Mike Wuerthele
Apple's Wide Color display on the iPhone 7 is the iPhone's best yet, with a record high contrast ratio and record low reflectance according to a recent third party analysis, and the quality of the screen may cast doubt on rumors of a shift to OLED displays.
DisplayMate has examined the displays on the iPhone 7 family, and has overall found them to be best in class. Besides just the contrast ratio and low reflectance, the company found the peak brightness in high ambient light situations to slightly exceed Apple's claims at 705 nits.
The analysts also discovered that the iPhone 7 has a screen reflectance of 4.4 percent, the lowest that the company has ever recorded in a mobile device. The overall record low is 1.7 percent on the 9.7-inch iPad Pro.
Color accuracy, including both the sRGB and DCI-P3 Wide Color were examined. DisplayMate calls the iPhone 7 screen overall the "most color accurate display that we have ever measured."
"The iPhone 7 excels due to its record absolute color accuracy, which is visually indistinguishable from perfect," says DisplayMate, "and is very likely considerably better than any mobile display, monitor, TV or UHD TV that you have."
As a result of the display improvements in the iPhone 7, DisplayMate claims that the screen doesn't need the 4K resolution because of sharpness, will perfectly replicate any video content the user wishes to throw at it, and will force other manufacturers to "play catch-up fast" or be left behind in the marketplace.
Wide Color, as found most recently on the iPhone 7 family, is Apple's name for the DCI-P3 color space. DCI-P3 was designed as a standard for digital movie projection for American film industry. Most displays use the older "standard RGB" (sRGB) with a narrower color space — the iPhone 7 is calibrated for both color profiles, and shifts between them as needed.
Both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus feature the Wide Color display. The 4.7-inch iPhone 7 features a 1334x750 display at 326ppi, with the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus including a 1920x1080 screen at 401ppi.
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
79 Comments
"That's a lot of nits."
They need to show some display accuracy of known color values such as Barbie pink, or Klein blue etc. Just saying it is accurate without actual measurements is only subjective.
Steve Jobs once said that Apple starts from user experience and works back to the technology that makes it happen, instead of starting from the technology and working towards user experience.
in other words: never technology for its own sake.
What's the point of a 4K ~5" screen anyway? As noted, there are many ways to make a better screen than just packing more pixels in there. Is 4K on a 5" screen really a droid/ Samsung feature? While I do like my 4k TV because I sit quite close. 10 Bit RGB color makes the bigger difference. I basically "can't see" the pixels on my iPhone as it is. Not sure how "MORE PIXELS" makes a better phone anyway except maybe for some one who doesn't know any better, bragging to another friend (who also doesn't know any better) that their phone is measurably superior to another. I don't even waste my disputing it with Droid fans. They go down that road of "well, droid does x better". And I just nod my head and say of course it does. ;)