Display expert: Microsoft Surface display not superior to iPad Retina display
After the director of research for Microsoft's Applied Sciences group, Steven Bathiche, boasted via Reddit that the company's new Surface RT tablet could offer more screen detail than the latest iPad, an expert decided to weigh in. The verdict? Microsoft's ClearType sub-pixel rending technology does indeed give the Surface RT's 768p display some added clarity, but to say that it beats the newest iPad's 2,048 x 1,536 screen is a stretch, to say the least.
Dr. Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate Technologies performed the comparison using an Asus tablet equipped with a 1,366 x 768 display similar to the Surface RT. Both devices boast Microsoft's ClearType sub-pixel rendering feature. It's important to note that while the two displays are similar, the Asus tablet's pixel density is 130 ppi, compared to 148 ppi on the Surface RT. The iPad's Retina display comes in at 264 ppi.
Soneira then compared the ClearType display to the second and third-generation iPad, with all three devices displaying the New York Times website front page running on Safari.
"The Windows ClearType 768p display on the Asus Netbook was significantly sharper than the iPad 2 768p display but also significantly less sharp than the new iPad 3 [sic] 1536p display," he explains. "It is certainly possible that the Microsoft Surface RT Tablet will perform better than the Asus Netbook, but it is very unlikely that it will turn out to be visually sharper than [the new iPad]."
Bathiche later added a very important caveat to his claim, noting: "I wanted to elaborate some more. I hope folks understand that I am not saying that one resolution is better than the other. Nor that one display is better than the other."
[via PC World]
