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iPhone 12 Pro Max has the best smartphone display, says DisplayMate

After thorough analysis and lab testing, DisplayMate has declared that Apple's new iPhone 12 Pro Max flagship has the best display that it's ever tested.

The new Apple handset has reclaimed DisplayMate's "Best Smartphone Display" ranking, a similar honor given to past handsets like the iPhone 11 Pro Max and iPhone XS Max. Currently, the iPhone 12 Pro Max holds DisplayMate's highest-ever A+ performance grade.

In an in-depth analysis of the device's display following lab testing, DisplayMate said that the iPhone 12 Pro Max has a "state-of-the-art" display that sets or matches records across 11 different performance metrics.

"The iPhone 12 Pro Max joins the very select Top Tier of Smartphone Displays which all provide Close to Text Book Perfect Calibration Accuracy and Performance that is Visually Indistinguishable From Perfect, so they all received and maintain Concurrent DisplayMate Best Smartphone Display Awards," the display testing firm wrote.

That includes full screen brightness, high contrast ratio, sharpness, low reflectance, and absolute color accuracy. The iPhone 12 Pro Max received "visually indistinguishable from perfect" in several categories, such as "shift in color accuracy and intensity scale" and "shift in image contrast and intensity scale."

DisplayMate also praised some of Apple's proprietary display technologies, such as True Tone and Night Shift, and noted that the device's display is also up to 10% more power efficient than the previous iPhone 11 Pro Max.

On the display itself, the iPhone 12 Pro Max sport's Apple's largest ever iwth a 6.7-inch screen and a 2778 x 1284 resolution; a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio, peak brightness of 800 nits or 1,200 for HDR; and support for the P3 wide color gamut.

The full DisplayMate "shootout" goes into further detail about the iPhone 12 Pro Max's display technologies, and the report is available from the research firm.



16 Comments

karinatwork 4 Years · 1 comment

That's great. Still gives me bloody headaches though, because of the PWM flickering. Why is nobody addressing this OLED issue?

mike1 10 Years · 3437 comments

With the exception of size, of course, I would imagine that the 12 Pro display should be just as good, right?

bageljoey 18 Years · 1997 comments

Does the 12 Pro Max beat the 12 Pro simply because of the size?  Or were there other tested differences?

Appleish 8 Years · 717 comments

Agreed! Love my screen. Love those flat edges!

StrangeDays 8 Years · 12986 comments

That's great. Still gives me bloody headaches though, because of the PWM flickering. Why is nobody addressing this OLED issue?

Never heard of it.