Record Low Screen Reflectance and Performance in Ambient Lighting
The screens on all displays are mirrors that reflect light from everything that is illuminated anywhere in front of the screen (especially anything behind the viewers), including lamps, ceiling lights, windows, direct and indirect indoor and outdoor sunlight, which washes out the on-screen colors, degrades image contrast, and interferes with seeing the on-screen images. The lower the Screen Reflectance the better. In fact, decreasing the Screen Reflectance by 50 percent doubles the effective Contrast Ratio in Ambient Light, so it is very important.
To visually compare the differences in screen Reflectance for yourself, hold any Tablets or Smartphones side-by-side and turn off the displays so you just see the reflections. Those reflections are still there when you turn them on, and the brighter the ambient light the brighter the reflections.
The iPad Pro 9.7 has a very innovative low Reflectance screen that reflects just 1.7 percent of the ambient light by using a new Anti-Reflection AR coating. It has by far the lowest screen Reflectance of any mobile display, so its image colors and contrast in high ambient light will appear considerably better than on any other mobile display. It’s a major enhancement that reduces the reflected light glare from the screen by a very impressive factor of 3 to 1 compared to most Tablets and Smartphones.
Our Contrast Rating for High Ambient Light quantitatively measures screen visibility under bright Ambient Light – the higher the better. As a result of its high Brightness and very low Reflectance, the iPad Pro 9.7 has a Contrast Rating for High Ambient Light of 301, by far the highest that we have ever measured. See the Screen Reflections and Brightness and Contrast sections for measurements and details.
