macbook pro retina lcd panel manufacturer

Retina Display is a brand name used by Apple for its series of IPS LCD and OLED displays that have a higher pixel density than traditional Apple displays.trademark with regard to computers and mobile devices with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and Canadian Intellectual Property Office.

The Retina display debuted in 2010 with the iPhone 4 and the iPod Touch (4th Generation), and later the iPad (3rd generation) where each screen pixel of the iPhone 3GS, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPad 2 was replaced by four smaller pixels, and the user interface scaled up to fill in the extra pixels. Apple calls this mode HiDPI mode. In simpler words, it is one logical pixel = four physical pixels. The scale factor is tripled for devices with even higher pixel densities, such as the iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone X.

The Retina display has since expanded to most Apple product lines, such as Apple Watch, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, iPad Mini, iPad Air, iPad Pro, MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, and Pro Display XDR, some of which have never had a comparable non-Retina display.marketing terms to differentiate between its LCD and OLED displays having various resolutions, contrast levels, color reproduction, or refresh rates. It is known as Liquid Retina display for the iPhone XR, iPad Air 4th Generation, iPad Mini 6th Generation, iPad Pro 3rd Generation and later versions,Retina 4.5K display for the iMac.

Apple"s Retina displays are not an absolute standard for display sharpness, but vary depending on the size of the display on the device, and at what distance the user would typically be viewing the screen. Where on smaller devices with smaller displays users would view the screen at a closer distance to their eyes, the displays have more PPI (Pixels Per Inch), while on larger devices with larger displays where the user views the screen further away, the screen uses a lower PPI value. Later device versions have had additional improvements, whether an increase in the screen size (the iPhone 12 Pro Max), contrast ratio (the 12.9” iPad Pro 5th Generation, and iMac with Retina 4.5K display), and/or, more recently, PPI count (OLED iPhones); as a result, Apple uses the names “Retina HD display", "Retina 4K/5K display", “Retina 4.5K display", "Super Retina HD display", “Super Retina XDR display”, and "Liquid Retina display" for each successive version.

When introducing the iPhone 4, Steve Jobs said the number of pixels needed for a Retina display is about 300 PPI for a device held 10 to 12 inches from the eye.skinny triangle with a height equal to the viewing distance and a top angle of one degree will have a base on the device"s screen that covers 57 pixels. Any display"s viewing quality (from phone displays to huge projectors) can be described with this size-independent universal parameter. Note that the PPD parameter is not an intrinsic parameter of the display itself, unlike absolute pixel resolution (e.g. 1920×1080 pixels) or relative pixel density (e.g. 401 PPI), but is dependent on the distance between the display and the eye of the person (or lens of the device) viewing the display; moving the eye closer to the display reduces the PPD, and moving away from it increases the PPD in proportion to the distance.

In practice, thus far Apple has converted a device"s display to Retina by doubling the number of pixels in each direction, quadrupling the total resolution. This increase creates a sharper interface at the same physical dimensions. The sole exception to this has been the iPhone 6 Plus, 6S Plus, 7 Plus, and 8 Plus, which renders its display at triple the number of pixels in each direction, before down-sampling to a 1080p resolution.

The displays are manufactured worldwide by different suppliers. Currently, the iPad"s display comes from Samsung,LG DisplayJapan Display Inc.twisted nematic (TN) liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) to in-plane switching (IPS) LCDs starting with the iPhone 4 models in June 2010.

Apple markets the following devices as having a Retina display, Retina HD display, Liquid Retina display, Liquid Retina XDR display, Super Retina HD display, Super Retina XDR display or Retina 4K/5K/6K display:

Reviews of Apple devices with Retina displays have generally been positive on technical grounds, with comments describing it as a considerable improvement on earlier screens and praising Apple for driving third-party application support for high-resolution displays more effectively than on Windows.T220 and T221 had been sold in the past, they had seen little take-up due to their cost of around $8400.

Writer John Gruber suggested that the arrival of Retina displays on computers would trigger a need to redesign interfaces and designs for the new displays:

The sort of rich, data-dense information design espoused by Edward Tufte can now not only be made on the computer screen but also enjoyed on one. Regarding font choices, you not only need not choose a font optimized for rendering on screen, but should not. Fonts optimized for screen rendering look cheap on the retina MacBook Pro—sometimes downright cheesy—in the same way they do when printed in a glossy magazine.

Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies, has challenged Apple"s claim. He says that the physiology of the human retina is such that there must be at least 477 pixels per inch in a pixelated display for the pixels to become imperceptible to the human eye at a distance of 12 inches (305 mm).Phil Plait notes, however, that, "if you have [better than 20/20] eyesight, then at one foot away the iPhone 4S"s pixels are resolved. The picture will look pixelated. If you have average eyesight [20/20 vision], the picture will look just fine... So in my opinion, what Jobs said was fine. Soneira, while technically correct, was being picky."

Apple fan website CultOfMac hosts an article by John Brownlee"Apple"s Retina Displays are only about 33% of the way there."visual acuity in the population saying "most research suggests that normal vision is actually much better than 20/20" when in truth the majority have worse than 20/20 vision,WHO considers average vision as 20/40.presbyopia

The first smartphone following the iPhone 4 to ship with a display of a comparable pixel density was the Nokia E6, running Symbian Anna, with a resolution of 640 × 480 at a screen size of 62.5mm. This was an isolated case for the platform however, as all other Symbian-based devices had larger displays with lower resolutions. Some older Symbian smartphones, including the Nokia N80 and N90, featured a 2.1 inch display at 259 ppi, which was one of the sharpest at the time. The first Android smartphones with the same display - Meizu M9 was launched a few months later in beginning of 2011. In October of the same year Galaxy Nexus was announced, which had a display with a better resolution. By 2013 the 300+ ppimark was found on midrange phones such as the Moto G.Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One (M8) had 1080p (FHD) screens around 5-inches for a 400+ PPI which surpassed the Retina density on the iPhone 5. The second major redesign of the iPhone, the iPhone 6, has a 1334 × 750 resolution on a 4.7-inch screen, while rivals such as the Samsung Galaxy S6 have a QHD display of 2560 × 1440 resolution, close to four times the number of pixels found in the iPhone 6, giving the S6 a 577 PPI that is almost twice that of the iPhone 6"s 326 PPI.

The larger iPhone 6 Plus features a "Retina HD display", which is a 5.5-inch 1080p screen with 401 PPI. Aside from resolution, all generations of iPhone Retina displays receive high ratings for other aspects such as brightness and color accuracy, compared to those of contemporary smartphones, while some Android devices such as the LG G3 have sacrificed screen quality and battery life for high resolution. Ars Technica suggested the "superfluousness of so many flagship phone features—the move from 720p to 1080p to 1440p and beyond...things are all nice to have, but you’d be hard-pressed to argue that any of them are essential".

Tim Johnson, MD, PhD. "How common is 20/20 vision?". University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics. Retrieved 9 October 2021. Only about 35 percent of all adults have 20/20 vision without glasses, contact lenses or corrective surgery"...AND... "while you won"t lose your 20/20 vision as you approach middle age, you will most likely lose your near visionlink)

Replace a display compatible with a Mid 2018 to Mid 2019 model A1989 or A2159 MacBook Pro 13" with laptop. Includes the 2560 x 1600 13.3" Retina LCD Screen, Display Cover, Bezel, FaceTime HD Camera, and Clutch Hinges.

Replace a display compatible with a 2016 or 2017 model A1706 or A1708 MacBook Pro 13" Retina laptop. Includes the 2560 x 1600 13.3" Retina LCD Screen, Display Cover, Bezel, FaceTime HD Camera, Clutch Hinges, Display Daughter Board, Cable Spring

Replace a display compatible with a model A2338 MacBook Pro 13" laptop. Includes the 2560 x 1600 pixel IPS panel with True Tone, Display Cover, Bezel, FaceTime HD Camera, Clutch Hinges, Display Daughter Board, Cable Spring Mechanism.

Replace a display compatible with a 2018 or 2019 model A1990 MacBook Pro 15" with Touch Bar laptop. Includes the 2880 x 1800 15" Retina LCD Screen, Display Cover, Bezel, FaceTime HD Camera, and Clutch Hinges.

Replace a display compatible with a 2020 model A2289 MacBook Pro 13" Two Thuderbolt Port laptop. Includes the 2560 x 1600 13.3" Retina LCD Screen, Display Cover, Bezel, FaceTime HD Camera, and Clutch Hinges.

