Acer Iconia Tablet Display Shoot-Out

 

Dr. Raymond M. Soneira

President, DisplayMate Technologies Corporation

 

Copyright © 1990-2011 by DisplayMate Technologies Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

This article, or any part thereof, may not be copied, reproduced, mirrored, distributed or incorporated

into any other work without the prior written permission of DisplayMate Technologies Corporation

 

 

Series Overview This is part of a comprehensive article series with in-depth measurements and analysis for the LCD and OLED displays in state-of-the art Smartphones and Tablets. We will show you the good, the bad, and also the ugly unfinished rough edges and problems lurking below the surface of each of these displays and display technologies, and then demonstrate how the displays can be improved by using images that have been mathematically processed to correct color and imaging errors on Tablets and Smartphones so you can compare them to the originals.         Introduction A key element in the success of all Tablets and Smartphones is the quality and performance of their display. There have been lots of articles comparing various smartphone LCD and OLED displays and technologies, but almost all simply deliver imprecise off-the-cuff remarks like “the display is gorgeous” with very little in the way of serious attempts at objective or accurate display performance evaluations and comparisons – and many just restate manufacturer claims and provide inaccurate information, performance evaluations and conclusions. This article objectively evaluates the display performance of the Acer Iconia A500 LCD Tablet Display based on extensive scientific lab measurements together with extensive side-by-side visual tests.   The Acer Iconia has an ordinary LCD display with a White LED backlight – unlike the Apple iPad, Asus Transformer, and Samsung Galaxy Tab, which have high Performance IPS or PLS LCDs. The screen is 10.1 inches diagonally and has a high-resolution 1280x800 pixel display with a screen Aspect Ratio of 1.60, which is significantly larger than the iPad 2, which has an Aspect Ratio of 1.33, but less than a widescreen HDTV, which has an Aspect Ratio of 1.78.   The inner details of the display technologies are very interesting, but our concern here is to evaluate the actual image and picture quality that they deliver, so we don’t really care how they do it, as long as they do it well. None-the-less with the measurements and analytical test patterns we will learn quite a bit about how they work.

 

FIGURE 1

Figure 1.  Revealing Screen Shots for the Acer Iconia.

Figure 1.  Revealing Screen Shots for the Acer Iconia.

The test patterns and photos are 24-bit color bitmaps at the native resolution of each display.

 

Results and Conclusions

The Acer Iconia display was evaluated by downloading 24-bit native resolution 1280x752 test patterns and 24-bit HD resolution test photos to the tablet. Note that while the LCD screen has 1280x800 pixels only 1280x752 are available for applications because 48 pixels are reserved for the Android 3.1 system bar with the navigation buttons. Note that we are testing and evaluating the display on the Acer Iconia with whatever hardware, firmware, OS and software are provided by Acer and Google Android.

 

Color Depth and Granularity:  18-bits with Dithering to Emulate 24-bits

The Acer Iconia uses 18-bit color, which provides 64 possible intensity levels for each of the Red, Green and Blue sub-pixels that are used to mix and produce all of the on-screen image colors. That’s relatively good but not great, and would produce visible false contouring in many images and photos were the Iconia not also using dithering to emulate full 24-bit color, which is what is found on most monitors and HDTVs, and provides 256 intensity levels and a nice color and intensity scale with few visible artifacts. The Android Gallery photo viewer and most Apps on the Tablet deliver only 16-bit color processed up to 24-bits with poorly implemented dithering. It’s about time that gets fixed… The Android Browser does however deliver 24-bit color for images from the web. Figure 1 shows screen shots from the Android Gallery.

 

Display Image Quality, Colors and Artifacts:  Fair

The image and picture quality on the Iconia was only Fair. Images had good contrast, not enough color saturation, and degraded significantly with Viewing Angle. Image and picture quality was significantly below the display quality of the iPad 2,  Asus Transformer and Samsung Galaxy Tab.

