iPad Pro So impressed by 12.9 mini-LED, I bought a TV with the same screen tech

[BlackJacques]

So I got the IPP 12.9 2021 three weeks ago coming from an iPad Air 2020 and before then a Samsung Tab s5e OLED. I waited until all the opinions about blooming, etc shook out to make up my mind. I mean I saw it in the store, but retail lighting does not represent how I'd watch it at home. As soon as I got it home I was blown away, in all ambient light conditions and complete dark.

Blooming is obvious, but honestly it doesn't bother me at all. It's different yet similar to the haloing our eyes naturally perceive (as an artifact) when we see something bright in the dark, like oncoming headlights on a country road. People also see haloing when there's a bright object depicted on a dark or black background on an OLED. So I'll take blooming any day over OLED shortcomings and I've been all OLED since I left Apple in 2014 until coming back last Spring.

I liked the screen so much, last week I bought a Samsung QN90A TV and that thing gets even brighter. Once I calibrated the settings I'm just as impressed by it, maybe more. It measures over 1400 nits for SDR and 1800 for HDR. No longer have to worry about direct sunlight pouring into my viewing room.

 

[Allyance]

I saw the QN90A at Best Buy thee other day, it is stunning. I currently have a 7 year old 55" Samsung and I am looking to upgrade it to the 55" QN90 soon as they pass the debt limit permanently, can't afford to go without my Social Security. Already got the ATV 4K. My place is small and my Large Advent speakers are wall mounted on either side on the TV so I have to stick to the 55".

 

[BlackJacques]

I got the 55. Anything bigger and I'd probably go back to owning a projector never want to de-install and sell a bigger set again, maybe look at ultra short throw laser projectors. I'm the only one in the house that watches TV mostly so it's in a small (maybe 8'x10') dedicated room with a 5.1 system. Pretty big speakers actually for a room that size.

Curious thing is the IPP has 2500 dimming zones and the 55 Samsung has 576. That works out to roughly half the vertical and horizontal control. However, I'm just as impressed by it's local dimming. There's only more blooming on the Samsung when I watch with sunlight pouring in because I have the brightness jacked to max. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy.

Oh yeah, there's a wide angle viewing layer on the screen that they put over it to overcome the narrow viewing angles inherent in the VA LCD (vs IPS panels like in the IPP) that kind of adds a little but of artifacting. I'm not crazy about it but not a deal breaker.

 

[PilotTiny]

So I got the IPP 12.9 2021 three weeks ago coming from an iPad Air 2020 and before then a Samsung Tab s5e OLED. I waited until all the opinions about blooming, etc shook out to make up my mind. I mean I saw it in the store, but retail lighting does not represent how I'd watch it at home. As soon as I got it home I was blown away, in all ambient light conditions and complete dark.

Blooming is obvious, but honestly it doesn't bother me at all. It's different yet similar to the haloing our eyes naturally perceive (as an artifact) when we see something bright in the dark, like oncoming headlights on a country road. People also see haloing when there's a bright object depicted on a dark or black background on an OLED. So I'll take blooming any day over OLED shortcomings and I've been all OLED since I left Apple in 2014 until coming back last Spring.

I liked the screen so much, last week I bought a Samsung QN90A TV and that thing gets even brighter. Once I calibrated the settings I'm just as impressed by it, maybe more. It measures over 1400 nits for SDR and 1800 for HDR. No longer have to worry about direct sunlight pouring into my viewing room.

Exactly the same thing I did, even got the same TV! I got the 50’’ however. Absolutely fell in love with the local dimming tech. Again I hardly notice the halo effect on either my IPP or TV. For me it it the best of both LED and OLED. The picture is absolutely stunning.

 

[BeatCrazy]

Curious thing is the IPP has 2500 dimming zones and the 55 Samsung has 576. That works out to roughly half the vertical and horizontal control. However, I'm just as impressed by it's local dimming. There's only more blooming on the Samsung when I watch with sunlight pouring in because I have the brightness jacked to max. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy.

By screen area, your TV only has 7.2% of the dimming zone control (not 'half') vs the iPad Pro.

(Samsung has 2.24 LEDs per square inch, vs. 31.1 on the iPad Pro)

 

[Rizop]

Wow! Thank your for this thread ! I was contemplating buying the same tv since my 12.9 m1’s screen is so amazing (despite the blooming). I’ve also got an Lg C7 oled that has been great but the iPad has made me almost forget about the oled due to its brightness and deep blacks despite the blooming.

Would you say the qn90 is comparable to an oled television ? I’m looking at moving on from my C7 because it’s got some bad burn in after 4 years despite my best efforts at not displaying static images

 

[BlackJacques]

By screen area, your TV only has 7.2% of the dimming zone control (not 'half') vs the iPad Pro.

