technology for a cheaper price. If I’m gonna pay $200 or $300 more, it needs to be OLED. The Galaxy tab S7+ has a amazing AMOLED display and it’s superior to the iPad pros display in every regard.

What use is an OLED screen if you put it onto a device that's mostly used in sunny or bright condition. OLED screens can only demonstrate their superior contrasts in dark rooms. In the average mobile setting, a bright Mini/QLED display should always exceed in its HDR capabilities over an OLED screen, since all those OLED blacks will be lifted into a medium-ish gray anyways.

 

[EugW]

What use is an OLED screen if you put it onto a device that's mostly used in sunny or bright condition. OLED screens can only demonstrate their superior contrasts in dark rooms. In the average mobile setting, a bright Mini/QLED display should always exceed in its HDR capabilities over an OLED screen since all those OLED blacks will be lifted into a medium-ish gray anyways.

That is incorrect. It sounds like you may not understand how OLED works. OLED true black pixels stay true black regardless of the brightness of adjacent pixels. That's the whole benefit of OLED after all.

 

[eulslix]

That is incorrect. It sounds like you may not understand how OLED works. OLED true black pixels stay true black regardless of the brightness of adjacent pixels. That's the whole benefit of OLED after all.

That was not my point, I think you misunderstood me. The screen is either reflective or diffuse. In the former case it will reflect whatever is behind you, in the latter case it will wash out the blacks. This is why achieving high contrast ratio through high brightness is so important for mobile devices. I own an iPhone 11 Pro, and the OLED never really manages to show of its strengths whenever outside. Even in a brightly lit room you probably won't notice much of a difference between OLED and more traditional screen tech. Its once it gets dim where OLED really shines, but that's more of a use case for TVs rather than phones/notebooks/tablets.

 

[EugW]

That was not my point, I think you misunderstood me. The screen is either reflective or diffuse. In the former case it will reflect whatever is behind you, in the latter case it will wash out the blacks. This is why achieving high contrast ratio through high brightness is so important for mobile devices. I own an iPhone 11 Pro, and the OLED never really manages to show of its strengths whenever outside. Even in a brightly lit room you probably won't notice much of a difference between OLED and more traditional screen tech.

That's true. It is much harder to appreciate true blacks if there is a lot of ambient light. That said, on the flip side, these days LCD screens for phones don't get any brighter than the OLED screens for phones.

In fact, often the reverse is true. For example, the 11 Pro maxes out at a whopping 1200 nits, and 800 nits for non-HDR material, whereas the 11 maxes out at 625 nits.

So, if you want max brightness in an iPhone, you're actually better off with an OLED iPhone than an LCD iPhone.

Its once it gets dim where OLED really shines, but that's more of a use case for TVs rather than phones/notebooks/tablets.

Depends on your usage I guess. While I also don't think OLED is absolutely mission critical for a phone for my particular usage, I do think for many people (including myself) true blacks on an iPhone is also a nice bonus, since lots of people use their phones in rooms with dim light, particularly in the evenings.

My main concern there though is whether or not the OLED's PWM frequency will cause headaches.

 

[Moyapilot]

Personally if a refresh of the iPP comes in March 2021 I don’t think it will be a direct replacement of the current 11” and 12.9” I think it would likely run alongside... with the new version named iPad Pro (miniLED) 12.9” which has an extra $200-$300 on the price for a better screen and the A14X/U1 chips inside.

This has happened before with the MacBook line when retina first came about, standard screen MacBooks and retina MacBooks got sold side by side initially with the retina’s costing an additional $200-$300.

From my point of view, I'm ok with the option of an extra $200-$300 for the mini-LED screen. Because I doubt I'm the only one who is pretty satisfied with the current screens in f.ex. my iPad Air 3. I don't do heavy video/photo editing or draw art and graphic work. For my needs, I honestly am happy - and I don't even have pro-motion in Air 3 which everyone says is critical. I might just be a peasant who lacks the appreaciation for the finer points of screen technology, but there are more such as me, and that's also part of the market - I might look at the mini-LED and just not see what the big fuss is. I completely understand those who find it super important - because f.ex. I find a good stereo on which to play music super important, while others don't care and play any old mp3 gizmo. So I get it. All I'm saying is that any company selling such understands that there are those unsophisticates like me in the market, and they might be totally OK with passing on the mini-LED and passing on the extra $300 hike. YMMV.

I'm of your thinking.

I actually consider myself a videophile in a sense, but mainly for the HT setup. But on an 11" screen like on a tablet, I don't really feel the need for mini-led, or a brighter screen. It already does 572 nits which is more than enough for me. The colors are deep and well saturated without being over-saturated, and calibration is almost spot on.

I think its good that they innovate though, just as long as they give us the option of something cheaper but with still enough of the "pro" type feature like 120hz.

What I would like is an anti-smudge technology. Its my biggest annoyance with tablets. I hate screen protectors and the compromises they create to the picture, so that is not an option for me.

 

[bb9]

Following his report earlier this week indicating that Apple will be accelerating adoption of mini-LED displays in its iPad and Mac notebook lineups thanks to better than expected development from potential secondary supplier Sanan Optoelectronics, analyst Ming-Chi has released a new report today sharing a bit more perspective on the mini-LED display market as it relates to Apple.

Kuo says that Epistar remains Apple's initial partner for mini-LED chips, but that Sanan and others should be able to quickly join Apple's supply chain as existing patents are not expected to serve as significant barriers to entry. As a result, mini-LED efforts by Apple and its suppliers have effectively moved from the "technology development" stage to the "economies of scale/cost" stage.

While Sanan has seen rapid development of its mini-LED capabilities that could allow it ship large quantities of the chips to Apple in the first half of 2021, Kuo says that Epistar has experienced some yield issues that have led Kuo to reduce his fourth-quarter 2020 display shipment estimates by 50% to between 300,000 and 400,000.

Kuo has said that Apple has at least six iPad and Mac products with mini-LED displays in its pipeline for launch by the end of 2021, but he indicates that the initial batch of displays coming through the end of 2020 will be for an iPad Pro.Kuo has long predicted that a high-end 12.9-inch iPad Pro would likely be Apple's first mini-LED product.

As indicated in his earlier report, Kuo sees fierce price competition among Apple's mini-LED suppliers in 2021, predicting that Apple's costs for the mini-LED dies will drop by 50% in 2021 and a further 35% in 2022.

Mini-LED displays, which use on the order of 1,000 to 10,000 individual LEDs, can offer deeper, darker blacks, brighter brights, richer colors, and better contrast compared to traditional LED-based displays, though the technology comes at a significant increase in cost for the time being.

Article Link: Kuo: Mini-LED Displays to Debut in Apple's Next iPad Pro

I want an iPad pro mini with mini-LED - seriously, with physical distancing, that will be a nice tablet for all sort of use.