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Retina iPad Mini's Display Criticized Over Poor Color Gamut and Accuracy

The most likely thing is Apple could not acquire enough supply of LTPS displays at this pixel density to enable them to make the 10 million units per month quota.

When you're amazon and sell 1-2 million tablets the entire year it makes things a lot easier.

I doubt Apple would risk ruining their reputation over a 5-10 dollar difference in display cost.
 
sammaffei said:
What, me worry? …because this really affected iPad mini sales how?
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In me canceling a 689 EUR order. This could have been my single biggest purchase of the year. The money was already on Apples bank account and now they have to refund me.
sammaffei said:
I've been using a Kindle Fire HD for a week and hated it. The screen isn't everything.
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I'm not buying that one either. I have enough hate in me for every vendor and their competition. My hate for different products is not mutually exclusive.
 
Doomtomb said:
For $100 more. Why wouldn't you get an Air?
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I just don't care for the form factor. It's 100% nicer than the old full-sized iPad, for sure, but still too large for what I'd prefer to lug around as a tablet. Put another way, why wouldn't you get an 11" Macbook Air for $100 more than a 128GB iPad Air?

That being said, I would pay $100 more for a rMini with accurate color.
 
SirHaakon said:
I don't think people were necessarily praising the gamut on the original mini, either. At that point, the low resolution took much more of the focus (people were clamoring for retina before the original was even released). The color is a pretty striking difference though, and should be addressed just the same.
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Yeah the low resolution was so horrendous that people didn't realize the lower gamut on it.

I'm wondering if Apple might change the display manufacture at some point and thus increasing the gamut. That would definitely piss off a lot of previous owners I would think.
 
Based on the gimped gamut of the Retina iPad Mini, I bought a used Nexus 7 2013. Talk about a cold shower. Don't believe all the talk about Android catching up to or surpassing iOS, it still sucks.

First the good: After downloading a few apps, I can wirelessly transfer files between the Nexus 7 and my computer over my local WiFi network, both ways. The Nexus shows up in the Finder to drop files directly on it, or I can go to a shared folder on my Mac from the Nexus. I live in a rural area and am stuck with cellular broadband, so Apple's solution of wireless syncing on some remote server is worthless to me. I know there are convoluted solutions for iOS that involve pointing Safari to a web address and downloading files over the local network, but the Android solution is 100X easier and just works.

Now the bad, awful, abysmally worthless, and comically stupid:
The Nexus 7's reader app doesn't work. Well, it does, but it will only read crap you download from Google Play. I have thousands of books and articles on my Mac and Nexus cannot read them. But there are 3rd party reader apps for the Nexus 7, just use one those, right? No, they all pretty much suck. Most do not have an offline dictionary, and the few that do have poor definitions and a clunky lookup interface. Highlighting a word is hit or miss; they don't hold a candle to iOS ability to highlite the word you touch. Formatting is lame. Performance is also an issue, with constant hiccups in the display.

Finally the difference between 7" and 7.9" is larger than it seems. Browsing on a 7" tablet is frustrating.

So, while I find the Retina iPad Mini's gimped gamma frustrating, Apple still blows away the competition on the user experience. File transfer is a weak point, but actually using the files once they're transferred is awesome.
 
SirHaakon said:
I just don't care for the form factor. It's 100% nicer than the old full-sized iPad, for sure, but still too large for what I'd prefer to lug around as a tablet. Put another way, why wouldn't you get an 11" Macbook Air for $100 more than a 128GB iPad Air?

That being said, I would pay $100 more for a rMini with accurate color.
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Why not get the 13" rMPB for slightly more than that? Or the 15" rMBP for a little more than that?

Honestly, I don't know why anyone would by the iPad mini when they could just buy a 27" iMac for a little more.
 
rgarjr said:
I'm wondering if Apple might change the display manufacture at some point and thus increasing the gamut. That would definitely piss off a lot of previous owners I would think.
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Kinda like releasing an underspec'd iPad 3 and then 6 months later saying "just kidding" and releasing an iPad 4? :D

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comatose81 said:
Why not get the 13" rMPB for slightly more than that? Or the 15" rMBP for a little more than that?

Honestly, I don't know why anyone would by the iPad mini when they could just buy a 27" iMac for a little more.
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Well, I think an 11" Macbook Air and an iPad Air are pretty similar in form factors, but one is a full blown computer with a keyboard and can do a lot more. That's a pretty major difference (which is why I was wondering, at that point, why not just go for it). The other things you listed are just spec bumps for the most part... one can always buy something nicer. :)
 
theheadguy said:
Mildly funny a couple years ago, now the sarcasm is just annoying.
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Wow, thanks for the critique! Your blasé attitude, on the other hand, always de rigueur, of course.

During the weekend I read some Retina iPad Mini reviews (The Verge, Daring Fireball, Engadget), and they were all very effusive, even praising the screen quality. Today, Anandtech also praises said Retina iPad Mini, but does (as Anand will always do) get very technical and finds out the color gamut is more limited than in other tablets. My comment was aimed at the barrage of criticism that certainly would (and did) ensue screaming that the Retina iPad Mini is crap, the worst thing to see the light of day since Hitler, and so on, and so forth. Hyperbole at its best, as nobody could even spell gamut (let alone spot limits to it with their eyes alone in a tablet screen) before the piece by Anandtech. I just came up with he gate-word and the /s before as a preemptive strike on the doomsayers.

Did I annoy you? Boy, will you have a long list of posts to respond to in this thread alone...
 
