iPad Pro Why iPad Pro is not 4k?

[Carlanga]

There actually is

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In this case however you wouldn’t buy it because it’s 4K but because it’s the only 32’ to display a wide color gamut for HDR.

Interesting. Thanks

 

[acorntoy]

I always see people hold phone or tablet with around same distance. Apple just wants to earn more and not put an even better screen for ipad pro because there is just no competition.

There are 4K tablets, Apple just puts that money towards things they don’t such as color accuracy. iPads have always struggled to maintain the 10hr battery, Apple has less leeway with it then they do phones. Therefore Apple has decided the ppi is good and to focus on other parts of the display.

 

[acorntoy]

Interesting. Thanks

Yeah, got it for my mom this Christmas(not at that price) so seeing your post rang a bell.

 

[iPad Bro]

I think the Liquid Retina XDR display is going to be plenty good enough for most people. If you’re going to complain about a display which will be as nice as that then you are one picky mofo.

 

[revz190]

4k screen will lead to less battery life and reduced performance.

 

[gnomeisland]

And yet 400+ ppi is just common for iPhones?

That's a bit of a misnomer/accepted marketing lie. Phones (iPhone & Android) really only made that jump from 200-300ppi when they switched to OLED displays with 'pentile' sub-pixels. Instead of every 'pixel' having three actual OLEDs, or sub-pixels, there are five sub-pixels divided into two 'pixels'. This article is older but explains the basics: https://www.oled-info.com/taxonomy/term/153/all

There are upsides to pentile OLED but the downside is you need higher PPI to mask the artifacts. That in turn means the devices needs to push a higher resolution to reach the same levels of visual acuity/sharpness as a true RGB display.

As others have pointed out, you are very unlikely to notice any difference on a 4K LCD the size of an iPad unless you have your nose to the screen. Meanwhile, the iPad is having to work harder every moment to move all those extra pixels that provide little/no benefit.

If/when the iPads switch to OLED there may a jump in resolution but it will depend on how Apple implements the OLED display.


2,388 * 1,668=3,983,184 * 3 [sub-pixels]=~11.9M sub-pixels
2,388 * 1,668=3,983,184 * 5/2 [sub-pixels per two pixels]=~9.9M sub-pixels

 

[Digitalguy]

That's a bit of a misnomer/accepted marketing lie. Phones (iPhone & Android) really only made that jump from 200-300ppi when they switched to OLED displays with 'pentile' sub-pixels. Instead of every 'pixel' having three actual OLEDs, or sub-pixels, there are five sub-pixels divided into two 'pixels'. This article is older but explains the basics: https://www.oled-info.com/taxonomy/term/153/all

There are upsides to pentile OLED but the downside is you need higher PPI to mask the artifacts. That in turn means the devices needs to push a higher resolution to reach the same levels of visual acuity/sharpness as a true RGB display.

As others have pointed out, you are very unlikely to notice any difference on a 4K LCD the size of an iPad unless you have your nose to the screen. Meanwhile, the iPad is having to work harder every moment to move all those extra pixels that provide little/no benefit.

If/when the iPads switch to OLED there may a jump in resolution but it will depend on how Apple implements the OLED display.


2,388 * 1,668=3,983,184 * 3 [sub-pixels]=~11.9M sub-pixels
2,388 * 1,668=3,983,184 * 5/2 [sub-pixels per two pixels]=~9.9M sub-pixels

Not all OLED panels are the same. In tablets for instance the pentile OLED of the lenovo P11 pro has 263 ppi, but is less crisp than even full-HD IPS while the tab S7+ with similar ppi (266) is very crisp and sharp

 

[Digitalguy]

As others have said and as I have said in another thread:
4k is a marketing argument to sell television sets... It works with 16.9 display. And its 3840X2160.
But the problem is that when it comes to resolution people sometimes use horizontal resolution sometimes vertical resolution
For instance 1080p is vertical resolution, 4k is an approximation of horizontal resolution. 1080p in 16.9 is basically 2k (1920), so 4k is double 1080p...(2160).
How about a wide screen monitor 3840X1080p? Is it still 4k or is it 1080p? Or both?
And what about a square 3.2 display with a 2160p panel? (double 1080p)
My Surface Book 2 15in is 3240X2160, is it 4k? Is it more 4k than the 1080p monitor above?

So basically 4k is marketing.... iPads are sharper than ANY 4k TV....
260+ ppi in a tablet is plenty. You'll get 4k once they make a 15in iPad, then people would be wow a 4k iPad! The reality it's just the same PPI as the others...they just need to push the resolution close to "4k" to maintain the same ppi
Past a certain PPI it's a waste of battery life....

