

Mini Tablet Display Technology Shoot-Out - esolyt
http://www.displaymate.com/Tablet_ShootOut_4.htm

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pbreit
I 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
I 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.

~~~
josu
My iPad Mini fits in my jackets' pockets, barely, but it does.

~~~
jasonlotito
Of 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
All 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.

------
aeberbach
Dr. Raymond M. Soneira badly needs an Editor. His use of Winnie-The-Pooh
Punctuation makes his Article far too hard to Read.

~~~
hnriot
I'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.

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bluthru
The 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
Is 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
At 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
It'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
That'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.

~~~
kabouseng
As long as Apple decides it's good enough...then it must be good enough. ;P

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shinratdr
I 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
I 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
I 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
So 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
Yes. 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.

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AsymetricCom
I 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
Print 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
Right, 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
> 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.

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sshThis
It looks better tho

~~~
hnriot
"it" being? my co-reference parser raised an exception

~~~
lambda
Was 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
The "discussion" the other headline generated appears to be two really poor
comments. I'd suggest this is an argument for the HN title policy.

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codex
It's too bad those other tablets are rubbish.

~~~
bergie
Nexus 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-revi...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/07/the-2013-nexus-7-review-
meet-the-new-standard-for-android-tablets/)

~~~
x0x0
I 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.

