If you want a tablet with the best display quality, Apple’s newly launched 9.7-inch iPad Pro should be your first choice. Ray Soneira of DisplayMate performed a detailed testing of the iPad Pro screen. He found that the new iPad has “by far the best performing mobile LCD display that we have ever tested.” Its display outperformed even that of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro in almost every aspect.
iPad Pro display indistinguishable from perfect
Soneira called it a “major upgrade” over the iPad Air 2. The latest iPad’s color accuracy is “visually indistinguishable from perfect” and it is far better than “any mobile display, monitor, TV or UHD TV” that most of us own. Its color accuracy covers not just one, but two color gamuts: the sRGB which is the color standard for most content, and the new DCI-P3 Wide Color Gamut that is used in digital cameras and 4K UHD TVs.
That’s a good thing for people who want to do color work on their tablets. Apple has also improved the screen reflectance. DisplayMate said the 9.7-inch iPad Pro has the “lowest screen reflectance of any mobile display. Its contrast and image colors in high ambient light (like sunlight) will appear far better than any other smartphone or tablet display.
It offers an excellent viewing angle
Apple uses a new anti-reflectance coating that brings down its reflectance to just 1.7%. In contrast, the iPad Air 2’s display reflectance is 2.5%. The new iPad’s display brightness is more than 20% higher than other current iPads. Its has a display brightness of 511 nits compared to 415 nits for the iPad Air 2. DisplayMate also found the iPad Pro to have “excellent viewing angle performance.” It recorded a 47% to 55% decrease in brightness at a 30 degree viewing angle.
Even thought the 9.7-inch iPad Pro has an excellent display, iFixit found last week that it is extremely difficult to repair. Folks at iFixit said the tablet’s components are held together by gobs of adhesive, which makes pulling the components apart “kind of a mess.”
