Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank777
As usual, I know little about the tech behind all this. But I thought I had read in the Mac press that Micro-LED was the future.
|
Yes, but that's still a few years out. Mini-LED is what bridges the gap.
Mini-LED takes the typical TFT panel + LED backlight setup we have on most laptops, and changes the LED backlight to have an array of thousands of LEDs, which enables local dimming and therefore significantly improves contrast. But you still have a panel and a backlight.
Micro-LED makes the panel into its own backlight: each subpixel is simply an LED. So instead of thousands, you need millions of LEDs.
Like OLED, mini-LED has better contrast than TFT+LED. And like OLED, micro-LED will then go a step further and just combine the panel and backlight into one, which reduces thickness (obviously) and power draw.
(It is a little unfortunate that they're named so similarly, but also, the naming is kind of logical.)
Why doesn't the iPad Pro just use OLED, like (most) iPhones now do? My guess is because Apple is targeting photo/video professionals, who care about predictable, accurate color, where OLED is weak. Mini-LED doesn't have that problem, nor will micro-LED.