Kindle Fire Display Doesn’t Stand Up To Nook, iPad 2 In Tests

You probably know that not all LCDs are created equal: at a given size, you can have different resolutions, lighting methods, and display-driving technologies. Apple has led the way in this regard, generally shelling out in its products for the best options available, while cheaper brands tend to take a bit off the price tag by going with a cheaper or smaller display. That’s certainly the case with the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, both of which are aimed at a lower price point and must make sacrifices to reach it.

But an examination by DisplayMate indicates that Amazon might have cut corners just a little too much, or perhaps rushed the Fire to market without too much thought about image quality.

It’s nothing truly problematic, it should be said right away, and DisplayMate notes that it’s still a good display, but it has a couple serious problems that, objectively speaking, put it on a lower tier than the competition.

The “anti-reflective treatment” on the Fire appears to have backfired, as the display had the highest reflectance of any tablet they’d tested. Reflected ambient light (as in a bright room) and directed light (as from overhead lights) was significantly higher than the iPad, and more than twice as high as the Nooks, which by the by had extremely low reflectance, making it good for reading in diverse lighting situations. The reflectance also caused a reduction in effective contrast, which is bad news for reading print.

The Fire also uses an outdated gallery app that doesn’t use the full 24 bits of color depth of which the display is capable, resulting in banding and apparently a washed-out look that really has no place on a premium device.

The second problem may be fixed in a software update (it’s a bit like the problem Nexus Ones had back in the day), but the poor coating or material that’s resulting in the high reflectance likely isn’t going anywhere (unless this was an early batch problem). In many ways the Fire is the equal of the Nook and the iPad 2 displays, but all other things being equal, it’s just not as good. If possible, do a visual comparison in person to see if the difference is significant to you, and of course if you find the display is not up to your standards, you should feel perfectly justified in returning it. But if it looks good to you, it looks good, and there’s no point getting caught up in a few percentage points of difference here and there.

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Kindle Fire places second behind iPad

Amazon’s Kindle Fire is expected to take nearly 14% of the global tablet market in the fourth quarter, placing it second behind Apple’s iPad with its 65% share, according to an analysis by IHS.

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More shoppers drawn to cheaper, smaller Kindle Fire over iPad, survey says

More than three times as many shoppers for tablet computers are considering the $199 Amazon Kindle Fire over the bestselling iPad, according to a new survey.

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HP’s tablet exit no signal of iPad immunity, say analysts

HP’s departure from the tablet business does not mean that Apple’s iPad will remain the undisputed king, analysts said today.

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Supply Line Troubles To Delay iPad 3 Launch?

Analysts and pundits have been predicting an iPad 3 with a late 2011 launch for some time now, but if accounts from suppliers in Asia are to be believed, there just is no way that’s going to happen — if the rumors of the high-DPI screen are correct in the first place (and we think they are).

A 9.7″ display sporting 2048×1536 pixels, four times more than the current iPad and three times more than the HD displays on many Android tablets, is quite simply at the very limit of LCD panel manufacturing capability. Apple previously had hoped to have at least five or six million units by the end of the year and placed orders to that effect, but Digitimes is reporting that those orders have disappeared.

The chatter around the display industry water cooler is that Sharp is the only company capable of making these panels with any kind of real reliability; Samsung and LG apparently can’t reach a good yield. If these companies wanted to throw away money, they could invest despite poor yields, as Microsoft did in order to bring the Xbox 360 to market early, but we all know how that turned out. Samsung has actually demonstrated an alternative type of high-resolution display, but it’s unlikely Apple would use it even if it were ready for market.

These screens would be among the highest performing in the world, yet must be manufactured by the millions for relatively low cost. Apple doesn’t make its own displays (among other things), so it’s at the mercy of OEMs like Sharp. And if Sharp says “if anybody could do it, we could — but we can’t,” then Apple has no choice but to take that hit and delay the product.

Meanwhile, the same sources estimate as many as 30 million iPad 2s will be shipped in 2Q11; with no “rare” parts, they can be made as fast as the millions of hands in vast factory towns can put them together.

Of course it has to be said that a product that is not announced can’t, strictly speaking, be delayed. And I’m sure Apple was prepared for this eventuality, likely being informed while collaborating with Sharp that yields might just not hit targets in time. So: a revised launch schedule. January, anyone?

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Boxee launches iPad app, AirPlay integration

AT&T iPad hacker pleads guilty

A 26-year-old man who last year helped hackers publish personal information belonging to about 120,000 iPad users pleaded guilty to fraud and hacking charges in a New Jersey court Thursday.

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Security Shootout: PlayBook, iPad, Android

By now, CIOs everywhere have felt at least a little pressure to bring new-fangled tablets to the enterprise: Apple iPads, BlackBerry PlayBooks, even Android machines. But many claim security on tablets remains woefully immature–or is it?

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First Look: Reeder leaps from the iPad to the Mac

After a long and winding path that has seen stops at both the iPhone and the iPad, developer Silvio Rizzi has finally released his newsreader app on Apple’s longest running platform, in the form of the aptly named Reeder for the Mac.

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Weekend Giveaway: An iPad 2

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think iPads grew on trees or were on sale at TJ Maxx or something with the number of these things people want to give away. Regardless, we have a 16GB Wi-Fi iPad 2 waiting for you in sunny San Francisco, ready to wing its way to your mailbox in a few days. Want it? Thought so.

Here’s how to enter.

Our buddies at Fuze want to offer one 16GB Wi-Fi iPad to one lucky winner. They’re asking you to “like” their “Facebook Page” or whatever an also comment below about what you think the future of teleconferencing will look like. Holograms? 3D printing in sugar? Nude meetings? You decide.

Thanks to Fuze, who describe themselves thuswise:

Fuze Meeting and Fuze Messenger allow people to communicate, collaborate and share content from any device, across any network, anywhere in the world. Fuze Meeting is a mobile and web-based collaboration service that features integrated audio conferencing as well as high- definition, synchronized video and image sharing.

I will pick one random winner on Monday at noon Eastern. Good luck!

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