So for everyone returning their mini for an Air or deciding to buy an Air instead of a mini based on this news: how do you feel about the shadow bar on the iPad Air screen? What about the yellowish screen? The pink tint on the lower right side? Does "color gamut" trump it all?
 
rGiskard said:
So, while I find the Retina iPad Mini's gimped gamma frustrating, Apple still blows away the competition on the user experience. File transfer is a weak point, but actually using the files once they're transferred is awesome.
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That's probably the thing that frustrates me the most. I already know they have a superior product... I'm not even interested in the other offerings. But as I mentioned previously, just because something is "the best of the worst" doesn't make it "great."

I do think the new iPad will work well for a lot of people. It's more the principal of the fact that their iPhone has fantastic gamut... the Air has fantastic gamut... all these other companies have tablets with fantastic gamut... why does the rMini have to be the gimped one? :p
 
rGiskard said:
LTPS is more plentiful than IGZO.
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That may not be true for larger screen sizes. MacRumors just recently ran an article about the burn-in/image retention issue with IGZO screens that said this:

"If the issue of screen burn-in persists, the report also states that Apple may move to LTPS technology such as that seen in the Kindle Fire HDX, as it is less prone to the problem. However, while LTPS is commonly used on displays for smaller devices such as the iPhone, Apple is unlikely to mass produce the displays for larger screens in part due to scalability issues that simply won't support the tens of millions of tablets that the company is producing each year. "
 
comatose81 said:
So for everyone returning their mini for an Air or deciding to buy an Air instead of a mini based on this news: how do you feel about the shadow bar on the iPad Air screen? What about the yellowish screen? The pink tint on the lower right side? Does "color gamut" trump it all?
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Are those design flaws that affect every Air ever produced, or is it possible to get an Air without those problems? Is it possible to get a non-color-gimped rMini?
 
iChrist said:
I love how Apple brags about their displays, yet provide some of the worst displays in the industry. And, check out the forums for complaints on rMBPs.

Welcome to the new Apple.

:mad:
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Yes, a tiny sampling of paranoid customers who take their need to justify every decision they make to the internet shows that Apple makes some of the worst displays out there.
 
polterbyte said:
My comment was aimed at the barrage of criticism that certainly would (and did) ensue screaming that the Retina iPad Mini is crap, the worst thing to see the light of day since Hitler, and so on, and so forth. Hyperbole at its best, as nobody could even spell gamut (let alone spot limits to it with their eyes alone in a tablet screen) before the piece by Anandtech.
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To be fair, many of us had already raised the issue in the iPad-specific forum long before the Anandtech article came out; those topics just don't get as much attention as the "front page news" ones do. And the shortcomings with the new iPad Mini were clear to me from the moment I picked it up - it wasn't until much later that I sat down and did a photo comparison.

I'm not the guy that was throwing barbs your way, nor am I attacking what you originally said... this place does get a little ridiculous at times. But the issue is a legit one, and we shouldn't all be lumped together just because some people's rhetoric is more colorful than others. :)

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comatose81 said:
Yes, a tiny sampling of paranoid customers who take their need to justify every decision they make to the internet shows that Apple makes some of the worst displays out there.
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Paranoid of what? I think we've pretty clearly shown where the shortcomings are and why they are disappointing.
 
mdelvecchio said:
why was this not an issue last year, when the mini had the exact same gamut as this year? why is it only now that this is a calamity? last year everybody said they needed retina resolution. guess what, you got it.
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Because the resolution was so bad that people didn't realize the shiitty colors. Although retina technically is speaking of the resolution alone, it has always meant a better display over all. This is the first time (against iPhone 3Gs --> iPhone 4, and iPad 2 --> iPad 3) that the retina screen has been just as bad as the non-retina that came before it, albeit having a higher resolution.
 
locust76 said:
Are those design flaws that affect every Air ever produced, or is it possible to get an Air without those problems? Is it possible to get a non-color-gimped rMini?
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Some of the people on this forum said they has returned 7 iPad Airs and still hadn't gotten one without these issues. Not definitive proof but it seems like it's affecting most if not all.
 
adamneer said:
yeah, you're right, maybe 99% of people would notice the difference in color when looking at both devices, side by side, after being told to look for a difference in color. but i still suspect those same 99% of people would not have noticed there was anything wrong with the color output without articles and forums like this. but i could be wrong. i'm sure now that the word is out, everyone is an expert in color reproduction.
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Go through the 20+ threads on how bad the retina mini's color reproduction is from the past several days and you'll see that it didn't just start today. I think it took about 3 hours after release for people to start noticing...with several people saying they noticed it as soon as they turned the display on. No device to compare it to, just the retina mini
 
paulrbeers said:
Sadly, most who complain about the colors now, only do so because it was pointed out to them. Like looking for yellow tint on screens. Most would never even spend the time pulling up a fully white screen to check for yellow tint unless they read something here and decided to look for it.
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But isn't that the case with every product? There are people who go to a shop, listen to sometimes ill-informed sales assistants and make their purchases based on that. There are also people who trust the company based on prior purchases and subsequently buy on impulse. Both groups would be more likely to not discover the display issue. But there are also people who take the time to read reviews, compare the products and listen to experiences. It just depends on what type of consumer you are.

Maybe you would have never noticed the poor colour on your screen yourself, but since that information is now widely reported, would you be truly comfortable buying a product that is not top-notch quality, especially for that price? To me that is a bit deceptive. That many people wouldn't notice it, is not a valid reason to me. There are many technical appliances which I don't understand and for which I rely on professionals. Consider also this: what if you do notice the issue later on. How do you feel about that? Would you have bought it, if you knew? I want Apple to be that reliable company with excellent quality. A qualitatively disappointing display on a comparably expensive device is unforgivable, especially when the competition and the iPad Air have better displays.
 
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