Another year, another new smartphone with an even more advanced display than the model year before. And sure enough, Apple’s display in the iPhone 11 Pro Max is earnings high marks.
As is par for the course, the team at DisplayMate has gotten their hands on Apple’s newest (and biggest) iPhone to test out the capabilities of the screen. Following on the heels of the iPhone XS Max from last year, the iPhone 11 Pro Max has earned DisplayMate’s “Best Smartphone Display Award”, and has earned the publication’s “highest ever A+ grade” to date.
It starts with the overall brightness of the display, which Apple now markets as the “Super Retina XDR”, with DisplayMate noting that the screen has the capability to accurately choose between two different maximum brightness settings and adjust them based on what’s displayed on the screen.
Here are a few of the major improvements that DisplayMate notes this year:
- 17% higher Peak Brightness of 821 nits for a typical Average Picture Level of 50%, which improves screen visibility in high Ambient Light.
On its Home Screen the iPhone 11 Pro Max produced an impressively High Brightness of 902 nits.
- An HDR Peak Brightness of 1,290 nits for the standard HDR 20% APL, and 1,090 nits for Full Screen White with 100% APL.
- Display Power Efficiency that has increased by up to 15% compared to the iPhone XS Max.
DisplayMate has put together a comprehensive list of the “state-of-the-art display performance functions and features”, breaking it down in such a way to show off what Apple is bringing to the table with its newest display if you don’t want to read through the entire deep dive of the screen.
Here are just a few of those milestones:
- A state-of-the-art OLED display that is manufactured on a flexible plastic substrate. While the OLED display itself is flexible, the screen remains rigid under an outer hard cover glass.
- A Full Screen design with a large 6.5 inch OLED display that fills almost the entire front face of the iPhone 11 Pro Max from edge-to-edge, providing a significantly larger display for the same phone size.
- A display form factor with a taller height to width Aspect Ratio of 19.5 : 9 = 2.17, which is 22% larger than the 16 : 9 = 1.78 on most Smartphones (and widescreen TVs) because the display now has the same overall shape as the entire phone. It is taller in Portrait mode and wider in Landscape mode.
- Each iPhone 11 Pro Max display is individually calibrated at the factory for both Color Accuracy and Contrast Accuracy.
- Very High Absolute Color Accuracy (0.9 JNCD) that is Visually Indistinguishable From Perfect.
- Color Accuracy and Intensity Scales that are Independent of the Image Content APL.
- Automatic Color Management that automatically switches to the proper Color Gamut for any displayed image content within the Wide DCI-P3 Color Space that has an ICC Profile, so images automatically appear with the correct colors, neither being over-saturated or under-saturated.
The full report is technical, as always. However, it’s certainly worth a look if you’re curious about display technologies.
This is a high mark for Apple and something they can use to sell the new Super Retina XDR display in its iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max. However, it’s a fleeting award in all regards, as Samsung will probably take the lead next year. Before Apple takes it back yet again later in the year.
If you have an iPhone 11 Pro or iPhone 11 Pro Max, are you happy with the display?