iPad Mini Provides 'Capable,' But Not Fantastic Display

Apple finally joined the land of smaller tablets last week, releasing its 7.9-inch iPad mini. But how does it fare against the competition?

DisplayMate took the iPad mini for a display-quality spin, pitting it against Amazon's Kindle Fire HD and the Google Nexus 7, as well as its larger cousins the iPad 2 and the fourth-generation iPad.

"The iPad mini is certainly a very capable small tablet, but it does not follow in Apple's tradition of providing the best display, or at least a great display," DisplayMate President Raymond Soneira said in the shoot-out report. "It has just a very capable display."

The iPad mini includes a 1,024-by-768 display, the same as the iPad 2. It lacks the Retina display found on newer, larger iPads, and at 163 pixels per inch, the display can't beat that of the cheaper, 216-ppi Kindle Fire HD or Nexus 7, DisplayMate said.

Additionally, Soneira wagged a finger at Apple regarding screen sharpness, saying that the company could have increased the iPad mini screen resolution the same way it did for the iPhone 5 by simply running older apps letterboxed inside of a higher-resolution display. A more logical screen resolution, he said, would have been 1,280-by-960, delivering true HD video, satisfying letterboxing for older apps, and sharpening text for reading.

PCMag analyst , saying that while the smaller display translates to sharper images, "it still falls far short of the brilliant Retina display on the most recent two iPads."

One bright spot among the cloudy iPad mini is its 4:3 aspect ratio screen, which Soneira said lends itself better for use in both landscape and portrait viewing modes, and is often better suited for reading than the 16:10 or 16:9 ratios found on most other tablets.

Meanwhile, existing mini tablets actually outperform the tiny iPad in most DisplayMate tests. Soneira chalked it up to constraints within Apple's product line and general display technology and cost issues. "But much of it is due to a number of poor choices and compromises," he said.

Directly compared to the Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7, though, the iPad mini doesn't have too much trouble keeping up. The tiny tablet earned an overall display grade of a B, smack in the middle of the Fire's A-minus and Google's B-minus.

For more, see PCMag's and the slideshow below. Also, check out and the .