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Mini Tablet Display Technology Shoot-Out
- aeberbach 13y agoDr. Raymond M. Soneira badly needs an Editor. His use of Winnie-The-Pooh Punctuation makes his Article far too hard to Read.
- hnriot 13y agoI'm not sure why the over use of capitals makes it hard to read, it seems very trivial to me to parse the over abundance of proper nouns. I suspect it was written this way to help NNP detection, possibly the author uses a service like AlchemyAPI and unknown runs of init-capitalized text causes NN to be parsed as NNP.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- AsymetricCom 13y agoI find it interesting that this is the only tablet that hits the 300dpi threshold, and the next Kindle White is supposed to meet this as well. 300dpi is of course the resolution of most print magazines. The implication is obvious, but what isn't is why Apple declined to participate in this race.
- gilgoomesh 13y agoPrint magazines are actually closer to 600 dpi for black text while only 200 dpi or less for color (due to Moiré patterns and CMYK printing). In any case, Apple have indicated that they're more interested in limiting screen resolution fragmentation than chasing a specific resolution number (both iPads have the same number of pixels and that number is exactly 2 times the original iPad).
- MBCook 13y agoRight, it's diminishing returns. My Retina iPad 4 looks great. Maybe an extra 100 dpi would make it look better, but it would require more hardware, redesigned programs, etc. Frankly I'm not sure I'd even be able to notice it. Of course, if you're not using the standard RGB style screen, it may make a difference. Having an extra 100 DPI on a pentile screen may be noticeable. I don't know.
- Mikeb85 13y ago> Of course, if you're not using the standard RGB style screen, it may make a difference. Having an extra 100 DPI on a pentile screen may be noticeable. I don't know. Pentile screens are only on certain Samsung AMOLED screens. No LCD on the market is using Pentile, so it's a moot point.
- bergie 13y agoNexus 7 is 323ppi, and Nexus 10 is 300ppi
- devindotcom 13y agoThe existing kindle HDX tablets and both Nexus tablets are 300 or above: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/tablets-retina-resolutions-sharpest-screen-ipad-8C11443010 http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/tablets-retina-resolutions...
- mikeash 13y agoWhat do you mean by Apple declining to participate in this race? To quote the article, "These Mini Tablets all have almost exactly 326 Pixels Per Inch PPI (the same as the Retina Display iPhones)." That includes the iPad mini.
- pbreit 13y agoI can't stand the 16:10 screen format which is terrible for everything except watching movies. That's the main reason our Nexus 7 is rarely used (and our kids are completely confused by the Android UX; although they're having a much harder time with iOS 7 than iOS 6, too).
- officemonkey 13y agoI bought and prefer the Nexus 7 to the iPad Mini simply because it fits in my jacket and coat pockets. I've had and enjoyed iPhones and iPads in the past, so this was not a step I took lightly. The most used application on any of my hand-held devices is the Kindle.app. I quite like reading on the Nexus 7 in portrait orientation. It doesn't feel too skinny.
- pbreit 13y agoI liked the original Nexus 7 which wasn't that much smaller but seemed to fit much better in my jeans back pocket. I could see it being nice for reading in portrait mode.
- josu 13y agoMy iPad Mini fits in my jackets' pockets, barely, but it does.
- jasonlotito 13y agoOf all my jackets/coats, only one has a pocket larger enough for an iPad Mini. That's where the Nexus 7 beats out the iPad.
- officemonkey 13y agoAll this talk about fitting in pockets reminds me of Jeff Hawkins, the inventor of the Pilot, who was said to carry a block of wood in his shirt pocket while developing the device. I know the "pocket test" is one of the reasons why the original iPod was better than the Rio Nomad and other 1st gen hard drive based MP3 players.
- codex 13y agoIt's too bad those other tablets are rubbish.
- bergie 13y agoNexus 7 is actually pretty good. Some reviews: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7231/the-nexus-7-2013-review http://www.anandtech.com/show/7231/the-nexus-7-2013-review http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/07/the-2013-nexus-7-review-meet-the-new-standard-for-android-tablets/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/07/the-2013-nexus-7-revi...
