Apple’s new iPad mini 4 was slightly overshadowed by its new plus-size iPad Pro during the unveiling earlier this month, but today DisplayMate gives us its usual in-depth analysis of the device’s new display for those considering making the purchase.
While the standout feature of the new iPad mini 4 was upgraded processing power to match the iPad Air 2, the display, as noted by DisplayMate, in many ways beats out the iPad Air 2 and makes for one of Apple’s best tablet displays yet.
We noted in our video review of the iPad mini 4 that it sports the same 2048 x 1536 resolution as its predecessor, but Apple this time around went with a fully laminated display and anti-reflective coating. At the time we pointed out that we found the colors to be crisp and the contrast to be much better compared to the previous generation iPad mini. DisplayMate has dug in a little bit deeper and found that the iPad mini 4 is Apple’s best yet for real-world viewing conditions:
The iPad mini 4 has finally grown up and become a full fledged respectable iPad family member with a high performance display that Steve Jobs would be proud of – with not only a full and very accurate 101% sRGB Color Gamut, but even more important, with a very low 2.0% screen Reflectance – the lowest we have ever measured for any mobile display – very impressive!…
The previous record holder for low Reflectance was the iPad Air 2 with 2.5%, but most of the Tablets that we have tested recently fall in the range of 5.0% to 6.5% screen Reflectance (including the mini 3). So the iPad mini 4 has a Contrast in ambient light that is a factor of 2.5X to 3.2X higher than most other tablets (and 36% better than the iPad Air 2) – a major display performance improvement in real world viewing conditions! In fact, the iPad mini 4 has a Contrast Rating for High Ambient Light of 225, the highest we have ever measured and another record for the mini 4.
DisplayMate adds that the iPad mini 4 now matches all of the other iPads for colors and color accuracy, meaning with “the entire mobile iOS product line you’ll now see color matched photos and screen images.”
You can read the full DisplayMate analysis of the new iPad mini 4 here and catch our video review and comparison here.
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Why do people keep saying that the mini 4 “matches the Air 2 in performance”? It does not, plain and simple. The Air 2 uses the A8X chips, while the mini 4 uses an A8 chip paired with 2GB of RAM. The Air 2 is plain faster with a third processing core, and I believe double the GPU cores. Those tablets are not equal, even though the mini 4 is a good tablet overall.
No need to argue whether the new mini matches the regular iPad in performance or not. It doesn’t. And doesn’t really has to [although we wish it did]. Performance benchmarks indicate it goes halfway through closing the performance gap between its predecessor, the mini 3 and the Air 2. Like it or not, that’s how it is. End of argument.
There’s however one thing about the mini 4 that bests the Air 2! The speaker output. And no, the mini does not employ the louder speaker. The speaker it has does the better job at NOT carrying the sound vibration to the chassis. For this very reason I gave up the purchase of the Air 2. I almost bought one on-line, but thankfully did chose to inspect one in person in an iSpot (one of Apple’s resellers in Poland). Boy, how disappointed I was! I’m relieved to report, that the display mini 4 I toyed with, although not perfect in this regard, did a far better job at NOT annoying me in making me “feel” the sound it produces. With that out of the way, there’s nothing left that prevents me from buying one now.
I’ve had the iPad Air 2 for a month, and the speaker vibration can be annoying.
Yeah, super. Except ios 9 still features broken wifi, so i will likely be foregoing any upgrade on my beloved mini and instead wait for a worthwhile competitor to emerge – one whose wifi actually works. WiFried. No excuse for this, Apple…what a shame since the Mini is otherwise perfect.
I am using iPad Mini 2 and very happy that it is working so smoothly and light also. But new mini 4 specifications are impressive like anti reflect coating