Although, Apple essentially created the tablet market as we know it today with the release of the original iPad, they won’t be sitting as easy as they have been in previous years as they watch other companies like Microsoft and Samsung release highly capable tablet devices that could potentially compete with the iPad for the first time since launch. Any tablet owner will be concerned with the display quality of the product that they have purchased, and for the first time, the Surface has been scientifically scrutinized alongside the other leading tablets on the market.
Whenever a new tablet is released, the comparisons are invariably going to be made against Apple’s iPad and in particular; the high-resolution Retina display that is built into the third and fourth-generation Apple offerings. For the first time since last month’s official Surface launch, the display on the device has been put under intense scrutiny by Dr. Raymond Soneira from DisplayMate Technologies and compared against a number of other leading tablets on the market. Although Microsoft’s display technology performs extremely well in certain areas, the test does show that it is lacking in others.
To give themselves some data to compare the findings of the Surface RT to, Soneira and his team drafted in an Apple iPad 3 and a Galaxy Tab 10.1 to put through the same tests. A number of different areas were tested, including the overall display resolution, physical display size, pixels per inch and small text readability. The findings showed that the display on the Surface RT did have the best reflectance and the highest contrast ratio, but it was overshadowed in terms of performance by the iPad 3 in certain areas.
Dr. Soneira uses his tests and findings to conclude that Microsoft has put a lot of time and effort into the development of the display and the Surface tablet in general, and although the resolution is lower than that of the iPad 3, the Surface apparently does a great job of compensating through the effective use of Cleartype. The addition of the Surface to the marketplace is great news for consumers who now have even further choice when it comes to post-PC purchasing, with more offerings running Windows RT and Pro inevitably going to hit the market as additional manufacturers start to build their wares.
(via Gizmodo)
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