Replace a display compatible with the model A1398 Late 2013 to Mid 2014 MacBook Pro 15" Retina laptop. Includes the 2880 x 1800 pixel 15.4" Retina LCD screen, display cover, bezel, FaceTime HD camera, clutch hinges, Wi-Fi antenna, camera, and

Replace a display compatible with the late 2011 model A1278 13” Unibody MacBook Pro. Includes the front glass, LCD screen, iSight Camera, all antenna cables, all LCD cables, hinges, and clutch cover.

Replace a display compatible with the model A1502 Early 2015 13" MacBook Pro laptop. Includes the 2560 x 1600 13.3" Retina LCD screen, display cover, bezel, FaceTime HD Camera, clutch hinges, Wi-Fi antenna, camera, and display data cables. Part #661

Replace a display compatible with the model A1707 late 2016 to 2017 Retina 15" MacBook Pro laptop. Includes the 2880 x 1800 15.4" Retina LCD Screen, Display Cover, Bezel, Camera.

Replace a display compatible with the model A1502 late 2013 to mid 2014 Retina 13" MacBook Pro laptop. Includes the Retina 2560 x 1600 pixel 13.3" LCD screen, display cover, bezel, FaceTime HD Camera, clutch hinges, Wi-Fi antenna, camera, and

Replace a damaged or malfunctioning Touch Bar assembly compatible with MacBook Pro 15" Retina Mid 2018 laptops. Fix touch issues on the Touch Bar"s digitizer.

Replace a glossy or anti-glare display panel compatible with the A1278 Late 2008, A1342 Late 2009 to Mid 2010 MacBook 13" Unibody models and A1278 MacBook Pro 13" Unibody model laptop. 1280 x 800 pixel Resolution. 13.3".

Replace a display compatible with the mid 2012 model A1286 15" Unibody MacBook Pro laptop. Includes the LCD screen, display cover, bezel, FaceTime HD Camera, clutch hinges, LED assembly, Wi-Fi antenna, and display data cables.

Replace a display compatible with the mid 2012 Unibody 13" MacBook Pro laptop. Includes the 13.3" LCD screen, display cover, bezel, iSight Camera, clutch hinges, display inverter, Wi-Fi antenna, iSight, and display data cables.

Replace a display compatible with a model A2442 2021 14" MacBook Pro laptop. Includes the 3024 x 1964 LCD screen, display cover, camera, and clutch hinges.

Replace a display compatible with a model A2485 2021 16" MacBook Pro laptop. Includes the 3456 x 2234 Liquid Retina XDR mini-LED screen, display cover, camera, and clutch hinges.

Replace a display compatible with a model A2141 2019 16" MacBook Pro laptop. Includes the 3072 x 1920 LCD screen, display cover, bezel, FaceTime HD Camera, and clutch hinges.

Replace an Antenna Cover compatible with the A1212 model 17" MacBook Pro laptop. This part houses the AirPort antenna cable assembly within the clutch cover.

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You can find out what the manufacturer, model number, and type of LCD panel you have in any of your Macs, including the iMac, MacBook Air, MacBook, or any model MacBook Pro by using a fairly complex looking terminal command.

With the first line being the LCD panel model and the second line being the color profile you are using (same as set in your Display preferences). You can then find out what the manufacturer and specs of the display are by googling for the model number, for instance LTN154BT turns up this page indicating it is a Samsung 15″ display running at 1440×900 and capable of displaying a maximum of 262,000 colors.

This is particularly helpful information to know if your MacBook screen has been cracked and you want to do the installation yourself. Official repairs are often very expensive, but with a little patience and the right tools it can be done by anyone. You can typically pick up an LCD panel through Amazon or eBay for rather cheap and the installation takes about 30 minutes if you follow a guide.

It can also be handy to know if you’re just curious which particular panel or screen type is used in your Mac, since Apple often sources different panels from different manufacturers, but otherwise using them in the same Mac models.

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The revelation, disclosed by iFixit on the company"s Twitter account, should quash rumors that Apple could be using Sharp"s IGZO technology for the new 15-inch Retina display. Apple has been known to use numerous suppliers for parts, so it"s likely that other MacBook Pro units feature Retina displays from other known LCD manufacturers.

Particular interest has been paid to who supplies components to Apple since its largest supplier, Samsung, has become a fierce rival and legal opponent. Over the last year, Apple has shown signs that it would like to move away from relying on Samsung for components, but the company is believed to have been the only partner who could produce Retina displays for the third-generation iPad at launch earlier this year.

