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When It Comes To Subpixels, Smaller Is Better

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Understanding the nature of a display's potential requires an inspection of the size, shape, and arrangement of individual subpixels. This lets you identify the type of LCD panel and calculate the smallest detail it's capable of rendering. If you're already familiar with our tablet and smartphone coverage, then you know we apply this level of analysis to every mobile device that passes through our lab.

Focusing closer with our lab microscope, we learn two important pieces of information.

First, Apple retains the familiar S-IPS technology on its new Retina display. We know this because the subpixel shape reveals a Samsung IPS design, which makes sense considering the previous iPad displays were also manufactured by Samsung. In short, you'll enjoy the same wide viewing angles on the iPad 3 as its predecessor.

Second, the relatively small size of each subpixel implies a significantly improved color palette. Since every pixel contains three subpixels (red, green, and blue), more pixels allows you to create a wider variety of colors. For example, a bluish-green can be created by turning on the blue and green subpixels, while turning off the red subpixels. The relative bluish tint is achieved by having a brighter blue LED and slightly dimming green. You can only so far, though, because pixels have a fixed range of brightness.

On the iPad 3, specifically, each subpixel measures approximately 30x65 microns. So, you can fit approximately four iPad 3 pixels into the space of a single iPad 2 pixel. Thus, a truer bluish-green hue is possible by turning on four blue subpixels and two green subpixels.

Apple iPad 3: Retina Display, Explained

The problem with small pixels is that electrical leakage requires spacing to prevent color blending. Apple overcomes this challenge by cleverly elevating the subpixels off the base LCD circuitry. Though, even with our laboratory-grade microscope tilted at a 30o angle, combined with strong lighting, the gap is still difficult to see. The video above summarizes the technology's details.

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anonymous 03/19/2012 5:10 AM
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-14+

Would an alternate browser affect image display at all?

tomfreak 03/19/2012 5:22 AM
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-20+

the requirement to use adapter to use usb and sd card = minus 50% score for any tablet. Period.

joytech22 03/19/2012 5:45 AM
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-1+

On the CPU and GPU performance page, there's a typo.

When comparing the three iPads, the iPad 2 and iPad 3 are both said to be using PowerVR SGX545 GPUs (core-count is correct) while the table below it comparing SoCs the models are completely different and listed as SGX543.

I smell something fishy, dinner must almost be ready! :D

acerace 03/19/2012 5:51 AM
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-20+

Quote :love apple ..................... crap android *** copy tabs and phones


Fail troll.

Tc17 03/19/2012 6:01 AM
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amk-aka-Phantom 03/19/2012 7:34 AM
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-20+

Tomfreak :
the requirement to use adapter to use usb and sd card = minus 50% score for any tablet. Period.



My thoughts exactly. I don't care that it outputs 3x FPS over Transformer Prime; the latter can actually integrate into my devices' ecosystem and that's what matters. I'm not buying any tablet or phone without inbuilt memory card reader.

amk-aka-Phantom 03/19/2012 7:34 AM
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-7+

Though, of course, it's really sad that Apple is beating Asus on the graphics front. Really, really sad.

amk-aka-Phantom 03/19/2012 7:40 AM
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-20+

tc17 :
I have a bridge to sell you if you believe this retina nonsense, on a tiny 10" screen.



After playing around with most hi-end Android devices AND iPhone 4S/iPad 2, I happen to believe this "nonsense". Everything looks so much more hi-res... but that's only Android's fault. When are they going to fix the menu animation lag and make everything more hi-res? ICS kind of did a good job on it, though, and now it actually looks NOTHING like iOS and is beautiful.

Of course, the menu animation lag and low-res icons can't make me shift to Apple, especially now that I run ICS on my netbook (try that, Apple... oh wait, your toy MacOS IS already like a tablet OS, lol) - same way that MacOS's ability to take screenshots of a selected area of the screen can't make me shift from Windows/Ubuntu. It's just not nearly enough to compensate for the important features I'll lose. Sure enough, there're tons of people to whom all of them don't matter and they'll just go with the most hyped thing out there, but I prefer to know what I'm paying for. It's a habit that pays off on the long run.

killerchickens 03/19/2012 8:06 AM
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--2+

I wish toms would stop using the bs retina display term considering the ipad 3's display isn't even close to the original standard.

bernardv 03/19/2012 9:27 AM
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-11+

2048x1536 on a 10" screen? This is a joke, 0 value to 99.9% of end users. A fanboy excuse for throwing money away.

The author comments it is suitable for watching movies. Which movie is even available in such a resolution??? For watching movies in your lap on 10", 720p is more than enough.

acku 03/19/2012 9:30 AM
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-4+

joytech22 :
On the CPU and GPU performance page, there's a typo.When comparing the three iPads, the iPad 2 and iPad 3 are both said to be using PowerVR SGX545 GPUs (core-count is correct) while the table below it comparing SoCs the models are completely different and listed as SGX543.I smell something fishy, dinner must almost be ready!



Typo, fixed.

robot_army 03/19/2012 9:39 AM
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-4+

I was wondering what the resolution used by each of the units was on the graphics tests? does the benchmark use a set resolution for each test, or the native screen res? i guess looking at the 720P results offer a set resolution, but i was wondering if the ipad 3 was runing the graphics at the full resolution of the screen given the textures and games were disigned to run on a lower res screen??

acku 03/19/2012 9:44 AM
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-5+

There's an astrick in that table indicating native resolution for the nonoffscreen tests.

Cheers,
Andrew Ku

acku 03/19/2012 10:02 AM
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-6+

Tomfreak :
the requirement to use adapter to use usb and sd card = minus 50% score for any tablet. Period.


This would rule out the galaxy tab 10.1, as it also uses adapters.

robot_army 03/19/2012 10:06 AM
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-3+

Thanks, but the reason i ask is the new ipad has about 50-60% gain Vs the 2, but at native resolution has 4x the number of pixels to work on, yet still managed to hit its 60 FPS target, does that mean the ipad 2 wasn't being streched in its test? ie it was just rendering at 60FPS as that was the limit of the display?

amk-aka-Phantom 03/19/2012 10:11 AM
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-12+

acku :
This would rule out the galaxy tab 10.1, as it also uses adapters.



Agreed, I was NOT happy when I noticed that Samsung decided to follow that stupid trend.

mrpijey 03/19/2012 10:45 AM
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rex86 03/19/2012 11:00 AM
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--3+

So they beefed up the GPU, added more RAM, increased the pps almost twice from the previous version, and added 4G support. But they had to increase the battery capacity almost twice, which makes their product one big green FAIL.

I recommend them spend their $100 bil. USD for example developing more power efficient and powerful technologies, because this is going nowhere. What's next? Battery the size of a truck?

how2harry 03/19/2012 11:15 AM
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-4+

I definitely see the appeal of a hi-res screen in a portable device and this feature alone I think will make this product a success and also seriously tempting to me.
I had the idea of setting up a local DNS and web-server. With some simple HTML5 pages I could then serve all my media library to the device (HD videos, images, music etc). This would be one way round the ipad storage and connectivity limitations.
(Not sure if Safari can go 'full screen' on the ipad that would help with this though?)
I was shocked then to read "Safari, does not display high-resolution pictures in their native format."
I wonder if then if this has been done intentionally to cripple media access to the device through the browser? I wonder if this applies to hd video too? If so I really hope that apple are not that anal and do make a fix for upcoming releases. Then I could have the best of both worlds:)

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