 

[rui no onna]

260+ ppi in a tablet is plenty. You'll get 4k once they make a 15in iPad, then people would be wow a 4k iPad! The reality it's just the same PPI as the others...they just need to push the resolution close to "4k" to maintain the same ppi
Past a certain PPI it's a waste of battery life....

I wouldn't say 264 ppi is plenty.

I do notice the iPad mini is sharper and has cleaner lines if I'm holding the iPad at my normal distance. My arm is like 20 inches fully stretched (5'2" height) and with elbows bent, my viewing distance is typically at 1-1.5 ft.

Docked on the Magic Keyboard or sitting on a desk, yes, 264 ppi is plenty.

With that said, yes there are repercussions to battery life with higher resolutions. Likely cost considerations, too. However, I'd love to get 326 ppi on the 11" iPad. That would give it similar screen real estate as 2x 7.9" iPad mini side by side. It'll be like a miniaturized 12.9 which is around 2x 9.7" iPad side by side.

 

[ruka.snow]

The bigger one comes with a microLED screen. That alone compared to any other tablet gives you vastly better colour, contrast, brightness, and black level. 4K just gives you more pixels, Apple have instead given us better 'pixels'. TV is the same really; 4K doesn't wow anyone, but HDR does.

Would also add that the iPad Pro would be way more that 4k to keep the same interface scaling.

 

[Serban55]

Honestly it is so expensive. It should have at least 4k or higher specs right?

No need for an 13" display to be 4k...just battery drain and price
For an display bigger than 17" yes

 

[Digitalguy]

I wouldn't say 264 ppi is plenty.

I do notice the iPad mini is sharper and has cleaner lines if I'm holding the iPad at my normal distance. My arm is like 20 inches fully stretched (5'2" height) and with elbows bent, my viewing distance is typically at 1-1.5 ft.

Docked on the Magic Keyboard or sitting on a desk, yes, 264 ppi is plenty.

With that said, yes there are repercussions to battery life with higher resolutions. Likely cost considerations, too. However, I'd love to get 326 ppi on the 11" iPad. That would give it similar screen real estate as 2x 7.9" iPad mini side by side. It'll be like a miniaturized 12.9 which is around 2x 9.7" iPad side by side.

I tried to put the same book on the mini, 11 and 12.9 and honestly the 3 are fine for me, I don't notice much difference. For me the 3 are perfectly fine...

 

[Digitalguy]

The bigger one comes with a microLED screen. That alone compared to any other tablet gives you vastly better colour, contrast, brightness, and black level. 4K just gives you more pixels, Apple have instead given us better 'pixels'. TV is the same really; 4K doesn't wow anyone, but HDR does.

Would also add that the iPad Pro would be way more that 4k to keep the same interface scaling.

it would need to be around 4000x3000 since it's 4X3, which is much more than 2160p on 4k TVs... (387.6 ppi for the 12.9in...)

 

[gnomeisland]

Not all OLED panels are the same. In tablets for instance the pentile OLED of the lenovo P11 pro has 263 ppi, but is less crisp than even full-HD IPS while the tab S7+ with similar ppi (266) is very crisp and sharp

Very true. My message was already very long and I'm not an engineer. I figured if people are interested they can explore more through the link I provided. However, I think we're mostly agreeing here. PPI isn't a great indicator of sharpness when comparing two different screen technologies—and that includes OLED implementations.

As a side note: is the S7+ a pentile display? I couldn't confirm that. Samsung does make non-pentile displays and I've wondered if that's how they get away with a (relatively) low PPI.

 

[haruhiko]

It also doesn’t come with a gold-plated lightning cable. ?

 

[rui no onna]

That's a bit of a misnomer/accepted marketing lie. Phones (iPhone & Android) really only made that jump from 200-300ppi when they switched to OLED displays with 'pentile' sub-pixels. Instead of every 'pixel' having three actual OLEDs, or sub-pixels, there are five sub-pixels divided into two 'pixels'. This article is older but explains the basics: https://www.oled-info.com/taxonomy/term/153/all

There are upsides to pentile OLED but the downside is you need higher PPI to mask the artifacts. That in turn means the devices needs to push a higher resolution to reach the same levels of visual acuity/sharpness as a true RGB display.

As others have pointed out, you are very unlikely to notice any difference on a 4K LCD the size of an iPad unless you have your nose to the screen. Meanwhile, the iPad is having to work harder every moment to move all those extra pixels that provide little/no benefit.

If/when the iPads switch to OLED there may a jump in resolution but it will depend on how Apple implements the OLED display.


2,388 * 1,668=3,983,184 * 3 [sub-pixels]=~11.9M sub-pixels
2,388 * 1,668=3,983,184 * 5/2 [sub-pixels per two pixels]=~9.9M sub-pixels

I'm aware you need higher PPI to make up for pentile matrix. However, the LCD on the 5.5" iPhone Plus have 401 ppi and you've still got folks complaining when they dropped down to 326 ppi on the iPhone XR.