LG has been a major supplier of LCD displays to Apple over the years, and in 2009 the two companies reached a $500 million deal for the supply of flat-panel displays through the year 2013. But the relationship between the two companies may have strained late last year, when LG was said to have lost its status as the leading display maker for Apple"s iPad 2, when a batch of LCD shipments were reportedly plagued with quality issues.

Going forward, Sharp is also expected to be a major partner with Apple for screen production. Last year, reports indicated Apple had invested in a Sharp plant in Japan, while this year Apple"s manufacturing partner Foxconn bought a 10 percent stake in Sharp to help boost its LCD business.

Looking for wholesale macbook pro 15 retina screen? Look no further than Alibaba.com, one of the largest collections of wholesale shipment suppliers in the world. We have a huge range of lcd computer monitor options and lcd display screen options to choose from. Whether you need a small lcd screen or a large one, we have you covered.

These macbook pro 15 retina screen products have become the go to display types for computers today. With tft color monitors slowly being phased out, lcd computer monitor displays are the standard in the industry. All customers need a flat screen computer monitor to interact with their personal computers. For ardent gamers that require high refresh rates to minimize lagging and make use of high performance computers there are a range of lcd gaming monitors available.

We also have more specialised products like rack mounted monitors for IT administrators and network administrators working in commercial settings. These monitors are used to oversee large server rooms and network infrastructure. New transparent lcd screen options are also coming on the market that are futuristic and allow for a sleek look to fit modern aesthetics.

So, start ordering your shipment of macbook pro 15 retina screen today from our suppliers. They are ready and willing to answer any questions you may have about their products and get you started today!

Select the year and size of your Macbook below. If you arent sure what part you need, you can use the Ultimate Mac Lookup tool. Type in your laptops serial number located on the bottom to find out which part will work for you.

The "Late 2012" and "Early 2013" models use the same parts. It has a 6 pin cable connector for the web camera. Here you can find the MacBook Retina 15 Screen Replacement Part and the MacBook Retina 13 Screen Replacement Part.

The "Late 2013" use a different type of part. It has a 12 pin cable connector for the webcam. Here are the 13" Retina screen and 15" Retina screen pages for the "Late 2013"

After looking at the performance of Apple"s M1 Pro SoC powering the new MacBook Pro 16, and beyond reviewing the laptop itself, there"s another interesting component in this laptop that"s worth looking into, and that"s the mini-LED 120Hz display. So today we"re going to take a closer look at what Apple is doing with their brand new screen.

As you"re fully aware, we have a lot of experience testing and reviewing displays, however we mostly cover gaming monitors not laptop displays, so this is going to be a little different. We"re going to run through some tests and provide our thoughts on how good this display is as someone that looks at lots and lots of displays each year.

There are two versions of the new MacBook Pro and we"ve got the 16-inch version, although the 14-inch model"s display is very similar just smaller and with a different resolution. Apple calls this particular display a "Liquid Retina XDR display" which is typical Apple marketing speak. If I translate this into what Apple actually means, they are giving you a high resolution full array local dimming mini-LED LCD with true HDR functionality.

If we dive deeper into the specs, the 16.2-inch panel has a resolution of 3456 x 2234 which continues Apple"s tradition of using non-standard resolutions across their line-up. Apple doesn"t disclose the exact technology used here, but it"s an LCD panel which appears to be IPS-like in design. The backlight has 10,000 mini-LEDs for impressive zone density at this size, allowing for a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1 and peak brightness up to 1,600 nits in the HDR mode on paper.

As for refresh rate, Apple are offering up to 120Hz with adaptive sync, which they"ve rebranded into "ProMotion" although this sort of functionality has been available for many years now in other laptops and displays. The combination of everything though is a first, and the only rivals to this sort of panel are the latest wave of 4K OLED panels seen in a few high-end Windows laptops.

I don"t want to dwell on the notch too much as in practice using the laptop it"s not that big of a deal. Let"s take a look at how the Liquid Retina XDR display actually performs and I"m going to start here with some color performance results because I think these are most relevant to a creator-focused display like this. I"ll get to talking about response performance later.

The MacBook Pro"s display is a wide gamut display with 99% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space. That"s an excellent result for any creator looking to produce content in that gamut. This also means perfect sRGB coverage, so if you"re designing web content, creating SDR videos, or working with wide gamut HDR videos then Apple is providing you the tools to do that.

