Small tablet choices at the moment are dominated by the Kindle Fire HDX, the Nexus 7 2nd gen and the iPad Mini 2. This trio competed not so long ago and the iPad Mini 2 came last. Its colour gamut hasn’t got any better since 2012 and there’s no image retention.
The iPad Mini has its indium-gallium-zinc oxide display and the Nexus 7 2 has a polysilicon screen. The Kindle Fire HDX has its Quantum Dots. Ray Soneria did tests for “Objective Picture Quality, Absolute Color Accuracy, Screen Reflectance, High Ambient Light Display Performance, Peak Brightness, Contrast Ratio, Image Contrast Accuracy, Viewing Angle Performance, Display Power, and Battery Running Time.” The iPad Mini 2 has the highest ppi and resolution, but also has the lowest colour gamut – just 63%, just like the first iPad Mini.
The Nexus 7 2 and the Kindle Fire HDX scored 100% each, just like the iPads 3 and 4, so were joint winners. This is what the doctor said:
“The new Google Nexus 7 has a very impressive display that uses the highest performance LCDs with Low Temperature Poly Silicon LTPS. The very high efficiency LTPS technology allows the new Nexus 7 display to provide a full 100 percent Color Gamut and at the same time produce the brightest Tablet display that we have measured so far in this Shoot-Out series.
Most impressive of all is the Kindle fire HDX 7 – the first Tablet display to use super high technology Quantum Dots, which produce highly saturated primary colors that are similar to those produced by OLED displays. They not only significantly increase the Color Gamut to 100 percent but also improve the power efficiency at the same time. Quantum Dots are going to revolutionize LCDs for the next 5+ years.
And finally… the iPad mini with Retina Display unfortunately comes in with a distant 3rd place finish behind the innovative displays on the Kindle Fire HDX 7 and new Nexus 7 because it still has the same small 63 percent Color Gamut as the original iPad mini and even older iPad 2. That is inexcusable for a current generation premium Tablet. The big differences in Color Gamut between the Kindle Fire HDX 7 and Nexus 7 and the much smaller 63 percent Gamut in the iPad mini Retina Display were quite obvious and easy to see in the side-by-side Viewing Tests.”
CNET says the iPad Mini 2 isn’t up to much and that it’s clearly inferior to the iPad Air, which has full SRGB cover like the iMac and MacBook Pro. The iPad Mini 2 has red, magenta and blue deviations and the display showed too much reflection. Even worse, it gives out 30% less light than the display of the Nexus 7 2. For films, then, you’d be better off with the Kindle Fire HDX or the Nexus 7.