 

The Measurements with Explanations and Interpretations:

The Measurements section below has details of all of the lab measurements and tests with lots of additional background information and explanations including the display’s Maximum Brightness and Peak Luminance, Black Brightness, Contrast Ratio, Screen Reflectance, Bright Ambient Light Contrast Rating, Dynamic Color and Contrast, Color Temperature and White Chromaticity, Color Gamut, Intensity Scale and Gamma, the variation of Brightness, Contrast Ratio and Color Shift with Viewing Angle, Backlight Power Consumption, and Light Spectrum of the display.

 

The Viewing Tests:  Not Enough Color Saturation

We compared the Acer Iconia side-by-side to the other Tablets and to a calibrated Professional Sony High Definition Studio Monitor using a large set of DisplayMate Calibration and Test Photographs. All of the photos on the Iconia had good contrast, not enough color saturation and were significantly below the picture quality of the iPad 2, Asus Transformer and Samsung Galaxy Tab but better than the Motorola Xoom.

 

Factory Calibration and Quality Control:  Very Good

The overall factory calibration and quality control for the Acer Iconia display is fairly good. It was reasonably well calibrated, with slightly irregular intensity scales than may introduce false contouring and other artifacts. The color and gray-scale tracking are very good, which means that the Red, Green and Blue primaries have been carefully calibrated and balanced. The one major flaw in the factory calibration is the irregular Intensity Scale. The display Look Up Tables should be changed to deliver a more constant Gamma closer to the standard value of 2.2.

 

Suggestions for Acer:

The display on the Iconia is a lower performance LCD than on the other Tablets – and it’s easy to see it visually. To stay competitive for the next generation of Tablets you should move up to a higher performance IPS LCD like in the Asus Transformer, which even has a lower price point than the Iconia. The accompanying iPad 2 and iPhone 4 LCD Shoot-Out includes some suggestions for the OS driver software to further improve the Iconia image quality by using better sub-pixel anti-aliasing. The Automatic Brightness Controls and Light Sensors article includes some important suggestions for correcting the Automatic Brightness control, which is very important for screen readability, viewing comfort and preserving battery power.

 

This article is a lite version of our intensive scientific analysis of smartphone and mobile displays – before the benefits of our advanced mathematical DisplayMate Display Optimization Technology, which can correct or improve many of the deficiencies – including higher calibrated brightness, power efficiency, effective screen contrast, picture quality and color and gray scale accuracy under both bright and dim ambient light, and much more. If you are a manufacturer and want our expertise and technology to turn your display into a spectacular one to surpass your competition then Contact DisplayMate Technologies to learn more.

 

Acer Iconia Conclusion:  Very Good Mobile Display

The Acer Iconia has a lower performance LCD like the Motorola Xoom, but it’s better in a few decisive categories and is much better calibrated than the Xoom. The Iconia is $150 less expensive than the Motorola Xoom but $50 more than the Asus Transformer. Of particular noteworthiness, it was the definitive leader in Contrast Ratio, with more than double that of any other tested Tablet because of its very dark black. We triple checked this with some special DisplayMate test pattern measurements to make sure that it wasn’t due to a Dynamic Backlight. But it really has a true very dark black, which is quite noticeable in a dark room. Unfortunately the black brightness increases rapidly with Viewing Angle. The Iconia also had a nicely calibrated intensity scale, but it would actually have been better off with a steeper intensity scale in order to increase color saturation in the same fashion as the iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab.

 

 

The Measurements with Explanations and Interpretations

This section explains all of the measurements incorporated in the article. The display was evaluated by downloading 24-bit native resolution 1280x752 test patterns and 24-bit HD resolution test photos to the Acer Iconia. Note that while the LCD screen has 1280x800 pixels only 1280x752 are available for applications because 48 pixels are reserved for the Android 3.1 system bar with the navigation buttons. Note that we are testing and evaluating the display on the Acer Iconia with whatever hardware, firmware, OS and software are provided by Acer and Google Android. All measurements were made using DisplayMate Multimedia Edition for Mobile Displays to generate the analytical test patterns together with a Konica Minolta CS-200 ChromaMeter, which is a Spectroradiometer. All measurements were made in a perfectly dark lab to avoid light contamination. All devices were tested with their Backlight set for maximum brightness with the Automatic Brightness light sensor control turned off, and running on their AC power adapter with a fully charged battery, so that the battery performance and state was not a factor in the results. For further in-depth discussions and explanations of the tests, measurements, and their interpretation refer to earlier articles in the DisplayMate Multimedia Display Technology Shoot-Out article series and the DisplayMate Mobile Display Shoot-Out article series.