Unfortunately the performance outside these gamuts is not great, specifically what"s missing is Adobe RGB coverage which is relevant for photography work. Due to covering P3 fully we do get over 90% Adobe RGB coverage, but it"s missing the top range of greens that differentiate Adobe RGB from other color spaces, so this laptop isn"t suitable for that sort of work. Apple also knows this, because they don"t provide an Adobe RGB color profile, while you do get various P3 and Rec. 709 profiles.

Where the MacBook Pro"s display ends up in terms of color gamut is typical for a modern "creator" laptop, the majority of top-end laptop displays have really good coverage of sRGB and P3. Where it falls a little short is in that Adobe RGB coverage, and a competing display like the Samsung OLED you get in devices such as the Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED does offer a wider color gamut with full Adobe RGB coverage. That"s not to say the MacBook Pro"s gamut is bad or anything, it"s just not as wide or as versatile as I"ve seen.

Where the display is extremely impressive is in its color calibration, and this is helped significantly by macOS doing a much better job of color management than Windows. The various color profiles included by default work across far more apps in macOS than they would on Windows and this is one area where Windows needs a bit of an overhaul.

If we look at the options provided in the MacBook Pro"s display settings, you"ll find quite a few options including Apple Display and Apple XDR Display presets, along with a decent array of creator focused modes for gamuts like BT.709, sRGB and P3. Apple also offers True Tone and Night Shift functionality, which some people might find useful but ultimately hurt color accuracy. I"ve disabled True Tone for testing.

When looking at the default Apple Display profile, performance is pretty good by default. When displaying sRGB content in this mode, it"s quite likely color management will activate in the app you"re using to display the content correctly and accurately, instead of oversaturating it up to the full P3 gamut of the screen. When looking at saturation sweeps as an example, we find excellent deltaE performance, and good results in ColorChecker as well, especially around skin tones which are crucial to get right.

Based on this you should probably just leave your MacBook in the Apple Display mode for everyday use as it"s accurate enough for sRGB content and will also let you benefit from wide gamuts where needed. The performance in the Apple Display XDR mode is similar as well for SDR content, so that"s an option if you want to also use HDR at times.

If you want even better color accuracy, Apple"s included profiles might be for you. For example, the built-in sRGB mode is even better at displaying sRGB content, with accuracy equivalent to performing a full calibration yourself.

I suspect the reason why this mode is better than the default mode is that it"s specifically tailored to showing sRGB content, rather than the more general default mode that is designed for use in multiple scenarios. Color management is hard and creating specific modes for each gamut is generally the best approach, so it"s great Apple has done this for you.

There is a downside to these modes, and that"s locked brightness. Now technically each of these color specifications do stipulate a brightness level for mastering: sRGB is 80 nits, DCI-P3 is 48 nits and Rec. 709 is 100 nits - and the MacBook Pro gets this right.

However that limits the usefulness of these modes for viewing content, where the mastering brightness level is less relevant and your ambient conditions are more important. I"d like to see a brightness override toggle, so that each of these modes is still useful for mastering, but can also deliver the best accuracy for watching other content. That would improve the versatility of the display and give you the ability to fine tune accuracy beyond the already very good default mode.

In the regular Apple Display mode for viewing SDR content, I measured peak brightness at around 520 nits, with a variable black level. Bizarrely, the MacBook Pro appears to change its black level limit in the SDR mode depending on the ambient light conditions, even with True Tone disabled. In a lit room, the black level was capped to 0.02 nits, delivering around a 26,000:1 contrast ratio.

In any case, the mini-LED backlight is active at all times, even in SDR content, to improve the contrast ratio in SDR scenes. There are so many zones here that it"s unlikely you"ll spot much blooming in practice, I found it negligible for SDR use even in tricky desktop apps with harsh edges between light and dark areas. The dimming algorithm is tweaked nicely to avoid this situation and there are simply more than enough zones to prevent lingering issues. This sort of attention to detail is what I"d love to see more in the standalone monitor space, along with higher zone counts, of course.

This performance also destroys basically any other LCD based monitor I"ve looked at before. On the standalone monitor side, it"s virtually unheard of right now to see LCD zone counts higher than a couple of thousand. This limits worse case contrast to around 12,000:1 in the case of the 2,000-zone Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 with VA technology, or just 4,000:1 in a checkerboard test.

