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

So far for the myth that...

...the Retina mini would be exactly the same package as the Air, only with a smaller screen and for less money. No-brainer, eh?

Now people wake up and realize that Apple had to save at some corners - though I'm slightly surprised that the screen is one of them.
 
Aluminum213 said:
Having a far inferior screen to the $239 nexus 7 isn't impressive


Using the same color gamut as an iPad 2 from 2011 isn't impressive


Charging $400 for this device and using old tech isn't impressive
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The screen is not "far inferior" not is the technology old. In fact, it is Google using inferior old 32-bit ARM v7 and wi-fi tech technology. IGZO is modern technology, as well. It might not be quite as ready for prime time as LTPS, but it isn't old tech.

$400 is quite reasonable for the whole package, particularly since the pricing doesn't rely upon someone mining my metadata or signing up for a specific email and social media service.

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johnnylarue said:
Not really a tablet guy, but after handling an iPad Air in the store the other day, the first thing that came to mind was, "Why would anyone get a Mini?"

Don't the new form factor and weight of the Air make the Mini virtually redundant?

For a $100 more (and a negligible increase in size and weight), the Air would be a no-brainer for me if I was looking to get an iPad... But hey, to each their own.
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For me the Air is still a bit too big and heavy. I tried both. Yes, the Air has nicer colors, but as an overall package I think the mini is still best for me.
 
Wait,

The review clearly said it has the same color gamut as the original ipad mini, but now offers more resolution. Where have you been slighted? It's better than the original ipad mini. You shouldn't even be comparing it to the ipad air.
 
Renzatic said:
Correlation doesn't equal causation. Just because the Mini sold a ton doesn't mean that no one cares about Retina, it just means that people through the pros outweighed the cons. There's no such thing as a device so good, it couldn't possibly be made any better.

Plus, these arguments always fly in the face of everyone who claims Apple's greatest strength is the quality and care that goes into all their products.

So which is it? Does Apple sell a lot of Minis because people enjoy the strengths of the brand, or because people simply like the size and could care less about anything else?
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It's a little of both. The mini sold well despite its lower specs last year because it was well built, cheaper, and lighter than the main iPad. This year it is significantly improved in every aspect except for color gamut and price. Overall, though, it is still a very good product. That a reviewer focused solely on displays calls them out on the screen gamut isn't surprising, but the Anand review is probably the more relevant to most people. Anand is as upfront as anyone on the color gamut. He's one of the few mainstream reviewers not to call the mini a no-compromises device, and the only one I've seen point out the performance differences that go beyond the 100MHz clock speed difference. But in the end he said he'd go with the mini over the Air for his own use.

If you prefer higher color gamut, go with an iPad Air, Nexus 7, or Kindle Fire HDX. But don't claim that Apple paid no attention to quality or care. The Retina mini is a significant improvement over the original, and its performance is significantly better than the Nexus 7 or Kindle Fire without sacrificing battery life or becoming too heavy.
 
macfacts said:
When the larger iPad is better, it is cutting corners. The ipad mini retina's price was already increased from last year's model, why not increase it a bit more and give the same experience as the full sized ipad.
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How is it cutting corners? Is Apple cutting corners with the MacBook Air because the 13" Pro is better?

People complained that the iPad mini is $70 more than last year. Why increase it more? No matter what, it won't offer the "same" experience as the full-sized iPad since inherently a smaller screen is a different experience. However, for the most part, it is as close to the same experience as possible, and much closer than the original mini was to the iPad 4. It offers the same resolution as the mini, the same processor (albeit a little slower), similar battery life, full app compatibility, and greater portability, all for $100 less.
 
typeadam said:
huh? the iPhone 5/5S and Nexus 7 both are 16:9. So if you use an iPhone you should be used to that same aspect ratio...
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There's a difference between a phone and a tablet. At least Apple thinks so. What works for a phone (where I'm less likely to read large documents or full websites) is less useful on a tablet.
 
Gudi said:
Apple is for people who want something better than normal and are willing to pay twice as much to get it. And because of that, they can't fall behind in something as crucial as screen quality. The iPad mini has failed its Elk-Test.
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Exactly. I would have never went to Apple if I didn´t feel that I get something worth my money. I bought the iPad 3 for this exact reason. The display was just beautiful back then and still is. I am not a snob, nor am I such a weak mind that I must have something, just to show it to everyone. For a price like that, I expect nothing short of excellence from Apple.

Welcome to the world of mass-market products, where quality comes second.

KPOM said:
If you prefer higher color gamut, go with an iPad Air, Nexus 7, or Kindle Fire HDX. But don't claim that Apple paid no attention to quality or care. The Retina mini is a significant improvement over the original, and its performance is significantly better than the Nexus 7 or Kindle Fire without sacrificing battery life or becoming too heavy.
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While "no attention to quality" may be a little bit of an overstatement, all the other things the Retina mini has going for it are improvements that are made possible, because a) the A7 is super power-efficient and b) the IGZO screen saves A LOT on power, so they could built a smaller device.

What exactly does that even have to do with "quality"? Some people just have no quality-sense whatsoever, what´s worse is that they even defend something so ridiculously bad (63 percent sRGB coverage), where even the worst TN panels have a higher native gamut.

Jesus...are you kidding me?

This is unacceptable crap from Apple. Have fun though buying it for the price they are asking, it´s a free world.
 
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KPOM said:
The Retina mini is a significant improvement over the original, and its performance is significantly better than the Nexus 7 or Kindle Fire without sacrificing battery life or becoming too heavy.
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It is, and I'm not even gonna come close to saying the Mini is absolute crap. It's just kinda disappointing seeing Apple fall so short of the competition in an area they usually excel at.
 