 

Konica Minolta CS-200

 

1.  Peak Brightness:  342 cd/m²  –  Good for a Mobile Display

This is the maximum brightness that the display can produce, called the Peak White Luminance. 342 cd/m² is 20-25 percent dimmer than the brightest Tablets and lower than what we like to see for mobile displays. It’s fine for just about everything except high ambient light, although it may be too bright for comfortable viewing under dim ambient lighting. If you find that to be the case, turn down on the Iconia’s Automatic Brightness, which uses a light sensor to adjust the Peak Brightness settings. Since that can be used to decrease the power used by the backlight it will also increase the battery run time.

 

2.  Black Level Brightness:  0.18 cd/m²  –  Excellent for a Mobile Display

The Black Level is the closest approximation to true black that the display can produce. Almost all displays wind up producing a visible dark gray on-screen instead of true black. This is a major problem for LCDs. The glow reduces image contrast and screen readability and can be distracting or even annoying in dark environments. It ruins the dark end of the display’s intensity/gray scale and washes out colors in the image. But note that in bright ambient lighting the Black Level is irrelevant because reflections off the screen dominate the screen background brightness. The Acer Iconia’s value of 0.18 cd/m² is impressively dark for a mobile display in typical ambient lighting - less than half of any of the other Tablets. We triple checked this with some special DisplayMate test pattern measurements to make sure that it wasn’t due to a Dynamic Backlight. But it really has a true very dark black, which is quite noticeable in a dark room. Unfortunately the black brightness increases rapidly with Viewing Angle.

 

3.  Contrast Ratio  –  Only Relevant for Low Ambient Light:  1944  –  Excellent for Mobile

The Contrast Ratio is a measure of the full range of brightness that the display is capable of producing. It is the ratio of Peak Brightness to Black Level Brightness. The larger the Contrast Ratio the better, but it is only relevant for low ambient lighting because reflections off the screen dominate the display’s Black Level in bright ambient lighting. The very best LCDs now have (true) Contrast Ratios of 1,500 to 2,000 so the 1944 value for the Acer Iconia is impressive for a mobile device, more than double that of any other tested Tablet because of its very dark black. Don’t confuse the true Contrast Ratio with the tremendously inflated values that are published by many manufacturers.

 

4.  Screen Reflectance of Ambient Light:  13.5 Percent  –  Relatively High

The often overlooked Screen Reflectance is actually the most important parameter for a mobile display, even more important than Peak Brightness. This is especially true for the large 10.1 inch Acer Iconia display. The screen reflects a certain percentage of the surrounding ambient light, which adds to the screen background, washes out the image, and makes it harder to see what is on the screen. In high ambient lighting the Screen Reflectance can significantly reduce the visibility and readability of screen content. The lower the Screen Reflectance the better. The value for the Acer Iconia is among the higher values we have measured for mobile devices, and is approximately 55 percent higher than the iPad 2. Lowering the Screen Reflectance increases the cost of a display, but it’s the easiest and best way to improve screen readability under bright ambient light. The Screen Reflectance measurements were done in accordance with VESA FPDM 308-1, Reflectance with Diffuse Illumination, using an integrating hemispherical dome and a calibrated diffuse white reflectance standard.