(Samsung has 2.24 LEDs per square inch, vs. 31.1 on the iPad Pro)

Incorrect. The IPP has 10,000 LEDs and Samsung has not published their amount. This isn’t the same as dimming zones. It’s the zones that govern local dimming. The amount of LEDs will affect brightness and energy efficiency. Undoubtedly the iPad has more LEDs per square inch, but again this isn’t what I was talking about.

 

[BlackJacques]

Wow! Thank your for this thread ! I was contemplating buying the same tv since my 12.9 m1’s screen is so amazing (despite the blooming). I’ve also got an Lg C7 oled that has been great but the iPad has made me almost forget about the oled due to its brightness and deep blacks despite the blooming.

Would you say the qn90 is comparable to an oled television ? I’m looking at moving on from my C7 because it’s got some bad burn in after 4 years despite my best efforts at not displaying static images

I’d say not quite the same experience. You’re still not getting absolute black, very close. Rtings measured a contrast ratio around 25,000:1 which is quite frankly highly affected by methodology. The ratio is just the peak brightness in nits divided by the darkest black also in nits. It’s highly dependent on the static image they use. Any number smaller than infinity means it cannot display true black. OLEDs are said to have infinite contrast since any number of peak brightness divided by zero nits of black is infinity.

Theory aside, blacks look terrific, close to pure black. With almost any amount of ambient light, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference. In an absolutely dark room, the OLED will win out.

 

[Rizop]

I’d say not quite the same experience. You’re still not getting absolute black, very close. Rtings measured a contrast ratio around 25,000:1 which is quite frankly highly affected by methodology. The ratio is just the peak brightness in nits divided by the darkest black also in nits. It’s highly dependent on the static image they use. Any number smaller than infinity means it cannot display true black. OLEDs are said to have infinite contrast since any number of peak brightness divided by zero nits of black is infinity.

Theory aside, blacks look terrific, close to pure black. With almost any amount of ambient light, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference. In an absolutely dark room, the OLED will win out.

Thanks so much . Just the type of analysis I was looking for . I’ll probably take the plunge . What pushed me over the edge was friends and family coming over and asking me what was wrong with the tv. Loved the oled while it lasted

It’s crazy , the title of this thread was my exact thought when using my iPad Pro . Apple’s mini led implementation is the closest I’ve seen to oled

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

I'll never buy Samsung until they add Dolby Vision. Their proprietary HDR10+ is unnecessary and not even supported yet still charge top dollar for their panels.

 

[BlackJacques]

I'll never buy Samsung until they add Dolby Vision. Their proprietary HDR10+ is unnecessary and not even supported yet still charge top dollar for their panels.

Watched that debate also for months. Seems the consensus is it’s better to have a TV with more capable brightness than having Dolby Vision dynamic tone mapping. Both would be better, but there’s no TV this year that can do both in a way that does justice to the other. What’s the point of dynamic tone mapping if the display can’t even produce enough nits to contrast the specular highlights from the dark material?

🔎 qn90a dolby vision site:www.reddit.com - Google Search

www.google.ca

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

Watched that debate also for months. Seems the consensus is it’s better to have a TV with more capable brightness than having Dolby Vision dynamic tone mapping. Both would be better, but there’s no TV this year that can do both in a way that does justice to the other. What’s the point of dynamic tone mapping if the display can’t even produce enough nits to contrast the specular highlights from the dark material?

🔎 qn90a dolby vision site:www.reddit.com - Google Search

www.google.ca

Agreed. Additionally, I find it amusing that if you look up calibration settings for even the best TV's on a site like Rtings.com they disable 99% of all the "features" like dynamic tone mapping.

 

[BlackJacques]

Agreed. Additionally, I find it amusing that if you look up calibration settings for even the best TV's on a site like Rtings.com they disable 99% of all the "features" like dynamic tone mapping.

Well, I understand why. Features like dynamic contrast or sharpness or hdr+ are gimmicky post-image processing. It’s not in the source material and just adds artifacting and latency. That’s why game modes usually disable all of them. If a set has a toggle for dynamic tone mapping it’s not the one from DV. DV tone mapping is encoded by a technician when mastering the source material. A TV toggle for it is post-image processing for material that doesn’t have it in its bitstream data and it probably looks like crap.

 

[Dominican]

Nice

 

[Radon87000]

I love my iPad Pro 12.9 2021 but OLED is still king in contrast for HDR. My LG CX OLED TV may not get as bright as my iPad but the contrast is insanely good so it manages to keep up.

 

[oneflipgguy]

I love my my 12.9 m1 IPP too but every time I hit a YouTube video with HDR, I'd have to whip out my sunglasses! Kinda crazy how bright it gets! I can't wait for iMacs to transition to mini LED!