Personally, around ~300 ppi is my cutoff for devices I hold while using. ~200 ppi is good for around laptop distance.

 

[Digitalguy]

Very true. My message was already very long and I'm not an engineer. I figured if people are interested they can explore more through the link I provided. However, I think we're mostly agreeing here. PPI isn't a great indicator of sharpness when comparing two different screen technologies—and that includes OLED implementations.

As a side note: is the S7+ a pentile display? I couldn't confirm that. Samsung does make non-pentile displays and I've wondered if that's how they get away with a (relatively) low PPI.

I don't know, I would say no, since there are videos of it compared to the P11 pro showing how much better it looks with similar ppi, with reviewers attributing this to the pentile tech of the Lenovo, while nobody said the same for the S7+. Compared to my iPads it looks (to me) just as sharp. So either it's not pentile or it's a variant that is just as good as IPS in terms of sharpness

 

[gnomeisland]

I'm aware you need higher PPI to make up for pentile matrix. However, the LCD on the 5.5" iPhone Plus have 401 ppi and you've still got folks complaining when they dropped down to 326 ppi on the iPhone XR.

Personally, around ~300 ppi is my cutoff for devices I hold while using. ~200 ppi is good for around laptop distance.

Most people can't pinpoint why there's a drop in quality even if they can perceive a drop. We've been marketed the idea that resolution is key, so many people will default to that.

I'm not saying that's true for you (I don't know you) because some people legit do have much better eyesight. I think PPI became a selling point for android phones and when Apple moved over to OLED they too jumped PPI. I can only guess as to what the marketing, technical, and logistical reason were for settling on the PPI that they did.

I do know that they iPhone Plus LCD created some technical difficulties with scaling for the UI. The plus phones had to work harder and took a hit in speed and battery life. My guess is Apple figured more people could appreciate the speed/battery over the loss in resolution which was right at the limits of "normal" eyesight regardless.

 

[barkomatic]

The screen size is too small for 4k to be noticeable to the human eye.

I had a 4K *smartphone* screen next to my iPhone and I could tell the difference so I think it would be an improvement if Apple could pull it off in a cost effective way that didn’t kill battery. Not a deal breaker though.

 

[Serban55]

I had a 4K *smartphone* screen next to my iPhone and I could tell the difference so I think it would be an improvement if Apple could pull it off in a cost effective way that didn’t kill battery. Not a deal breaker though.

if it was next to an very old iphone, yes...but otherwise...you saw the difference in the quality of the display, oled vs lcd or contrast ratio...here we were talking about pixels..
Yes, i can see the diff into an 2k display and 4k phone display from very close range
I can see the difference even with 8k displays vs 4k with magnifying glass, being part of my bussiness
To much pixels for no real benefit, is just a bigger compromise for the battery and gpu

 

[Falhófnir]

Basically because iPad resolutions simply don't work like that and it would cause a lot of issues to do it.

1. iPads use a 4:3 aspect ratio (or more recently 1.43:1 IMAX), whereas 4K is 16:9. Yes you can adjust it, but then it's a non-standard resolution anyway.
2. iPads have a point resolution density fixed at 132ppi (except the mini which borrows the iPhone's specifics) which would mean a 4K panel in @2x retina mode (1920x1080 points) would be massive, and in particular incredibly tall. For example an iPad Pro 12.9 has a point resolution of 1366x1024, so it would be slightly wider and almost half again as tall(!)
3. Even if you did make this behemoth iPad, it would still have a pixel density of 264ppi (so nothing would look sharper) due to the above fixed point resolution, which is necessary to keep things the right size on screen. To make it look sharper, you'd instead take the 1366x1024 resolution and make it @3x retina for a physical resolution of 4098x3072. I suppose you could call that '4K' but, again it's non standard, and it would be 12.6M pixels to push vs just over 8M on a standard 4K panel, with the resulting performance and battery penalty.

 

[loybond]

I could definitely use more ppi. I can easily see pixels on my iPads.

 

[ric22]

Came across this thread three years down the line...

So what do we think... Will the new iPad Pros with OLED displays come with a resolution of 4098x3072? I suspect they will!

 

[Digitalguy]

Came across this thread three years down the line...

So what do we think... Will the new iPad Pros with OLED displays come with a resolution of 4098x3072? I suspect they will!

absolutely not, it would be a waste of battery life, ppi will stay the same

 

[ric22]

absolutely not, it would be a waste of battery life, ppi will stay the same

So the iPhone can handle an extremely high ppi but the iPad's battery is too small? Riiight....