 

5.  Bright Ambient Light Contrast Rating:  25  –  Good

In the same way that the Contrast Ratio measures the screen contrast under low ambient lighting, the Bright Contrast Rating specifies the relative screen contrast under high ambient lighting. It is the ratio of Peak Brightness to Screen Reflectance. The higher the value the better you’ll be able to see what’s on the screen when you are in a bright location. The Contrast Rating for the Acer Iconia is 25, at the lower end of Good. For all mobile devices the High Ambient Light Contrast Rating is much more important than the Contrast Ratio.

 

6.  Dynamic Color and Dynamic Contrast:  No  –  Which is Good

Some displays dynamically adjust the color, gray scale and contrast on every image that is displayed using an internal automatic image processing algorithm. The goal is generally to jazz up and “enhance” the picture by stretching and exaggerating the colors and intensity scale. It is similar to the Vivid mode found in many digital cameras and HDTVs. Since it alters and frequently distorts the image it is better left as an option for people who aren’t concerned with picture accuracy and fidelity. Since the Dynamic modes are generally triggered by changes in Average Picture Level, a very simple test for Dynamic Contrast is to separately measure the brightness of full screen Red, Green and Blue images and then compare them to White, which should equal their sum. If they don’t agree then there is Dynamic Color and Contrast processing. For the Acer Iconia, the measured Luminance for Red=71, Green=209 and Blue=61 cd/m². Their sum is 341 cd/m², which is virtually identical to the measured 342 cd/m² White Luminance.

 

7.  Color Temperature and Chromaticity:   7807 degrees Kelvin  –  Very Close to D6500, Excellent

White is not a single color but rather falls within a range that is normally specified by a Color Temperature. For accurate color reproduction of most content, including photographs, images and web content it needs to be set to the industry standard D6500, which is how most professional photo and video content is color balanced. D6500 is the color of natural daylight and is similar to a Black Body at 6500 degrees Kelvin. The Acer Iconia’s White Point is slightly too blue compared to D6500 – see the White Points in Figure 2 below. The measured CIE Chromaticity Coordinates of the Acer Iconia White Point are u’=0.1888 v’=0.4597.

 

8.  Color Gamut:

Much Smaller than the Standard Color Gamut  –  Colors are Inaccurate and Under Saturated

The Color Gamut of a display is the range and set of colors that it can produce. The only way that a display will deliver good color and gray scale accuracy is if it is accurately calibrated to an industry standard specification, which for computers, digital cameras, and HDTVs is sRGB or Rec.709. It’s the standard for most content and necessary for accurate color reproduction. If the Color Gamut is smaller than the standard then the image colors will appear too weak and under-saturated. If the Color Gamut is greater than the standard then the image colors will appear too strong and over-saturated. The important point here is that a Color Gamut larger than the standard is also bad, not better. Wider gamuts will not show you any colors or content that are not in the original images, which are almost always color balanced for the sRGB / Rec.709 standard. Wider color gamuts simply distort and decrease color accuracy and should be avoided, except for some special applications.

 

Figure 2 shows the measured Color Gamuts for the Tablets alongside the Standard sRGB / Rec.709 Color Gamut in a CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram. The dots in the center are the measured White Points for the phones along with the D6500 Standard, which is marked as a white circle. The outermost curve are the pure spectral colors and the diagonal line on the bottom right is the line of purples. A given display can only reproduce the colors that lie inside of the triangle formed by its primary colors. Highly saturated colors seldom occur in nature so the colors that are outside of the standard sRGB / Rec.709 triangle are seldom needed and are unlikely to be noticed or missed in the overwhelming majority of real images. When a camera or display can’t reproduce a given color it simply produces the closest most saturated color that it can.

 

FIGURE 2

Figure 2.  CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram showing the Color Gamut and White Point for the Acer Iconia

 

The LCD Tablets all perform poorly with reference to the standard Color Gamut, which is the black triangle in Figure 2. They have much too small a color Gamut. As a result they produce images that have significantly too little color saturation. This applies to all external content viewed on the displays, including web content, such as images, photos and videos. This was easy to see in the viewing tests where we compared the displays side-by-side to a calibrated Professional Sony High Definition Studio Monitor using a large set of DisplayMate Calibration and Test Photographs. On the LCD Tablets, all of the photos looked somewhat pale, flat, washed-out and under-saturated. The Acer Iconia has a Color Gamut virtually identical to the Motorola Xoom, but delivered better on-screen color and contrast because of its better Intensity Scale, but still significantly below the iPad 2.

