iPad Mini Display Outperformed By Kindle Fire HD & Nexus 7

Now that the iPad mini is officially available in several countries around the world, this tablet is put to the test by several reviewers. DisplayMate has tried to evaluate the iPad Mini’s display against the two big rivals – the Nexus 7 and the Kindle Fire HD.

DisplayMate ran comprehensive tests to evaluate the display of the iPad mini and they have confirmed what most reviewers already said: the iPad Mini’s display is definitely not Apple’s best display effort.

The iPad Mini’s display is “capable,” but not great, Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate said. Overall it can be said that the display of iPad mini falls short when compared to the main rivals of the 7-inch tablet market, such as Google’s Nexus 7 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD.

“So Apple, the inventor of Retina Display marketing, now has a significant competitive shortfall on this,” wrote Soneira. Like Apple’s other products, people were expecting a Retina display iPad mini, but that dream has not come true with the first generation of this device. Perhaps Apple might improve on our expectations in later generations.

Sharpness and Resolution: The resolution of the iPad mini is 1024×768 with 163 Pixels Per Inch. “That’s now considered to be rather on the low side.” The Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD are both rated at 216 PPI.

Screen Reflectance: Screen Reflectance on the iPad mini is surprisingly high at 9.0 percent. On the Nexus 7 the Reflectance is a much lower 5.9 percent, while on the Kindle Fire HD it is 6.4 percent. “As a result, the iPad mini reflects 53 percent more ambient light than the Nexus 7 and 41 percent more than the Kindle Fire HD.”

Color Gamut and Color Accuracy: The iPad mini arrives with an ‘antiquated’ smaller 62 percent Color Gamut which is a big disappointment. Both the Amazon Kindle Fire HD and Google Nexus 7 both deliver a much larger 86 percent Color Gamut.