After months of rumors and heavy anticipation culminated with a curious unveiling that lacked a firm release date, Apple finally launched its second-generation iPad mini last week. Chatter on social networks suggests those who picked up the new tiny tablet over this past week are quite pleased with their purchases, and early reviews of the iPad mini with Retina display couldn’t sing it enough praise — as was the case with the iPad Air when debuted. But while the two tablets are very similar in most ways, one reviewer found that the display on the smaller slate falls short of the Air’s class-leading panel.
According to Anandtech’s Anand Lal Shimpi, who is one of the most widely respected consumer electronics reviewers in the industry when it comes to the technical aspects of devices, the new iPad mini’s Retina display fell short of the Air’s display in his tests.
“The iPad mini with Retina Display has the same color gamut as the standard iPad mini, which is narrower than the iPad Air and less than the sRGB coverage we normally look for,” Lal Shimpi wrote. “The biggest issue here is that there are other smaller tablets in this price range that do offer sRGB coverage (e.g. Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HDX 8.9).”
It’s curious that Apple went with a panel that doesn’t feature the same sRGB color gamut as its 9.7-inch Retina display, but as others have noted, many users likely won’t even notice.
Lal Shimpi’s review is a great read from start to finish and it’s linked below in our source section.
