Everyone is wondering if Apple will adopt OLED technology for the upcoming iPad Pro or continue to use LCD as it does today, perhaps adopting the mini-LED evolution. But what are we talking about?
LCD, mini-LED or OLED? It rages on the network and among the leakers of half the world the challenge to see who guesses first the technology chosen by Apple for the screens of future iPad Pro from 2021 onwards. If Apple has already chosen it, since the doubts seem to be much more than certainties. And the reason is clear: the LCD technology, in theory inferior to the other two, already offers excellent performance on the screens of the current iPad.
But the quality of the screens has always been one of the strengths of Apple products. All of them: from iPhones to iPads, without forgetting the Retina displays of Mac and MacBook. Ecco, allora, che i leaker si sfidano a colpi di tweet tra coloro che giurano che Apple passerà alla tecnologia OLED e coloro che, al contrario, scommettono sulla mini-LED (che è una evoluzione della LCD). C’è poi un secondo dubbio da sciogliere: chi costruirà gli schermi degli iPad Pro 2021? Anche in questo caso gli sfidanti sono due: LG, leader della tecnologia mini-LED, o Samsung, leader tra i produttori di OLED?
iPad Pro con schermo mini-LED: perché avrebbe senso
La tecnologia mini-LED non è paragonabile alla OLED, come il nome lascerebbe pensare. Uno schermo mini-LED è sempre un LCD, quindi a cristalli liquidi, solo che invece di essere retroilluminato da un pannello luminoso unico è “acceso" da tanti piccolissimi LED. Il LED, quindi, è sempre bianco e il colore lo si deve ai cristalli liquidi.
Scordiamoci quindi i colori vividi degli schermi OLED. But a mini-LED screen still offers a very good black, because you can turn off only the LEDs in the areas that should show black pixels. This is another reason why a mini-LED screen consumes less power than a classic LCD. For some time now, the well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, much more serious than the equally well-known leakers who clash on Twitter, has predicted that next year Apple will present 6 products with mini-LED screens.
iPad Pro with OLED screen: why it would make sense
The OLED screens by now we know them well, because they are those used for most of the top of the range smart TVs. They offer vivid colors (sometimes too much), great contrast and absolute black. The problem is that they cost more.
If in a smartphone, which has a relatively small screen, the price difference between an LCD and an OLED display is contained in a few tens of euros, on a tablet of almost 13 inches (like the current iPad Pro) the gap is perhaps too much. Even for an Apple product, which is certainly not cheap at heart.