 

9.  Intensity Scale, Image Contrast and Gamma:  Very Good

The display’s intensity scale not only controls the contrast within an image but it also controls how the Red, Green and Blue primary colors mix to produce all of the on-screen colors. So if it doesn’t obey the industry standard intensity scale then the colors and intensities will be wrong everywhere on-screen because virtually all professional content and all digital cameras use the sRGB / Rec.709 standard, so it’s necessary for accurate image, picture and color reproduction. The standard intensity scale is not linear but rather follows a mathematical power-law, so it is a straight line on a log-log graph. Its slope is called Gamma, which is 2.2 in the standards. In order to deliver accurate color and intensity scales a display must closely match the standard. Figure 3 shows the measured (Transfer Function) Intensity Scale for the Acer Iconia alongside the industry standard Gamma of 2.2, which is a straight line.

 

FIGURE 3

Figure 3.  Intensity Scale for the Acer Iconia

 

The Acer Iconia has an Intensity Scale fairly close to the Standard intensity scale, which is needed in order to accurately reproduce images and pictures for most content. Gamma is the slope of the intensity scale, which should be a constant 2.2 like the straight line in Figure 3. The Gamma for the Iconia is 2.25, which is very close to the Standard, except for a bump near peak intensity, which indicates the panel is being driven too hard in order to push the brightness up.

 

10.  Brightness Decrease with Viewing Angle:  57 percent Decrease in 30 degrees  –  Bad, Very Large

A major problem with many displays, especially LCDs, is that the image changes with the viewing angle, sometimes dramatically. The Peak Brightness, Black Luminance, Contrast Ratio and color generally change with viewing angle (see below). Some display technologies are much better than others. At a moderate 30 degree viewing angle the Peak Brightness of the Acer Iconia fell by 57 percent to 146 cd/m², which is an incredibly large decrease. This behavior is typical for LCDs.

 

11.  Black Level and Contrast Ratio Shift with Viewing Angle:  Very Large  –  Poor

At a moderate 30 degree viewing angle the Black Level Brightness almost tripled to 0.51 cd/m², and the Contrast Ratio still fell considerably to 286, which is rather low. This is much worse than the performance of good quality LCDs.

 

12.  Color Shift with Viewing Angle:  Very Large  –  Poor

Colors generally shift with viewing angle whenever the brightness shifts with viewing angle because the Red, Green and Blue sub-pixels each shift independently and vary with intensity level. At a moderate 30 degree viewing angle the primary colors shifted by a maximum of Δ(u’v’) = 0.0097, which is 2.4 times the Just Noticeable Color Difference. A much more challenging test is to use mixtures of primary colors. Reference Brown (255, 128, 0) is a good indicator of color shifts with angle because of the unequal drive levels and roughly equal luminance contributions from Red and Green. For the Reference Brown color mixture the color shift was Δ(u’v’) = 0.0317, which is 8 times JNCD. These values are very large and climb drastically for even larger Viewing Angles.

 

13.  RGB Display Power Consumption:  Good  –  Slightly Higher than the Other Tablets

The power consumed by LCD displays is independent of the brightness and color distribution of the images – it only depends on the Brightness setting of the Backlight that illuminates the LCD from behind. The Automatic Brightness option allows the ambient light sensor on the Iconia to adjust the backlight brightness and power setting as the ambient light changes. This not only improves visual comfort but can also increase the battery run time. We turned off Automatic Brightness for the tests. It is possible to indirectly determine the power used by the display by measuring the AC power used by the Acer Iconia with different backlight settings.