Apple choosing to use 5-10x the zone count massively improves the achievable contrast ratio in tricky situations and I"d say this amount of zones - and the density of zones - is what is required as a minimum for the best HDR experience with an LCD panel. Even Apple"s own ridiculously overpriced Pro Display XDR doesn"t compare as it has a paltry 576-zone backlight and it was criticized at launch for poor blooming compared to professional level HDR mastering displays. The MacBook Pro"s display will be far better for producing HDR content, aside from the small size.

So from one perspective it"s easily one of the best LCD-based HDR experiences I"ve seen, but on the other hand it isn"t a self-lit panel like an OLED which is completely free of blooming and in some situations OLED still delivers better HDR. Of course, OLEDs have other drawbacks such as lower brightness levels and the risk of burn in so I can understand why Apple would opt for LCD instead. Besides this one complaint though the HDR experience is excellent, especially for a laptop.

Unfortunately there is a major drawback to the Liquid Retina XDR display used on the new MacBook Pros, and that"s the motion performance. While it"s nice to see Apple upgrade the refresh rate to 120Hz compared to the 60Hz they were using previously, the display being used here doesn"t have the appropriate level of response times to keep up with that 120Hz refresh rate. The panel is actually very, very slow, which is a disappointment.

I was hoping to provide a full breakdown of motion performance using the standard graphs we use for monitor reviews... until I realized that my response testing tool doesn"t work on macOS and even creating one graph manually to a decent level of accuracy with all the transitions would have taken an entire day.

In a full black to full white transition, gamma corrected as per our current test methodology, the MacBook Pro"s display is exceptionally slow, taking nearly 100ms to complete this rise. Even if we apply exceptionally generous tolerances and only measure 60% of the total transition time, it still takes 39ms to transition, which is one of the worst results I"ve ever measured.

This is exacerbated by using a combination of IPS-like LCD technology, and an always-active mini-LED backlight, noting that both the LCD layer and mini-LED need to change to transition fully.

Luckily full transition fall times aren"t as horrific, though still reasonably poor at over 15ms even with our very generous 20% tolerance. The real transition time is more like 35ms, so less than half that of the rise time, but far slower than most other LCDs out there. The best laptop grade OLED panels can perform these transitions in under 2ms with the same test conditions, making them an order of magnitude faster.

I tested a few more transitions of varying degrees and typically the MacBook Pro would fall between 20 and 40ms, though luckily there is no overshoot to speak of. When viewing UFO test results, you can see the product of these horrific response times: a substantial blur trail behind moving objects. Even though the panel can feel somewhat smooth to use because it has a moderate refresh rate of 120Hz, the actual clarity in motion is terrible and this impacts the usefulness of the higher refresh rate.

Right next the MacBook Pro we have the Aero 15 OLED"s panel which has half the refresh rate at just 60Hz, but massively faster response times. You"ll see here that even though the MacBook Pro"s display is twice as fast in refresh rate, the extremely slow response behavior limits motion clarity to more like a 60Hz monitor or worse. The level of smearing is insane and I"m not sure how a modern LCD could end up this slow, Apple really should have experimented with some sort of overdrive.

Now, all Apple fans are probably sitting here annoyed that I"m criticizing the display for motion performance because the MacBook Pro isn"t a gaming laptop. And they"re right, it"s not a gaming laptop. But motion performance is relevant beyond gaming, it impacts things as basic as scrolling through websites or even watching videos. Fast moving video content like sports is affected due to slow transition times, and scrolling through text can show really bad ghosting trails, especially with white text on a black background. But really anything on this display that moves, especially stuff that moves fast, can quickly become a blur fest.

There is no doubt that the MacBook Pro"s Liquid Retina XDR display is excellent for content creation. It has perfect P3 color gamut coverage and outstanding factory calibration, with particular attention to detail paid to multiple color specifications for mastering.

Apple provides many different profiles that are all above average to great in terms of accuracy, and this should provide peace of mind that if they are using this display in one of those color spaces, everything is looking correct as it should. macOS also helps here, thanks to superior color management than Windows.

The Liquid Retina XDR display has impressive HDR specifications and performance. A mini-LED backlight zone count of 10,000 is the star of the show in this respect, significantly reducing blooming compared to other LCD-based HDR monitors, and providing exceptionally high brightness. The level of performance is good enough for both enthusiast level mastering and HDR playback, so the MacBook Pro is a great device for video editing on the go when you also factor in its overall performance.