Anti-Lucifer said:
Wow, I hear so much "Baaaaa Baaaaa" in this thread more so than ever. Defending mighty apple like apple is your parent. :rolleyes: Sheesh, it's so blatantly clear apple did this gimping on the color panel on purpose. This is to have greater profit margins plain and simple. Money is the #1 goal these days for apple.
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1 - My comment was in relation to screen density or resolution/PPI.
2 - The goal on any and every company is to make money.
 
Disappointing that a device that costs almost half of what the iPad mini costs has a much better display. The color gamut difference and contrast ratio difference is extremely noticeable.

60148.png
 
Renzatic said:
It is, and I'm not even gonna come close to saying the Mini is absolute crap. It's just kinda disappointing seeing Apple fall so short of the competition in an area they usually excel at.
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I agree that given that the MacBook Pro, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, and iPad Air have excelleng color gamut, it's a little disappointing. However, on the whole I'm very satisfied with the Retina iPad mini. Obviously, they could have designed a product that had better color gamut (since Google and Amazon have done it), but we don't know what other compromises would have been made. Would it have been even pricier? Would the battery life have been worse? Would the device have been heavier?

All we can really do is evaluate the devices that are out there.
 
blackhand1001 said:
Disappointing that a device that costs almost half of what the iPad mini costs has a much better display. The color gamut difference and contrast ratio difference is extremely noticeable.
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At the same time, the iPad mini has a CPU that's twice as fast and a GPU that bests the Nexus on virtually all of Anand's tests.

http://anandtech.com/show/7519/apple-ipad-mini-with-retina-display-reviewed/2

It also has better wi-fi performance.

http://anandtech.com/show/7519/apple-ipad-mini-with-retina-display-reviewed/4

Every design is a compromise in some respects. As for pricing, it will never be an apples-to-apples comparison between Google and Apple. Google sells hardware close to cost because it makes its money on ad revenue. So does Amazon, but they are a bit more upfront about it (selling devices with and without ads, and offering their Prime service as an add-on) than is Google, who uses meta-data, e-mail profiling, location tracking, etc.
 
comatose81 said:
I read this article and changed my mind based on it. What doesn't make sense about that?
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You went from the 128gb LTE Air to the 16gb Mini... that's like returning your SUV for a Smart Car...

Wasn't sure if you were serious, that's a huge jump.

How did the article convince you to go for the lowest capacity and drop LTE?

Was the 128gb too much storage for you? (it would be for me) Did you decide LTE version just isn't worth the extra $130?

I'm not judging your decision, that just came off as kind of strange is all.
 
KPOM said:
At the same time, the iPad mini has a CPU that's twice as fast and a GPU that bests the Nexus on virtually all of Anand's tests.

http://anandtech.com/show/7519/apple-ipad-mini-with-retina-display-reviewed/2

It also has better wi-fi performance.

http://anandtech.com/show/7519/apple-ipad-mini-with-retina-display-reviewed/4

Every design is a compromise in some respects. As for pricing, it will never be an apples-to-apples comparison between Google and Apple. Google sells hardware close to cost because it makes its money on ad revenue. So does Amazon, but they are a bit more upfront about it (selling devices with and without ads, and offering their Prime service as an add-on) than is Google, who uses meta-data, e-mail profiling, location tracking, etc.
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All the tests anandtech ran cpu wise are all single threaded. In reality thats not the case.
 
Steviejobz said:
This same issue that 0.00001% of users of every apple device ever have?
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Completely disagree. My parents would never have known that their first ever Apple product, a 2013 21" iMac was not meant to have such a yellow-tinted screen, muddy yellow/green where blues should be and yellow where light greys should be.
It took me to point it out to them.
The iMac was returned and the new iMac screen was fine.

Apple obviously has bad quality control and I think that the majority of defective screens are not noticed as such by most consumers.

I certainly noticed and found it very apparent. When you work a lot with photo's you notice these things.

Bad quality control and defective screens are bad whether the end user notices the defect or not and whether Apple fanboys refuse to accept it or not.

Apple is on a mission to make cheaper products to make more profits for themselves, at the expense of material quality, as can be seen with this retina iPad mini, the iMac screens and the plastic iPhone 5c's-with-very-little-price-drop-passed-on-to-the-consumer.

Apple recently seem to be manufacturing cheaper quality products whilst keeping their same high consumer retail price, in an attempt to keep a supposed mark of quality attached to their product.
This is a see-through strategy that I cannot see consumers being fooled with for long.
 
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dsass600 said:
Nexus 7 display is 16:9, so it's actually perfectly proportional for all consumer media.
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I think it's actually 16:10 now. But in any case, while 16:9 matches consumer media, the 4:3 ratio of the iPad mini is more closely proportional to a sheet of paper. That makes it better for reading PDFs and editing documents in Pages, for instance. Also, it makes reading websites easier in portrait or landscape mode.

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rGiskard said:
You do realize that display production is coordinated with the design of a product, right? Apple doesn't just look at the market and say, "who's currently making 50 million 7.9" IGZO displays a year that we can buy?" LOL.
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Production capacity and yield come into play, though. Note that so far, only Amazon is using the newer Quantum Dots technology. Perhaps whoever their supplier was could promise them 2 million, but would not have been able to meet Apple's needs.

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fleabite said:
On to my question. If the rMini has the same type of display (IZGO) from the same manufacturers and essentially the same CPU/GPU, then could this be a software fix if Apple decided to change their minds on the gamut, or is that still a physical property of the display itself? :confused: Please, don't insult me for my ignorance.
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I believe it's a physical property. Color gamut is affected by the LEDs used. Based on the type of screen that Apple paired with the type of LED, you get about 63% of sRGB on the iPad mini, compared with closer to 100% on the iPad Air or Nexus 7.
 
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