- x0x0 13y agoI haven't been impressed with mine unfortunately. Issues: 1 - the display doesn't get dim enough; it's too bright to read in bed next to a partner 1a - this is INCREDIBLY annoying: at the lowest brightness, the display flickers. Noticeably. 1b - I repeat 1a 2 - slow charging times 3 - it's not quite wide enough to read technical pdfs comfortably. Also, the software available to read pdfs generally is not particularly good. Ebookdroid is the best of a bad bunch. On the bright side, it can invert colors for reading in bed. However, it still isn't particularly good at finding the content in pdfs formatted for other screens, boxing it to exclude eg page numbers or headers, then filling the screen with just content. Anyway, I found the slightly wider screen on an ipad mini better for reading pdfs. ymmv; if I where just reading kindle books and not reading in bed I'd probably like it better. Also, I'm over 6 feet tall and have big hands, so I find the mini comfortable. Again, ymmv.
- jasonlotito 13y agoWhat? I love my iPad, but I also love my Nexus 7. It's an excellent tablet, and has its advantages over the iPad.
- mayneack 13y agoOut of curiosity, why do you have both?
- shinratdr 13y agoI wonder if Apple went this way because of the supply chain more than anything. All indications are that Apple will be moving 2-3x more iPad minis than these competitors. I'm curious if they went with the safer IGZO panel because those other technologies just don't ramp up as well.
- r0h1n 13y agoI find it curious and funny that it's always Apple that gets such benefits of doubt. When they have the best hardware, it's because they're years ahead of everyone else in their supply chain strategies. When they have the worst, it's because they must be hobbled by the same supply chain. Would you have expressed the same comment for Google/Amazon if the Nexus or Kindle had the worst screen?
- lostlogin 13y agoI wouldn't have - because they won't be selling anywhere near as many. What do you do if you have a choice to sell a few of a great product, or heaps of a slightly inferior one? I know which I'd choose, but Apple took the money and ran. I don't know what the figures will be, but I'd bet an order of magnitude more iPads are sold. Can the manufacturers of the better screen produce that many? I'm guessing no, but someone out there knows the answer.
- r0h1n 13y agoSo you're saying Apple's decision to put an older generation screen on the iPad Mini is justifiable because they still manage to sell many more than competitors who have gone out of their way to put in better hardware into their own products? And you're saying this as an Apple customer?
- djt 13y agoYes. People don't purchase the iPad alone, but for the ecosystem. I moved to Android but just bought an iPad as it has an App I need for work that isnt available on any Tablet OS. Thats why theyre able to do it and still win over the others.
- bluthru 13y agoThe Air's screen is outstanding in this regard. Usually you can trust Apple to not cut corners with this sort of stuff, so this is unfortunate. It's also strange because the larger screen uses IGZO tech as well.
- thisisdave 13y agoIs it really that unfortunate? I've never noticed any color issues on my iPad 2. I don't use it for any color-intensive content creation, but in several years of use it never even occurred to me that there might be a problem with its color accuracy.
- Alterlife 13y agoAt some point screens have to hit the 'good enough for most people' point just as processors did. Apple has apparently concluded that the 'good enough' point is x2... if that's true, it makes sense that they're not building devices above retina density if there is little quantifiable benefit to 99.9% of end-users. Atleast until the tech becomes much cheaper.
- ZeroGravitas 13y agoIt's really lucky for Apple that the "good enough" point happened to exactly coincide with double their old pixel densities (plural, since they had two different densities on the iPad and iPhone), almost unbelievably so in fact.
- antimagic 13y agoThat's... uh pretty disingenuous as an argument. The "good enough" point didn't have to be exactly the current densities, it just had to be less than the current densities... If the "good enough" point wasn't achieved with a doubling of the pixel resolution, Apple would still have doubled the pixel resolution, because exactly doubling brings a whole load of advantages from a technical or graphical design point of view. It's just that a few years later there would be another doubling until "good enough" had been surpassed.
- sshThis 13y agoIt looks better tho
- hnriot 13y ago"it" being? my co-reference parser raised an exception
- lambda 13y agoWas the title of this article changed? There seem to be a bunch of comments as if the iPad Mini were singled out somehow in the title, but now it's just a generic tablet shootout. This is why the HN policy of editing titles is really frustrating. People start discussing it based on the original title, and none of the discussion makes sense after it's been edited. I don't see why they don't simply implement a technical requirement that the title is the title of the page or some heading element on the page; that's what it ends up being edited to anyhow, just changing the title out from under everyone just leads to more confusion.
- ZeroGravitas 13y agoThe "discussion" the other headline generated appears to be two really poor comments. I'd suggest this is an argument for the HN title policy.