A few nitpicks aside, the major downside to the display is motion performance. This display is exceptionally slow even for an LCD, despite packing a 120Hz refresh rate. This affects areas including web browsing and any work with text as you scroll through content, and blur trails can be visible across a wide range of use cases, not just gaming. It"s not bad enough to negate the benefits you get elsewhere, but Apple needs to put a lot of work into optimizing how quickly their panels transition. I also feel the lack of HDMI 2.1 on the MacBook Pro is a bit puzzling, going HDMI 2.0 for external monitors (in addition to Thunderbolt) is a bit annoying.

Now comes the ultimate question: is this the best laptop display ever, as Apple claims it is? That will depend on your perspective. Evidently, if you"re buying a high-performance laptop for gaming then no, but the MacBook Pro is clearly not suited nor aimed at gamers. But if we put that aside and ask about the best display for content creation and productivity, we think Apple has a solid claim to that throne.

The only real competition right now are OLED panels, which come with their own set of strengths and weaknesses. There are a few other mini-LED laptop options on the Windows side, like the screen you get in the Acer Predator Helios 500, but that display only has 512 zones, not the 10,000 on offer here. So it"s a battle between the MacBook and the OLEDs you see in products like the Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED.

The reasons to get an OLED display over this LCD would be in terms of its self-lit pure HDR experience with zero blooming, significantly faster response times for better motion clarity, and wider color gamut allowing for accurate work in the Adobe RGB color space as well as P3 and Rec.709. However, the drawbacks are also significant, including a 60Hz refresh rate limitation with current 4K offerings, the risk of permanent burn in, and significantly lower brightness. Actual implementations we"ve seen also lack the calibration Apple is offering.

On the balance of things, I"d prefer to get the Liquid Retina XDR in the new MacBook Pro than an OLED, especially for color-accurate content creation, and the HDR experience is close enough to OLED that I can forgive very minor blooming on occasion. I wouldn"t say Apple is miles in front with this screen, but it"s certainly very impressive and calling it the best display for production work is justified.

The 2021 MacBook Pro features a mini-LED display instead of OLED and this might lead to questions as to why Apple went this route, given that the iPhone 13 series uses OLED. If it works well for the small screen, why not use similar technology for its laptop? After all, Apple users want the best quality display that can deliver a great picture wherever they are.

Apple relied on LCD screen technology for many yearsafter flagship Android phones began adopting OLED (organic light-emitting diode). The advantage to OLED is its deep blacks and vivid colors, something that isn"t possible with a standard LCD panel, since a liquid crystal display works by blocking a backlight rather than creating light of its own. That means light must shine continuously behind the screen, which tends to make blacks into dark grays.

While it makes sense that, if OLED is better than LCD, Apple would have chosen that technology for the 2021 MacBook Pro, Apple"s best laptop uses an LCD display and the difference is in the backlighting. A relatively new method of illuminating an LCD panel is with mini-LEDs. These are much smaller than normal LEDs and can be packed more densely in a cost-efficient manner. While standard LCD screens often place several LEDs at the edge to light the entire display, Apple"s mini-LED display has thousands of lights covering the entire panel more evenly and can be turned off completely, allowing blacks to be blacker in the areas that most need it. This means LCD with mini-LED backlighting can compete well with the super-deep blacks of OLED.

While OLED is the leading technology for smartphones, it isn"t usually found on televisions or computer monitors. Some laptops do use OLED and that trend is rising as it did with smartphones. There are some drawbacks to OLED, however. As it is based on an organic phosphor material that degrades over time, this can lead to dimmer pixels and altered colors in some portions of a display. This doesn"t happen rapidly but might become noticeable after years of regular use. Smartphones are often replaced more frequently than laptops, so it"s more important for the MacBook Pro to use a longer-lasting screen technology than an iPhone.

In 2021, the peak brightness of a laptop display that uses OLED technology is 600 nits. OLED can be made to be brighter, but more energy is consumed to light the display. By comparison, mini-LED is less expensive, and power demands are lower, while achieving even higher brightness levels. Apple"s 2021 MacBook Pro can reach a peak brightness of 1,600 nits with a contrast ratio of one million to one. That means it can attain a level of intensity that is difficult to match with OLED in large panels, and why Apple chose mini-LED instead of OLED for its 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops in 2021.