 

[MrGimper]

Went OLED TV with the LG 55C7 in 2017 and upgraded a few months back to the 65CX and OLED is still the king and would never go back.

Mini-LED on the iPP is awesome and a fantastic improvement over the LCD screen tech. TBH it's the reason I returned my mini 6... no "true" blacks and no pro-motion annoyed me more than I thought it would.

My CX just got the 120hz Dolby Vision update, so will see how that looks on my Series X

 

[Allyance]

Just got my Samsung 55" QN90A. Images are stunning, but software sucks.

First problem, new 4K DVR from Comcast has NO audio outputs. Old box allowed me to connect audio directly to my receiver.

I setup new TV temporarily to test. Used fiber optic cable from TV output to receiver, sound great but volume controls on remote don't work with digital output!

So I have ordered HDMI splitters to separate Audio and video signals for the ATV 4K box, Comcast DVR and an older DVD player. HDMI video will be run a HDMI switcher so I don't have deal with TV software. Audio will connected by fiber optic cables to receiver. Hopefully I can program my Harmony remote to run the switcher, otherwise I have added an extra step in switcher sources.

 

[LogicalApex]

I setup new TV temporarily to test. Used fiber optic cable from TV output to receiver, sound great but volume controls on remote don't work with digital output!

You’d need HDMI-CEC to get volume control or remote training like what Apple TV does. Optical only carries audio.

 

[UBS28]

Apple did not use the A15 in the 16" M1 Max, but I still bought it anyway because Apple put mini-LED displays in it.

If Apple did not put mini-LED in their laptops, I might have skipped for the next update.

 

[Rizop]

Just wanted to update and say that I finally received our mini led 75 inch QN90a and it is really superb.

The black levels look identical to our old burned in C7 Oled even in a pitch black room with the advantage of getting ridiculously bright (almost painfully so). Was not expecting this type of black level performance . There’s a little bit of bloom that is barely noticeable in most scenes and the pq gets washed out at an angle unlike Oled.

It really reminds me of our mini led iPad Pro . The same scenes look really similar on both

Really impressed with the advances of mini led tech. It really does a very convincing approximation of OLED but without the burn in risk with the exception of Oled’s amazing viewing angles

 

[sird28]

Screen tech all has limitations.... OLED has burn-in plus peak brightness issues... Mini LED is gonna have blooming but in the end I think Mini LED is gonna win out due to HDR brightness... If I can get close to OLED Blacks which it will eventually already seeing it in iPad Pro as the technology gets better in scale the blacks are gonna get better.

OLED would win in a dark room so maybe a man cave area, but in living rooms with a lot of light I'll take some blooming for that HDR peak brightness and high contrast blacks, vs lower HDR Brightness and infinite black.

 

[leifp]

So I got the IPP 12.9 2021 three weeks ago coming from an iPad Air 2020 and before then a Samsung Tab s5e OLED. I waited until all the opinions about blooming, etc shook out to make up my mind. I mean I saw it in the store, but retail lighting does not represent how I'd watch it at home. As soon as I got it home I was blown away, in all ambient light conditions and complete dark.

Blooming is obvious, but honestly it doesn't bother me at all. It's different yet similar to the haloing our eyes naturally perceive (as an artifact) when we see something bright in the dark, like oncoming headlights on a country road. People also see haloing when there's a bright object depicted on a dark or black background on an OLED. So I'll take blooming any day over OLED shortcomings and I've been all OLED since I left Apple in 2014 until coming back last Spring.

I liked the screen so much, last week I bought a Samsung QN90A TV and that thing gets even brighter. Once I calibrated the settings I'm just as impressed by it, maybe more. It measures over 1400 nits for SDR and 1800 for HDR. No longer have to worry about direct sunlight pouring into my viewing room.

YMMV

My experience with OLED is minimal (yes, my iPhone has it, but I almost never use the phone; it’s a need not a want) but my experience with miniLED backlights is that the blooming drives me absolutely nuts (I was leaning towards the 11” M1 Pro anyhow but the miniLED in the 12.9” sealed the deal). I willingly stick with a mid-level LED LCD TV, with middling blacks etc, because that bothers me less than blooming since it fades out (for me) once I’m immersed in the movie or game. Blooming, on the other hand, I notice all the time. A bit like screen tearing in video games.

I have a friend who is sensitive to black levels and ghosting, who doesn’t mind blooming, and loves his miniLED TV.

I do desire the pitch blacks of OLED and am holding my breath that uLED is the best of all worlds. I’m sure once it releases in consumer electronics its foibles and failings will become more evident, but for now I can dream…

 

[vddobrev]

I just switched to 12.9" from 11", and I am absolutely thrilled! I got an 11" about a month ago, and it felt small and underwhelming. Today went out and purchased a 12.9" and this screen is amazing! Full stop! And the size is just right.