 

Table 1 lists the Measured Relative Power, the Measured Luminance, and the Relative Luminous Efficiency, which is just the Measured Luminance divided by the Measured Relative Power, and normalized to 1.0 for White, which has the highest total efficiency.

 

Table 1.  Acer Iconia LCD Display Power Consumption

 

14.  OLED and LCD Spectra:  Very Interesting

The spectra of an LCD display is just the spectrum of the backlight filtered through the individual Red, Green and Blue sub-pixel filters within the panel. OLEDs are emissive devices so their spectra is just the sum of the individual Red, Green and Blue OLED spectra, modified slightly by the touchscreen layer and anti-reflection absorption layer through which their light must pass. We thought it would be very useful and interesting to compare the spectra of the Galaxy S Smartphone OLED with the spectra of the LCD Tablets. The spectra for White, which is the sum of the Red, Green and Blue primaries is shown in Figure 4 for the LCD Tablets as well as the Samsung Galaxy S OLED.

 

FIGURE 4

Figure 4.  RGB Spectra for the LCD Tablets and also for the Samsung Galaxy S OLED

 

As expected the OLED RGB spectra are relatively narrow because of their high color saturation. The LCD RGB spectra are a filtered broadband spectrum. The backlights for the LCD Tablets are white LEDs, which consists of a Blue LED with a yellow phosphor.

 

About the Author

Dr. Raymond Soneira is President of DisplayMate Technologies Corporation of Amherst, New Hampshire, which produces video calibration, evaluation, and diagnostic products for consumers, technicians, and manufacturers. See www.displaymate.com. He is a research scientist with a career that spans physics, computer science, and television system design. Dr. Soneira obtained his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from Princeton University, spent 5 years as a Long-Term Member of the world famous Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, another 5 years as a Principal Investigator in the Computer Systems Research Laboratory at AT&T Bell Laboratories, and has also designed, tested, and installed color television broadcast equipment for the CBS Television Network Engineering and Development Department. He has authored over 35 research articles in scientific journals in physics and computer science, including Scientific American. If you have any comments or questions about the article, you can contact him at dtso.info@displaymate.com.

 

About DisplayMate Technologies

DisplayMate Technologies specializes in advanced mathematical display technology optimizations and precision analytical scientific display diagnostics and calibrations to deliver outstanding image and picture quality and accuracy – while increasing the effective visual Contrast Ratio of the display and producing a higher calibrated brightness than is achievable with traditional calibration methods. This also decreases display power requirements and increases the battery run time in mobile displays. This article is a lite version of our intensive scientific analysis of smartphone and mobile displays – before the benefits of our advanced mathematical DisplayMate Display Optimization Technology, which can correct or improve many of the deficiencies – including higher calibrated brightness, power efficiency, effective screen contrast, picture quality and color and gray scale accuracy under both bright and dim ambient light, and much more. Our advanced scientific optimizations can make lower cost panels look as good or better than more expensive higher performance displays. For more information on our technology see the Summary description of our Adaptive Variable Metric Display Optimizer AVDO. If you are a display or product manufacturer and want our expertise and technology to turn your display into a spectacular one to surpass your competition then Contact DisplayMate Technologies to learn more.

 

 

Article Links:  Apple iPad 2 Tablet LCD Display

Article Links:  Motorola Xoom Tablet LCD Display

Article Links:  Asus Eee Pad Transformer LCD Display

Article Links:  Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 LCD Display

 

Article Links:  Tablet Display Technology Shoot-Out

Article Links:  Smartphone "Super" LCD-OLED Display Technology Shoot-Out

Article Links:  Smartphone Automatic Brightness Controls and Light Sensors are Useless

 

Article Links:  Mobile Display Shoot-Out Article Series Overview and Home Page

Article Links:  Display Technology Shoot-Out Article Series Overview and Home Page

 

 

Copyright © 1990-2011 by DisplayMate Technologies Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

This article, or any part thereof, may not be copied, reproduced, mirrored, distributed or incorporated

into any other work without the prior written permission of DisplayMate Technologies Corporation